Westwood (50 page)

‘Are you glad to be back?’

‘Yes, very, in some ways.’

‘Not in all ways? Zita says you’re a great artist and very selfish. Are you?’ asked Barnabas, not with complete ingenuousness.

‘Zita’s quite right,’ said Alex, darting a look at Zita that completely altered his pale face and made her flush, and change the shocked protest she was beginning into an excited laugh. ‘Now you go to sleep, I want to be off.’

After he had gone out of the room Margaret lingered, settling Emma and thinking about this little scene. That look had showed her that there was another side to his nature, a fact which she had been too inexperienced to realize. It disturbed her, for it had been – lawless? That was the word nearest to it. She was not surprised that Zita’s disturbance had expressed itself in excited laughter, while she herself had strongly disliked the sense of adult impulses and behaviour that had suddenly invaded the nursery.

Barnabas consented to lie down with a picture-book until he felt sleepy, and Margaret was just going out of the room when he remarked:

‘Grantey promised to take us to Kew. S’pose we shan’t go now.’

‘Did she, Barnabas? You and Emma? Well, I’ll take you if you like. Would you like that?’

‘Don’t mind,’ said Barnabas, shrugging his thin shoulders under the bedclothes, but Margaret knew that he was pleased.

‘All right, then, and perhaps Zita and Jeremy could come too.’

‘Not Jeremy.’

‘Why ever not? Poor Jeremy.’

‘I hate him. So does Emma hate him.’

‘I’m sure she doesn’t.’

‘Yes, she does, don’t you, Emma?’ appealing to the cot, but the only answer was a murmur of ‘Co-co’; Emma was playing with the wooden beads on the rail.

‘Well, anyway, I’ll see if we can all go next Saturday, if you’d like to. Good night. Go to sleep soon, like a good boy.’

And Margaret went downstairs to try to come unobtrusively across Seraphina or Hebe and ask if the children could go with her to Kew. She was apprehensive of seeing Alex and Hebe locked in an embrace on the great sofa in the hall, and was relieved to see them walking down the front garden hand-in-hand. Apparently the kisses were over and they were on their way to the local.

And now – on her way home with the arrangements for next Saturday’s expedition settled, amid grateful thanks from the subdued Mrs Challis – her hero-worship for Mrs Challis’s husband was all revived. How beautiful he had looked! How kindly he had spoken! How generously he had overlooked what she had said about his play! Perhaps there was another side to his nature, also; a warm, expansive side that she had never encountered until to-day. She would always remember those words –
You are the type of woman who needs to ripen in the sun
. Ah, how true that was! The sun of happiness, of warm, untroubled love!

Her mother’s manner on her return was a little less stony; she had had a telephone call from a Lukeborough friend who was staying in London, and she wanted to talk over Lukeborough gossip; her daughter was better for this purpose than no one. Besides, she looked forward to telling one piece of news.

‘Who do you think is married?’ she asked suddenly, looking steadily at Margaret.

‘Goodness knows. Someone we know?’

‘Someone you used to know very well. Frank Kennett.’

‘No! is he? Who to?’ said Margaret, with a pang – of what feeling, it would be difficult to say.

‘Pat Lacey. That blonde at the Luna. I wish him joy of her, that’s all. I’ve always believed that child of hers wasn’t legitimate.’

‘Reg said she was married. I suppose she got a divorce or perhaps her husband was killed.’

‘She was no more married than you are,’ said Mrs Steggles, whose expression had become hard again at Reg’s name.

‘It’s queer to think of Frank married to her, he used to say she wasn’t his type,’ said Margaret thoughtfully. Her mother’s jibe passed her by, for marriage, as a way of achieving happiness, was no longer a state for which she longed. Love, yes; but not marriage.

‘Oh well, I hope they’ll be happy,’ she said, as she went out of the room, and meant it, but Mrs Steggles only smiled bitterly as she answered. ‘There’s no harm in hoping.’

Margaret stood at her window for a moment, gazing out into the summer night and thinking how far away Lukeborough seemed now, with its mean ugly streets and commonplace people; the boys and girls whom she had watched growing up; the local characters who had done something wrong or unusual (the terms were identical in Lukeborough’s eyes) and who drifted about the town, growing older; and all about it the flat, featureless countryside, so gentle as to be almost without character, as unnoticed as the green of grass or the grey of the sky on a spring day. Thank heaven, at least I’ve got out of that, she thought and then she remembered Hilda, of whom she had not thought for many days, and remorsefully decided that she really must ring her up.

Mr Challis was also thinking about Hilda, who had promised to go to Kew with him on the following Saturday afternoon. True, the beauty of the flowering trees would be practically over, but there would be
the rusted coverts of the may
, as Walter de la Mare beautifully calls the withering hawthorn flowers, and all that was Yellow-Bookish in Mr Challis was attracted by the perverse charm of dying blossoms; Hilda’s youth would shine dazzlingly amidst the brown petals
lying along the fresh spring grass, and I – he thought, leaning out of the window for a moment and gazing into the rich, dark trees standing motionless – I shall tell her, at last, that I love her.

He withdrew his head and retired – full of fluttering yet masterful anticipations – to bed.

The next evening Margaret went to Westwood-at-Brockdale. It seemed a long time since she had been there, but everything appeared to have gone well in her absence, except that Dick seemed worried and irritable. He kept these signs, of course, for Margaret, and did not display them too plainly before Linda, but when the child had gone to bed, and he and Margaret were washing-up, he became so moody and silent that she began to feel that she must make some comment, and at last said abruptly:

‘Are you fed up with me about anything?’

‘Of course not. Why should I be? You’ve been kindness itself.’

‘Oh … that’s all right then, I only wondered.’

He smiled faintly but said no more, and presently took up the evening paper. She had some mending to do for Linda, and sat down opposite to him with it. They were in the little drawing-room, which overlooked the garden, and there lingered a rich, fading glow in the sky by which they could see to read and sew. Margaret felt disturbed and uneasy; she was sure that something was the matter and gradually romantic suppositions began to fill her head and she became embarrassed; a deep flush came up in her cheeks and burned painfully there while her hands became moist and her heart beat heavily. In a quarter of an hour I will go home, she thought, there are all those books to be corrected. I’ll just wait for the nine o’clock news.

Presently she felt his eyes fixed upon her, and finding this unbearable, she glanced up and found him staring moodily at her. He smiled at once, however, and put down the paper.

‘You aren’t engaged, are you?’ he said.

Margaret’s heart gave a great bound. Oh, what was coming? She shook her head and answered with schoolgirl clumsiness:

‘No, worse luck,’ and her hands began to tremble so that she had to put down her sewing and pretend to search for the scissors.

‘It’s a pity. You’d make a grand wife for somebody.’

‘Oh, do you think so?’ faintly.

‘Don’t you like the idea? Or haven’t come across the right person, is that it?’

‘I expect that’s it,’ she said, managing to regain some self-possession and even to smile. He did not return the smile, but continued to stare at her sombrely with a hangdog look. She glanced at the clock, and exclaiming, ‘Oh, it’s just on nine, shall I turn it on,’ went over to the wireless cabinet and adjusted the dials. Big Ben began to strike faintly.

‘I think I won’t wait, if you don’t mind, Dick; I’ve got a lot of correcting to do to-night,’ she said, beginning to put Linda’s clothes away.

‘Just as you like,’ he answered in a surprised, rather sulky tone, and she went upstairs to get her coat.

‘Margaret?’ called Linda’s voice through an open door.

‘Yes, darling. What’s the matter? Can’t you get to sleep?’ and she went in to the curtained room, which was in the soft dusk of the lingering sunset, and bent over the bed. Linda’s strange little face looked placidly up at her from the pillow and one hand crept out towards her own.

‘Linda’s cold, Margaret.’

‘Poor girl, Margaret will make it better. We thought two blankets might not be enough, didn’t we? Margaret will put on another one. There, is that better?’

‘Margaret made it better for Linda,’ Linda said, putting her unshapely arms under the bedclothes, and then she smiled, revealing her tiny teeth, pointed and white as a little cub’s. Margaret looked down at her in a sudden passion of pity. There was much here of the elements of beauty; fine dark hair and firm flesh and smooth skin, yet behind these elements there was no controlling mind to fuse them into a whole; there was only a marred force that expressed itself in misshapenness. When Margaret remembered Claudia and Emma and Dickon, with their quick minds dancing behind their eyes, how could she help a faint, pitying shudder over Linda? And as she bent to kiss the child good night there drifted through her mind the disturbing thought –
the Nature of God may be completely different from what we imagine
, but she firmly pushed it aside, for she had enough problems to worry her, she felt, without starting on God.

In the hall she found Dick waiting.

‘I’ll walk up to the station with you,’ he said. ‘I’ll just go up and tell Linda we’re going.’

‘You needn’t bother, really, Dick.’

‘I feel like a walk,’ he said, and as she waited for him her embarrassment and apprehension were all renewed. Was he going to tell her that he loved her; perhaps ask her to marry him? Oh, what shall I say if he does? she thought.

‘Ready?’ said Dick. ‘She’ll be all right, she’s nearly asleep.’

In the wide, quiet, shady road the masses of faded blossom on the may trees were lifted against the twilight sky and under Margaret’s feet rustled the fallen acacia petals. Gusts of warmth came out from the dark hedges and shrubs, and the air was full of delicious faint scents.

They walked in silence. Margaret was only anxious to get to the station as soon as possible without a declaration from him, and yet she knew that if he said nothing she would be bitterly disappointed. But he continued to walk along in silence, with his head lowered and his hands in his pockets, and she was silent too, though she felt that she ought to say something; he would think this mutual silence so strange, and perhaps encouraging.

‘Are you coming over to-morrow evening?’ he asked at last.

‘Of course, unless you’d rather I didn’t? I mean, I took it for granted I should go on coming here every evening until Mrs Coates comes back. How is she, by the way?’

‘About the same.’

She said no more, and in a few moments they reached the station. He saw her into the building and bought her ticket for her and then hesitated for a moment, looking away from her, and seeming unwilling to go.

‘Well, good night,’ she said, smiling. The danger was over now; and yet she felt disappointed. As she looked up at his thin face with the suffering that had eclipsed its youthful ardour lying upon it, she felt that she could easily love him.

‘Good night,’ he said suddenly. ‘We’ll see you to-morrow then.’

He made a vague farewell gesture and hurried away and Margaret descended into the tube and on the way back to Highgate thought seriously about the duties and responsibilities and sacrifices involved in marriage to a divorced man with a backward child. There’s one thing, she thought
heartily, as she walked up the road towards her own home, I’m sure I shouldn’t mind him kissing me.

The next evening she arrived at Westwood-at-Brockdale to find Dick in the same mood as on the previous evening; so much so that, after supper, she announced her intention of putting Linda to bed instead of letting the child do it herself, as she had now learned to do; for she felt that she could not endure to sit in a meaningful silence downstairs with Linda’s father until it was time to go home. If she did, it looked like giving him a chance – and yet, if she hid herself upstairs with Linda, would he not feel equally encouraged by such shyness and assume that she loved him? Oh dear, she thought, I wish I were more experienced in dealing with men.

But he made no attempt to bring her downstairs, even though she lingered, laughing with Linda and supervising her toilet and praising the progress she had made in tending herself, until nearly half-past eight. Downstairs all was silent; Dick was apparently reading through the three evening papers as he did every night, and Margaret was beginning to wonder whether she might get through the evening more comfortably than she had hoped, when she heard him calling at the foot of the stairs:

‘Margaret? Nearly news-time!’

‘All right, I’m just coming,’ she answered, and went downstairs, remembering that out of the three marriages which she had had the opportunity of observing during the last year – her parents’, the Challises’ and the Nilands’ – two were not happy. The Wilsons were happy, it was true, but the Wilsons were too suburban to be anything else, and Zita had said scornfully that Hebe and Mr Niland were ‘All lovers again, my dear, but that will not last long,’ and Margaret feared that this was true. Oh, marriage was the most solemn, the most important, act that a woman could undertake in this world!