Once You Have Found Him

by Esther Wyndham

  “No, thank you, Mummy, I want something cold.”

  “There’s nothing more refreshing than cold tea,” Romilly said, pouring some out from the pot and then filling his cup up with tepid water.

  “How you can drink that!” Poppy said.

  “How did you like the house?” he asked.

  “I loved it. It’s so, so beautiful. I feel there’s nothing now I don’t know about your ancestors. That Hoppner picture of your great-great-grandfather is awfully like you.”

  “He's the family skeleton,” Romilly said. “He was a great rake ... Has Father exhausted you or would you like to come up on the Downs?”

  “Oh, I’d love to. Is it far?”

  “Only about half an hour’s climb and we’re at the top. But it’s quite stiff walking. You’d better put on sensible clothes.”

  Did he mean by that that the clothes she was wearing were absurd? She blushed for her borrowed finery. “I’ll go up and change,” she said.

  “Don’t be long,” he answered. “Are you coming, Pip?”

  “No, I want to swim. Why don’t you swim instead of going for a walk? It’s much too hot for walking.”

  “This may be the only opportunity of taking Erika up on to the Downs ... By the way, what time is your girlfriend coming? Have I got to go in and meet her?”

  “Yes, but she won’t be here until after dinner. She’s coming on the Golden Arrow which doesn’t get in to London till seven-thirty. Timmy is meeting her and bringing her down by train.”

  “We must have some supper ready for them,” Lady Hanbridge said.

  Poppy went upstairs. All Erika’s clothes had now been unpacked and were squashed into the cupboard and crowded into the chests of drawers. The shoes had been neatly arranged on the shoe rails at the bottom of the cupboard. There were ten pairs of them, but not one that Poppy considered really suitable for a walk on the Downs. She wondered which pair Erika would have chosen ... And what was she to wear? As far as she could see all Erika’s clothes were so ridiculously smart. There was nothing in the whole collection to correspond to Romilly’s old grey flannels.

  Eventually, stripping off her stockings, she put her feet into the only shoes she felt she would be able to walk in—a pair of beautifully whitened tennis shoes—and she chose a linen dress that was plainer than anything else, though from its cut and finish she could see that it had cost a lot of money for all its simplicity. It was very pale green with white buttons and white edging at the neck and sleeves and a white belt. “I suppose I owe it to Erika to appear in a different dress every day,” she thought, “but I don’t think I shall like anything of hers better than this.”

  When she came downstairs she found Romilly waiting for her in the hall. He appraised her coolly. “You’d better take a woolly or something,” he said. “It may be chilly up there before we get back ... Here, don’t bother to go up again. I’ll take this for you,” and he reached for a man’s cardigan off one of the pegs in the hall.

  “I’ll carry it,” she said.

  “No, I’ll take it,” and he swung it across his shoulder. They went out by the front door and round to the garden side of the house. “Which way are the Downs?” she asked.

  “We go past the lake and climb up that wooded hill behind it and there we are.”

  They skirted round the lake and Poppy was interested to see a boat-house which was not visible from the house, with canoes and punts in it. “I’d love to go and visit the temple some time,” she said.

  “You shall. We used to have picnics there as children. Make a fire and roast potatoes in the ashes. It was wonderful when the lake froze during the Christmas holidays.”

  “Do you skate on the lake?”

  “Yes, we have wonderful skating parties whenever it freezes. You must come over in the winter. ... How long are you staying in England, by the way?”

  “I don’t really know,” Poppy had asked this question of Erika and had received the reply she was now giving to Romilly. “It depends rather on Mother. We had hoped to go to the Continent before going back.”

  “I do hope you get a chance to do that. I suppose you have never been to Paris?”

  Poppy shook her head, murmuring a negative. She herself had been to Paris twice and she hated to tell a deliberate lie. It was this kind of question that worried her more than any other. To change the subject she said quickly, “You are at the Bar, aren’t you? Do you go up and down to London every day?”

  “No, it’s just too far from here. I share a flat in the Temple with another chap, but I come down here most weekends, though I must say I enjoy an occasional weekend in London. I adore exploring London on a Sunday.”

  “Oh, so do I,” she said from the heart without thinking what she was saying.

  “You do?” he asked in surprise.

  She suddenly realized the mistake she had made and tried to cover it up quickly by saying, “I went exploring last Sunday. I almost feel like an old Londoner already. The Temple must be a lovely place to live in.”

  “You have been there?”

  “Oh, yes.” Erika had told her that she had done a fairly extensive tour of London.

  “I must say I like it,” he said. “It was badly knocked about in the war. I’m in Hare Court, but the sitting-room windows look over Pump Court which has trees and a sundial on the wall just by my windows. At night you feel you have the whole place to yourself. All the workers go home. No need for net curtains! If I’m there on a Sunday the voices from the Temple Church sound like angels singing. There’s an old superstition about the Temple Church. If you turn the key in the door and wish, your t wish comes true.”

  “I’m always frightened to wish,” she said. “I think the powers that be know best for us and that it’s a mistake to try and alter their plans.”

  “Yes, it is said that when the Gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers ... You are a fatalist, are you?”

  “I suppose I am in a way, but not in the way that some people understand fatalism. It doesn’t mean to say that I sit back and don’t try. I try for all I’m worth sometimes. It seems as if fate is pushing me, making me try, but when things don’t turn out as I want them to, I don’t have any regrets. I feel it was intended that way ... I’ll tell you what I mean. Say you are watching a tennis match—the men’s singles at Wimbledon for instance—tremendously keen. Both of them are trying their very, very hardest to win, and yet I get the feeling that all the time the outcome has already been decided—but it doesn’t stop them from trying. Do you see what I mean at all?”

  “Yes, perfectly, but have you been to Wimbledon?”

  “No, no, of course not,” she said hurriedly. “I just gave that as an example because everybody knows how keenly such a match is fought.” What a slip to have made! She must hold on to her tongue. It was so difficult when talking to him to remember that she was playing a part.

  “Whatever philosophy one has,” he said musingly, “it doesn’t alter one’s conduct very much. We live by rules ingrained into us as children, not by tenets we have thought out for ourselves.”

  “Yes, that’s so true,” she agreed. “Our behaviour is automatic and yet our minds worry about the whys and wherefores. Ever since I can remember I have asked myself. Why is there a world at all?”

  “Ah, that we shall never know,” he said with a smile, “and perhaps if we did, life would lose its enchantment”

  “Do you find life enchanting?” she asked.

  “Yes, utterly enchanting, its very mystery makes it that much more exciting. Sometimes I wake in the morning and could burst with the pure joy of being alive—this wonderful gift of self-consciousness that we humans have.”

  “I feel like that too sometimes,” she said, “but the inequalities of life worry me.”

  “I wonder whether everyone doesn’t have the same sum-total of happiness,” he said. “If you take it from the cradle to the grave, that is. You see it is disposition as much as circumstances that makes people happy or mi
serable. My mother used to have a dressmaker—a wonderful person—she has retired now. She had tuberculosis of the hip as a child and has always been a cripple. On the face of it she had very little to make life worthwhile, but she is one of the happiest people I have ever known. She has a rare gift of sympathy. She used to work in the house here and I always took my troubles to her. The moment I got back from school I used to rush up to the sewing-room. She was always cheerful, always sympathetic but full of good advice. Everybody in the house loved her. I have often wondered what was her great gift?”

  “I suppose she gave more than she took,” Poppy said. “Do you think giving is perhaps the secret of happiness?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised!”

  Poppy could suddenly picture Romilly so clearly as he must have been as a boy. With his zest for life he was probably always getting himself into trouble at school. He would have been just the kind of boy she liked. She found herself smiling involuntarily.

  All this time while they were talking they had been climbing steadily. The path up on to the Downs led through a magnificent beech wood. Poppy could imagine how wonderful it must be in the autumn. Now, of course, the trees were in their full summer splendour, but underfoot the dry, russet leaves of years had accumulated and their feet made a pleasant swishing sound as they walked.

  “What a paradise this place is,” she said with a sigh.

  “But your own country must be very beautiful,” he replied.

  “Yes, but in such a different way.” Oh, how she hated this deception. How she longed to be able to be herself with him. He was so easy to talk to; she felt that they had so much in common—their love of London for one thing. She wondered what he and the real Erika would have been talking about on this walk if she had not taken Erika’s place. She would have given a great deal to hear that conversation—a conversation which would never come into existence now—but which must have trembled on the very brink of being born.

  The woodland path ended abruptly as they gained the summit of the hill, and miraculously the country changed and they found themselves on the great green sweep of the Downs. The sea was not visible and yet one knew it must be there; one could so nearly see it; one could certainly smell it. The air was fresh and tangy; larks tumbled about in the blue-gold sky; the turf which had known centuries of the gentle cropping of sheep and a softness and springy resilience that invited them to walk over it for unending miles.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” was all she could say, flinging out her arms in an effort to take in all this beauty.

  “It’s glorious up here, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Glorious.”

  “Glad I dragged you up?”

  “Oh, so glad. But you didn’t drag me.”

  “How does it compare to your veldt?” he asked.

  “Comparisons are odious, don’t you think?” she replied, laughing.

  “One day I’d like to see the veldt.”

  “One day you must. But for the moment it is I who am revelling in your Sussex Downs ... I should like to walk and walk forever...”

  “As it is I mustn’t keep you up here too long. The tyranny of meals! But do you like walking?”

  “Adore it.”

  “All right, we’ll come and walk up here on Saturday or Sunday. We’ll take a picnic lunch and walk right across to Arundel and get Pip to come and meet us in the car.”

  “Won’t she want to come walking?”

  “Not Pip. She has her good points but walking isn’t one of them.”

  “You know you were right, it is a bit chilly up here. I should be glad of that cardigan.”

  “I knew you would. Do you want it on or just round your shoulders.”

  “Oh, just round my shoulders. It will drown me otherwise.”

  He placed the cardigan carefully round her shoulders. “We musn’t let you catch cold. This is a very important week.”

  “Aren’t you working all the week?”

  “Do you want me to work?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “As a matter of fact I’m on holiday. I always take a week of my holiday at Goodwood if I can. I don’t like taking more than a week at a time. I like spreading my holiday.”

  “Oh, I don’t,” she answered without thinking. “I like to take mine all in one. I don’t think the first week does one any good. It’s only in the second week that one really forgets work and its tensions and begins to relax properly.”

  “How do you know? I didn’t realize that you were one of the world’s workers.”

  She saw the terrible slip she had made. “I'm not now,” she said hurriedly, “but I have worked. I got a job just to see what it was like. I think one ought to have every kind of experience, don’t you?” This was right out of her part but she had to cover up her mistake as best she could.

  “What kind of job?” he asked.

  “Oh—oh—in a shop. A big store in Johannesburg.”

  “Really? How long did you do that for?”

  “A year.”

  “Then your holiday couldn’t have meant all that much to you?”

  “Oh yes, it did. I had my holiday in the middle.”

  “But you knew you could quit at any moment you wanted to.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I had promised myself. Promised myself to stick it out. I always think a promise to oneself is just as sacred as a promise to anyone else, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do. And you did stick it out?”

  “Hadn’t I promised myself?” she replied lightly. Oh dear, what deep water she was getting into. How was she going to extract herself? O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.

  She was thankful when he said, “Well, I’m going to take you home now.” Why had she imagined that it was only over questions of South Africa that she would have to be careful? Her real danger was in forgetting her assumed identity and answering with her own heart and mind. A question about South Africa immediately put her on her guard so it was comparatively easy. She realized now that she must be permanently on her guard. She must think before she answered or asked any question; think before she made any remark.

  As it was downhill they walked back to the house much quicker than they had walked up, but on the way down one of Poppy’s shoes began to chafe her at the heel and when she got back she found to her annoyance that it had raised a large blister. When they got in he asked if she would like a drink but she thanked him and said no; she would rather like to have a rest in her own room before dinner. The others were nowhere about. “What time is dinner?” she asked.

  “Eight o’clock. We shall probably have it punctually because of have got to go in and meet this train. There is a French friend of Pip’s coming to stay and a boy friend of Pip’s too.”

  “Is there anyone else coming?” Poppy asked. She wanted to know the worst she was in for.

  “Only Dennis Furnoy. He’s the chap I share my flat with in the Temple. Being Irish he’s mad on horses.”

  Poppy went up to her room. It was just on seven so she would have an hour in which to acquaint herself with her new wardrobe. But she would have to change too. What should she change into? She had forgotten to ask Romilly whether they put on evening dress for dinner. She had better find out from Florence.

  As soon as she got to her room she rang the bell and when Florence appeared she asked her whether it was customary to dress in the evenings. “Her ladyship usually puts on a tea-gown,” Florence replied, “but Miss Philippa does just as she feels. If she’s stayed out late she doesn’t change at all ... Is there anything I can do for you? I would have laid a dress out but I didn’t quite know which one.”

  “No, there’s nothing, thank you very much, Florence. I’m afraid I have brought rather a lot of clothes with me, but you see I wasn’t sure what kind of things one wore in England, so I thought I had better have plenty of choice.”

  “Yes, miss,” Florence replied in a tone w
hich seemed to say, “And you certainly have brought plenty!”

  When Florence was gone, Poppy opened the cupboard and made a serious endeavour to sort out the dresses hanging there. Several were in two pieces and did not seem to belong to each other. Florence had obviously got confused, and no wonder. Did this blue skirt really go with the mauve chiffon blouse? They were both on the same hanger. Anyway, they were very pretty together and might be suitable to wear that evening. Fortunately Erika had a good sense of colors which went with red hair, or rather the colors which would not go. There was no red in her wardrobe and no pink. Blue and white predominated, but there was a good deal of black.

  Poppy turned next to examining the drawers. There were dream underclothes of chiffon and satin, dozens of pairs of nylon stockings, exquisite hand-made blouses in lawn and crepe de Chine, a great pile of colored chiffon handkerchiefs with the letter E embroidered on them, as well as fine linen ones also initialled; an enormous quantity of bags—there must have been a bag for every outfit including every evening dress; some cashmere twin sets in heavenly colors; some really lovely scarves—and then in the bottom drawer she discovered two fur stoles—one in platinum fox and one in what she first took to be rabbit but realized almost immediately must be white mink. These furs excited her so much that she quite forgot the time and simply had to try them on immediately in front of the glass. The fox stole was shaped, and consequently fairly easy to keep on, but the mink stole was straight and she had no idea how to wear it. She tried to remember all the pictures she had seen of model girls wearing furs. It always looked so simple with one end thrown across one shoulder, but whatever she did with this stole she did not manage to look in the least like a model girl. “Perhaps it will look different when I am dressed up,” she thought. As it was she had one shoe on and one off, having kicked off the one that had rubbed her heel as soon as she got to her room.

  She took off the other shoe now and stood, bare-footed, on tiptoe in front of the glass, but the stole did not look any better. “Mink and bare feet just don’t go together,” she thought with amusement. Oh, what fun it would be to have someone to share this adventure with her—what fun to be able to recount it all to Helen. But, no, she could never tell Helen, never tell anyone of her own—not even Mary. Mary would be too upset to think that she had gone through all this for her sake, and she could never tell anyone else without confessing the motive that had made her do it, and that she could not do without Jack away.