Westwood (52 page)

‘That’s what men are like, you know,’ said Mrs Steggles suddenly. ‘Weak as water. You’ll have to get used to it.’

‘All men, do you mean?’

‘All of them where a pretty face is concerned. If they aren’t, there’s something funny about them – they’re religious, or worse. What are you going to do this evening?’

‘Oh – I hadn’t thought,’ sighed Margaret.

‘Why don’t you ring up Hilda? You haven’t seen her for ages.’

‘I don’t feel like Hilda this evening. I’ll do some work and go to bed early, I think.’

When she was at last alone, with books open on the table, and the evening light coming in mildly through the window, and the scent from some honeysuckle on her dressing-table filling the room, she experienced so strongly that relief which comes on escaping from human beings and their goings-on that she seriously wondered if she would end as a recluse. Flowers and solitude and Nature never fail one, she thought; they ask nothing and they are eternally comforting.

She passed the evening in preparing a lesson which must be given to-morrow, and in thinking of what she had lost: Dick’s love, the opportunity of cherishing Linda and gradually strengthening her mind and body; a home of her own, perhaps children of her own. But after all, I didn’t love him, she confessed to herself at last, and perhaps Mrs Coates does, so it’s right that she, not I, should have all those things.

The rest of that week, which had promised to be so dreary, was agreeably relieved by a telephone call from Earl Swinger proposing that she should accompany him to a concert at the Phoenix Theatre, in which unexpected place concerts were being held since the destruction of the Queen’s Hall by bombs.

She accepted the invitation with pleasure and was surprised to find how much she could look forward to it.

At the end of two days most of her disappointment had disappeared, and all that remained was bracing indignation and a contempt which now mingled with her affection for Dick. She did not resent being kissed, but she did resent his having been underhand with her; a shabby return for all that she had done for him and for Linda. For a day she wondered if she would get a letter from him, but it soon became clear that this was most unlikely, and she tried to get used to the idea that she would not be missed at Westwood-at-Brockdale and that the incident was over. Mr Steggles came in that same evening cheerfully announcing that he had been having one with old Dick, who was getting married to a damn pretty little woman, and Margaret and Mrs Steggles were able to damp him by saying that this was ancient news to them, but otherwise nothing more was said about the matter, and Margaret began to hope that by next month she might be able to attend the wedding, if invited, without a pang. It was Linda whom she missed most, and the quietness of the fairy house, broken by the sound of the wind-bells. She could not even comfort herself by thinking that Linda would miss her, for she knew that Linda would not; any more than, after a few days, she had missed Mrs Coates whom she had known for so much longer.

At least he did want to kiss me and that’s something, she thought, moving her fingers over her firm throat as she gravely looked at herself in her mirror. I can’t be so bad.

After a concert which she and Earl both described as glorious and which sent them home in an exalted yet dreamy mood, she was pleasantly surprised to find her hand being held by Earl and to hear him confess that he was vurry lonely and would be glad if he could date her up sometimes. She was touched and flattered by his assumption that she was a girl with many dates, and sought about for a date to give him as soon as possible. It was a pity, she said, that she was engaged on Saturday. Oh, nowhere exciting; she was only going to take Barnabas and Emma to Kew Gardens; there was so much more for Zita to do now that poor old Mrs Grant had gone and until Hebe found another nanny, and she, Margaret, loved the children, and liked helping with them. But, said Earl, couldn’t he come along too? It would be quite a business for her, keeping those two in marching order, and when Emma got tired, he, Earl, could maybe carry her. Oh, but wouldn’t Earl find that dull? Now, now, hadn’t he just been telling Margaret that he had little brothers and sisters at home? They were a big family, the Swingers, going down in stages from twenty-two to five. He was used to kids, and he liked them fine. Well, it certainly would be a great help if he would come, and she was sure the children would love it. And how about Margaret, would she love it too? Margaret thought that it would be very nice.

When they said good night outside her house, it was arranged that he should meet them at the Archway tube station, whence they could get a bus direct to Kew, at one o’clock on Saturday, and then he gave her a boyish and rather brotherly good-night kiss; she thought that this was partly U.S. Army routine, but it was very pleasant, and she went into the house swinging the posy he had bought her and not thinking about Dick Fletcher or Gerard Challis or even about Margaret Steggles, but only feeling cheerful and slightly intoxicated with music.

At the same hour, Mr Challis was working late at the Ministry. All that week he had been doing so, which fact had caused him to have only a hazy idea about his family’s social engagements. He always was vague about what his grandchildren were doing, partly from a natural lack of interest in such insipid activities and partly because he preferred to avoid thinking about them at all. He arrived home very late every evening, and dined in the library off an appetizing tray brought in by Cortway, then read for a little while and went to bed. In the morning he swallowed coffee with his nose in
The Times
, and only Seraphina opposite to him, and she read her letters and knew better than to talk to him. So he approached Saturday with a dim feeling
that only he and Hilda were going to Kew; that the rest of the world would be miraculously absent from Kew on that day, and the glades and walks deserted.

He was in love. For the time being he had no creative work in hand and all his energies, fired and fanned by summer, were concentrated upon Hilda. He was in that state when a kind glance or word can act upon the senses like balm, giving a comfort to be treasured for days in secret, but as he was by now acutely aware of the incongruity between his fame, tastes and character and the abjectness of his love, he was at times both angry and unhappy. Seraphina resignedly supposed that there was Another One, and was slightly depressed by the fact. We are both getting older, she thought, sighing as she looked at herself in the glass. I do hope Gerry isn’t going to be one of those
horrid
old men. If only he could take an interest in the boys, and the children! That would be the
natural
thing, at his age. Well, perhaps not
natural
, but
right
, and so much nicer.

The reconciliation between Hebe and Alex and their plans for the large half-ruined house in St John’s Wood were her own chief sources of pleasure at present. Hebe had announced her intention of keeping a goat and bees in the vast shady garden, and when her mother had said how lovely the rooms would be for parties she had answered: ‘There won’t be any. What I’m going to do is to have some more children.’

Unfortunately, Saturday was a brilliantly fine day, and everybody in London seemed to be going to Kew. The buses and trains were crowded, as if it were a Bank Holiday, with women in light dresses and children who were steadily eating; every public seat was lined with old men enjoying the scene and the warm air, and every breadth of free grass in London was covered by picnickers, drunk with sunshine and successfully forgetting, for a few hours, the war.

‘Lucky, aren’t I?’ said Hilda to Mr Challis, as she sat beside him in the taxi which he had managed to secure to take them in comfort to Kew. The excursion would cost (he reckoned in terms of money) a few pounds. How much it would cost him in other terms he had not thought. The humbleness of a true lover struggled with his confidence in himself, based upon years of success with women.

He turned to look at Hilda. She wore a thin blue silk dress that exactly matched her eyes, and carried a large white handbag. Her slender bare legs were expertly painted brown and on her small feet were white shoes. (We have described these objects from a masculine point of view; now, shifting our focus – or altering the Frame, as Professor Eddington might put it – we may say that the dress was of cheap rayon, and the shoes and handbag last year’s; but they were all fresh and in perfect order, and Hilda wore them with such calm confidence that the effect could hardly have been improved.)

‘I am lucky,’ he answered, smiling, and took her hand in his cool one.

‘You’re telling me. I put off ever so many things to come to your old Kew to-day.’

‘Did you?’ bending towards her. ‘What things?’

‘Oh – tennis and going for a walk on the Heath; I nearly telephoned old Mutt to see’f she’d come too.’

Mr Challis was not interested in old Mutt. ‘Did you want to come with me?’ he asked, lowering his voice.

‘I’ll try anything once and I dare say it won’t be so bad when we get there. Besides, you kept on about it so, I thought I’d better come and get it over.’

‘Is that all you felt?’ he asked, withdrawing his hand.

‘Now, don’t get all haughty. Of course I wanted to come; it’s a nice day and I’m glad to be out of the or-fice. But I meant to tell you, I’ve got to be back early; I’ve got a date to-night.’

He was silent for a little while, then he said: ‘Don’t you think you might have kept the evening free for me? I’ve looked forward to this day for months.’

‘Don’t I know it! It was round about Boxing Day you started dating me up. Well, I would have, honestly, Marcus,’ with a smile that pierced his heart – ‘only someone rang me up this morning and’ – she began to look in her handbag – ‘I couldn’t get out of it.’

‘A man?’

‘No, one of the crocodiles from the Zoo, as a matter of fact. Look, aren’t we nearly there?’ and she bent forward to gaze out at the streets of Hammersmith, through which they were now passing. He jealously stared at her face. Not a shade of consciousness touched its brightness, and slowly he removed his gaze and let it rest moodily upon her little shoes. Phew! That was a near thing, thought Hilda, gaily surveying Hammersmith; and then, and only then, did a deeper pink begin to come into her face.

‘I have brought a tea-basket,’ he said presently, indicating an object in a corner. ‘Tea at any of the usual places would be unendurable.’

‘Is that what it is? What a bright idea; you are a dear, really,’ and she gave him another smile. ‘I thought it was papers or something.’

‘Have you never seen a tea-basket before?’ he asked, enchanted by such innocence.

‘No. Is it only for tea? Couldn’t you put lunch in it? Or do you have another kind for lunch? You do do yourself well, don’t you? What’s it got in it?’

‘Er – sandwiches, I believe, and the usual things.’

He had, in fact, charged his secretary with the task of filling the tea-basket, and she had done her best, which was considerable, for she was an efficient woman.

The taxi was now traversing a wide, shady road bordered on one side by a long wall, and suddenly, through the foliage of the massive trees, there was a startling glimpse of red and gold, soaring into the heavens.

‘Oh, what’s that?’ cried Hilda.

‘The Pagoda. Isn’t that a wonderful and exotic effect; that pure Chinese shape seen between the characteristically English shapes of the trees? I wanted you to see that.’

‘It’s so pretty against the blue sky.’

‘Exactly,’ he said, delighted by these evidences – or so he judged them – of the aesthetic faculty. ‘England is full of such incongruities; the Pavilion at Brighton and the Mosque at Woking are two of the most striking. And in any English drawing-room you will find minor instances of the same sort; Chinese cabinets and Japanese cups, Zulu spears and Afghan knives. Incongruity; the power to startle with a sense of pleasure. For me, that is half the secret of art.’

‘Come again?’ said Hilda pleasantly, but he did not have to descend to explanations for at that moment the taxi stopped at the gates of Kew.

As they walked through the entrance, Mr Challis prepared himself to enter the realm of intense emotional and possibly sensuous experience. The day favoured him. The sunrays had a clear brilliance, and a light wind tempered their warmth, blowing it upon the dying or budding flowers and bringing their scents sweeping in waves now low, now high, over the grass. There were the rounded brown masses of the fading hawthorns; tree after tree of them, reared up against the divine deep blue; and there were the drifts of shrivelled acacia and laburnum petals blowing lazily along the walks. The glass roofs of the hothouses glittered in the sun (except where they were black and shattered by bombs) and the palms pressed spiked leaves against the panes of their prison. It seemed a special day. He gently put his fingers under Hilda’s elbow and guided her into Kew.

His plan was to lead her gradually to some remote glade. He knew of one where bluebells stood thick in May, and would now be a host of brown seed-pods winding endlessly away, low among the bright green grass under the emerald beeches. He removed his hat and lifted his face to the sun, so that the delicious wind blew on his forehead, and moved eagerly onwards.

‘It’s quite nice,’ said Hilda brightly, looking about her. She had no hat and her curls were only confined by a thick pale blue snood. ‘Isn’t there a crowd here to-day!’