“Are you enjoying yourself?” Claudia called out gaily.
“Very much, thank you. I’m not sure about my partner though.”
Claudia sat down beside Frances Ladislaw.
Maurice was serving. His small, intent face was set. When he served a double fault, a not-quite-inaudible stream of maledictions came from behind his clenched teeth.
“How earnest little boys always are!” said Frances.
“I wish he wouldn’t swear,” Claudia admitted. “Is Quarrendon really all right, do you think?”
“Oh yes. He’s enjoying it. The girls are marvellous with him. Oh, well played!” cried Frances, indulgently rather than truthfully, as Quarrendon, grasping his racquet with both hands, scooped the ball over the net.
“Well played!” shrieked Taffy and Sylvia.
Claudia laughed.
“Come and sit in the old place by the stream. Do you remember how we used to take books there, ages ago, when you used to come and stay in the old days?”
“Indeed I do. It’s lovely to find you here again, Claudia.”
They strolled along, happily discursive.
“Do you remember the frightful clothes we used to wear — high collars and tight waists?”
“And hair tied up in two black bows?”
“Do you remember Anna putting up her hair, over a huge pad, for the first time? It was when I stayed with you, and you gave a dance.”
“And I was so cross because I wanted to wear a black frock, and mother said it wasn’t good style for a young girl!”
They laughed.
“Let’s sit here. It’s like old times,” said Frances — happily, though not accurately. “Tell me about Anna. It’s years since I’ve seen her, and I scarcely know her husband.”
“They spend a lot of time in America. They’re in London now, though. He — Adolf — is getting richer every day.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” said Frances, rather timidly. She had an intimate enough acquaintance with the inconveniences of poverty to respect wealth, although she neither envied nor aspired to it for herself.
“A very good thing.”
There was a pause, and Claudia turned her gaze on her friend. Her expression was mournful.
“I needn’t ever worry about Anna any more. D’you remember how I used to wonder what would become of her, and what she was going to do with her life?”
Frances remembered very well. She could remember also the frantic unhappiness and anxiety of the elder sister throughout the series of violent and disastrous love-affairs that had so thickly bestrewn the path of Anna’s youth.
“You don’t worry about her any more, now?” she hazarded.
Claudia hesitated — drew a long breath.
Then she spoke.
“I couldn’t say this to anybody but you, Frances — but you’re part of the past, Anna’s and mine. Frances — I’ve lost Anna.”
Her friend could only echo in dismay: “Lost her!”
“There’s nothing real between us any more. You know what she and I were to one another, all through our childhood and girlhood. Anna was the person I loved best in the world. She is still, in some ways. But she’s changed terribly, in the last few years.”
“Changed? But how?”
“She’s grown away from me altogether. I think it began when she married. You see, I didn’t like Adolf. I’ve got to face the fact that I tried to bring pressure to bear on Anna. I tried to direct her life for her. That’s what she resents. She’s never forgotten it, and I think — I think she’s never forgiven it either.”
Claudia’s voice trembled.
“I’ve got to face it,” she repeated, with careful candour. “I’ve domineered over Anna all her life, more or less, and she resents it — and always will.”
“But, Claudia — not now. Surely not now, when it’s all over, and she’s got her own life, and you’ve got yours.”
“No one knows how deeply those things sink in,” Claudia said sombrely. “Anna’s resentment of my bullying was probably subconscious for years and years. It was only after she married, and got quite free from me, that she really understood what I’d been doing to her.”
“But Claudia — —”
“Yes, it’s quite true. I’ve got to face it,” Claudia repeated.
Frances, deeply troubled and bewildered, could only look at her in mute sympathy.
“You’ve got Arling,” she ventured again. “I was so glad when you wrote and told me.”
“Yes. I wanted, almost more than anything, to see the children growing up where Anna and I grew up. They couldn’t have their early childhood here, as we had — though Maurice was still quite little when we came — but I think they love it.”
“How could they help it? And it’s all so wonderfully unchanged. Almost as if there’d never been the war or anything.”
“That’s what I feel. It’s a little bit like putting the clock back. Though, of course, it can’t be that, really. We haven’t got any of the land, you know. I could only buy the house and the park, and one field — the one between us and the farm — and it’s difficult enough to keep it all up as it is.”
“It must be, with things as they are now. Does — does Copper like it?”
“As well as he’d like anywhere, I suppose.”
Claudia was silent for a moment, and then she used a phrase that she had used before, that afternoon.
“I couldn’t say this to anybody but you. It’s almost impossible to make Copper happy, nowadays. He’s got nothing to do — that isn’t his fault, any number of men of his age are in the same boat — and he sees me earning all the money, such as it is — and the place is mine really, of course — though I try never to let him feel it. I don’t see how he can help minding. Only, it takes the form of making him ungracious — unkind even. I’m sure that somewhere, somehow, I’ve made some dreadful mistake in our relationship.”
“I don’t think you ought to blame yourself,” said Frances, startled. “Why should it be your fault? You work so hard — you’re such a wonderful mother to the children. Everything depends on you.”
“I know,” said Claudia sadly. “It’s quite true. The whole thing depends on me. Oh, Frances! what would become of them all if anything were to happen to me?”
“They’re growing up, though,” ventured her friend. “It won’t be so much responsibility — for you I mean — later on.”
“I know. And I’ve told them, from the very beginning, that they’ll have to work — to look after themselves. That’s why I’m spending all the money I can afford — and more — on giving them the very best education.”
“It’s all one can do for them, nowadays.”
“Yes, and to teach them to think for themselves. I’ve tried so hard to do that. I don’t want to make the mistakes with them that poor mother, with the best intentions, made with us.”
“How very little your mother has changed.”
“Physically, you mean. Yes, she alters wonderfully little. Mentally, of course, she’s been static for years. You’ll find that she disapproves utterly of the way I bring up the children.”
“But isn’t that the prerogative of grandparents?” Mrs Ladislaw asked smiling a little. She didn’t want to think that Mrs Peel too was adding her quota to the burdens borne by her friend.
Claudia did not respond to the lighter tone. There was something, even, a little portentous in her unsmiling reply.
“I don’t want my children to take their values from her in any way. I want them free from sentimentality — from her kind of sloppy, easy thinking. Mother — like all that generation — would like them to see everything couleur de rose. I don’t want that. I want them to face facts — as I do.”
“They will — of course they will. How could they help it? Claudia, do you know — I somehow never thought you’d be such a wonderful mother.”
Claudia smiled then — a quick flashing of eyes and mouth.
“But we don’t
know that I am!” she cried gaily. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Sylvia is only nineteen, and the other two aren’t grown-up. Taffy might turn out — oh, anything.”
“But not sloppy or sentimental.”
“No. Not that, certainly. She’s got a funny, hard streak in her. I don’t really feel I understand her as I do the other two.”
“You don’t?” said Frances, bewildered by this strange candour. Never before had she heard a mother openly admitting that she did not understand one of her children.
“I don’t think I do,” Claudia repeated calmly.
“She’s not at all like you, is she?”
“She’s not like Copper or any of his family, either,” Claudia answered quickly. “Of course, I’ve got to face the possibility that she feels — antagonistic — towards me. A great many girls do feel like that about their mother, although very often they don’t know it.”
“But if so it will pass,” was all that Frances could say.
“Perhaps, and perhaps not. Most likely not, I should say,” Claudia returned judicially. “The thing that matters is that Taffy should develop along her own lines. Whether I’m to be the person she turns to or not, is really quite immaterial.”
“I don’t think I could ever feel like that, if I had a child. It’s very wonderful of you.”
“No,” said Claudia. “It’s just logic and common sense and, I suppose, my incurable passion for seeing things straight.”
Something in Frances Ladislaw’s mind at that moment rang a faint, immensely distant, note of warning. Just below the level of conscious thought was a latent fear, not quite sprung into life. She became aware — perhaps not more than half aware — that this frankness, this detachment of Claudia’s, awoke in herself something that was vaguely and quite indefinably apprehensive.
“You’re cold — you shivered,” cried Claudia. “Let’s come indoors.”
They rose and walked slowly towards the house.
Presently Frances said:
“Tell me something about Miss Oliver. I think she’s so attractive.”
“She’s attractive, and she’s very clever and capable, and we work together very well, and she doesn’t” said Claudia deliberately, “like me one little bit.”
“But Claudia — ! Why doesn’t she like you? Why should she be your partner if she doesn’t like you? Why do you say such things?” cried Mrs Ladislaw breathlessly.
“Say such things?” echoed her hostess. “What things? It doesn’t matter if Sal Oliver has no personal feeling for me, so long as we make a decent job of working together at the office.”
“I can’t bear it — you’re so brave — so good, and I can’t bear you to be unhappy — lonely. Anna — and your mother — and Copper — and — and so much to worry you.”
“But it doesn’t matter,” repeated Claudia, quickening her pace a little. “I’m quite used to it all, and there’s nothing to be done about any of it. I’ve just got to accept the fact that it is so.”
But Frances Ladislaw, breathless and unhappy and bewildered, could by no means execute the necessary mental volte-face that Claudia appeared to expect of her.
Pity and sympathy had welled up within her and it disconcerted her deeply to find that, all of a sudden, they seemed to be rejected by the very friend whose words had called them forth.
III
1
They had finished playing tennis.
It was Taffy’s turn to put away the balls and let down the net. Sylvia walked slowly towards the house with Andrew Quarrendon.
“I’m afraid I was frightfully bad,” he said apologetically. “I never play games.”
“It was great fun,” said Sylvia placidly.
Quarrendon brightened.
“It was, wasn’t it? You know, that’s a thing one misses very much as one gets older. Nobody ever expects one to have fun — just plain, pointless fun. It’s all so serious.”
“It’s because you’re a don, I expect.”
“I expect so,” he agreed.
“We’ll play games after dinner, shall we? Paper games, I mean. I’m sure you can play those.”
“Yes, I can,” he admitted. “I’d like that very much. Do you know a great many?”
“A good many, I think. Mother’s very good at them, and so’s Sal Oliver. I don’t know about Frances.”
“Which is Frances?”
“Mrs Ladislaw. The one who was here when you arrived. She was at school with Mother, and her greatest friend. She’s my godmother. We haven’t seen her for years. Look out!”
Sylvia caught Quarrendon by the arm as he entangled himself with the ropes of the old swing that hung in a corner of the garden.
“Thank you,” he said meekly. “I’m very bad at seeing things, I’m afraid.”
“Because of your sight, or because of not being interested?”
“My sight is perfectly all right so long as I’m wearing my glasses. And I always am.”
“Yes, I see,” said Sylvia.
She liked the dryness of his implication, and the glint of humour that had come into his large, solemn face.
“But you’re interested in people,” she suggested.
“Oh yes. Always.”
“Even when the people aren’t interesting in themselves?”
“They nearly always are.”
Sylvia felt faintly relieved. In her heart was always the childish fear that she was, herself, utterly uninteresting. At school Taffy had always been the clever one, the leader, and at home of course one’s brilliant, hard-working mother was the only personality that really counted. As for being pretty, Sylvia considered that there were many days on which she was anything but pretty. Definitely repellent, she thought.
“Did you know that I’m trying to get a job, in a publishing house? Freeman & Forest. I’m going up to see them on Tuesday.”
“Are you hoping to get it?” Quarrendon asked, in his odd, intent way.
It somehow caused her to reply rather carefully.
“Theoretically, of course I am. I’d like to do something to help Mother — you know she earns everything for all of us? At least, she’s got a tiny income my grandfather left her, but it isn’t much. And I know I ought to work. But I’m afraid really, I’d have liked to live at home and do nothing. The kind of life girls were expected to lead when Mother was young would have suited me beautifully.”
“Arranging the flowers?”
“Yes, and doing things in the village, and gardening, and sometimes going to London for a few parties and theatres and things, and having people to stay.”
“The leisured life, in fact?”
“Yes,” said Sylvia. “I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that before. I’m definitely ashamed of it.”
Quarrendon smiled.
His ugliness became negligible when he did so.
“Don’t be ashamed of it. So long as you’re honest with yourself, and know what you really want and why you want it, there’s never anything to be ashamed of.”
“Is honesty the most important thing?”
“Yes,” said Quarrendon.
“I’m not always honest. I say things, quite often, to make myself sound nicer and more interesting than I really am.”
“So do most people. Besides, you’re confusing honesty with truthfulness. You know when you’re pretending, don’t you? You don’t pretend to yourself. So it doesn’t matter so very much.”
They had reached the house. The old black cat crawled from under the syringa bush near the library window and again Sylvia saved her companion from a disastrous false step.
“Don’t walk on His Lordship. He’s nearly blind and he gets under everybody’s feet.”
“In that case he has more excuse than I have for not noticing where he’s going,” said Quarrendon.
He bent and stroked the cat. The aged creature rubbed its head against him, purring.
“I’m glad you like cats,” said Sylvia, pleased. “We’ve got a dog t
oo — an Airedale called Betsy — but she’s in the workshop with Father. You’ll see her at dinner-time.”
“Do you change for dinner?” said Quarrendon.
“Yes. But don’t, if you don’t want to. It won’t matter.”
He put down the cat gently.
“I don’t want to in the least, and I shall do so. And you know you’d all be slightly ashamed of me if I didn’t. You see how I try to live up to my own theories about honesty.”
They both burst out laughing.
2
How nice he is, thought Sylvia, running up to her room. Quarrendon had been much more easy to talk to than any of the young men whom she knew. Sylvia was always rather frightened of young men, ever since one — whom she hadn’t liked at all — had tried, without a word of warning, to kiss her at a dance when she was seventeen. No one had ever heard about that episode. Sylvia was deeply ashamed of it. Not because the young man had wanted to kiss her, but because she hadn’t liked it. Her contemporaries, she knew well, took such things in their stride. It was Experience, they said — and Experience was more important than anything else. Sometimes they carried Experience very much further than being kissed. So they said.
Sylvia had gabbled with other girls herself, about sex-appeal and the dangers of repression, or — alternatively — about the importance of work and the relative unimportance of sex.
She felt inwardly sure that she herself had no sex-appeal at all. Looks had nothing to do with it — everybody was agreed about that. Sylvia’s own mother, who was no longer young, still attracted men.
It was funny that one never talked to one’s mother about this terribly important question of sex. She had been very modern and splendid about it all — told one every possible thing at the earliest possible age — was prepared to discuss anything freely — and had always encouraged her children to read everything they wanted to read.
Perhaps it was because she was so much cleverer than one was oneself, and of course so much more attractive. It seemed almost impossible that she should understand the awful diffidence that overwhelmed Sylvia whenever she thought about the young man at the dance.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 426