‘Well, here’s me and the car,’ he said, ‘what can we do towards it?’
The simple question took a load off Marjorie’s mind at once. She had not really forgotten the existence of the car, but, acting on the assumption that Mr Ely was like Ted in domestic affairs, she had taken it for granted that she and her mother would be left unaided to make everything ready while Mr Ely went off to bread and cheese and beer in the local inn, only to return when all the work was done. She smiled gratefully at George.
‘Thank you, Mr Ely,’ said Mrs Clair, recasting her plans. ‘I tell you what, you take Marjorie to the shops while I get tea laid and do what I can in the house.’
It was marvellous to have a car in which to go shopping. Three-quarters of a mile was nothing in a car, and when the things were bought there was the whole back seat on which to lay them, instead of having to drag them, with increasing backache, from shop to shop. All Marjorie’s weariness and sudden disillusionment dropped away as she appreciated this joyous state of affairs. She smiled, and she threw back her head to smell the distant sea, and her lighthearted gaiety infected Ely as well so that he thoroughly enjoyed the fifteen minutes’ brisk bustle through the three shops which the bungalow village possessed.
Back at The Guardhouse Mother had the table laid and the kettle boiling, and although the children had early tired of their flower gathering it took only a moment to set before them the bread and jam and milk-and-hot-water which dissipated their fretfulness like magic. From year to year Marjorie had forgotten the tragic misery of their first arrivals at The Guardhouse, only to remember it with renewed disillusionment and bitterness the next time. But this arrival was different already. It was barely six o’clock, and here they were having tea with half the work completed. In the old days even Dot, scatterbrained and lighthearted, had been snappy and morose by the time the children were in bed and the house in running order. Marjorie laughed and talked, and Mrs Clair smiled and held her tongue, and the children behaved like angels.
‘Mr Reely! Mr Reely!’ said Derrick, smiling just like a cherub despite a fleck of strawberry jam on his cheek. ‘Mr Reely! Can I whisper?’
George Ely obediently bent his head. There was something oddly winning about the touch of Derrick’s arms round his neck.
‘Mr Reely,’ said Derrick in a whisper as clearly audible as his normal tone of voice. ‘We wanted you to take us to the sea after tea. Anne and me.’
‘Can they go?’ asked Ely, looking at Marjorie.
‘You don’t want to be bothered with them,’ answered Marjorie.
‘I should like to, honest I would,’ protested Ely.
‘We haven’t seen the sea yet, not all day,’ pleaded Anne.
‘Very well then, if Mr Ely will take you,’ agreed Marjorie, adding to Ely. ‘Just for half an hour. It’s nearly bed time already. Are you sure it’s not too much trouble for you, Mr Ely?’
‘No, really it’s not, Mrs Grainger.’
While the children were hastily gathering buckets and spades, and Ely was gulping down his last up of tea, Mrs Clair interposed.
‘All this “Mrs Grainger” and “Mr Ely” sounds out of place down here,’ she said. ‘Would you mind if we called you “George”? Then the children could you call you “Uncle” – that’s better than “Mr Reely”. Would you mind?’
‘Not a bit, I should like it.’
‘Then you’d better say “Marjorie” instead of “Mrs Grainger”. I suppose I’ll still be “Mrs Clair”, though – I’m too old for Christian names.’
‘Call her Grannie,’ suggested Marjorie.
‘Yes, I will,’ said George.
After George had gone off with the prancing children Mrs Clair sat still for a moment at the table.
‘He’s a very nice boy,’ she said thoughtfully, and as if to herself.
‘Yes, Mother,’ said Marjorie.
The success of that holiday – and right up to the end it was infinitely the most successful holiday Marjorie or George could ever remember – was largely due to the unobtrusive tact and energy of Mrs Clair. It was she who started the success, and afterwards she remained at hand to give a discreet push or two when necessary to keep it moving, so that the success grew snowball-fashion, from day to day. She was helped in her designs, of course, by fortuitous circumstances – the blessed fine weather, for example, as well as Ely’s decision to buy a car – but she contrived to wring the utmost possible advantage from them, without anyone noticing it sufficiently to attribute to her any other motives than general kindliness and a desire for efficiency.
Presumably it was the tumultuous bitterness in her heart driving her on which stimulated her into such a subtle awareness of human reactions and which gave her the strength to see the business through. On Sunday morning – the first morning – she could guess at George’s temporary surfeit of driving the car and at his awkward wondering about what he should do instead, and she packed him off to the beach with Marjorie and the children while she stayed behind and cooked the dinner.
George enjoyed Sunday in consequence after all; it was pleasant to lie and roast in the sunshine, and to help Anne and Derrick while they excitedly built their first sand castles of the year. They swam, too – George had never been very partial to swimming before, because without knowing it he had felt more than usually lonely, somehow, in the cold water with no one to talk to. It was very different bathing with Marjorie, who had a laugh for every moment of the swim. Marjorie had a straight figure, only a tiny shade more pronounced than the current fashion demanded, and she swam well. George noticed how well she swam, although matters between them had not yet progressed nearly far enough for him to notice her figure. It did occur to him, however, that her white bathing cap, buttoned close under her chin, set off her dark beauty and made her seem younger and more girlish and approachable.
He was happy enough not to notice the discomfort of having to dress and undress with no more shelter from the eye of the public than that provided by an extremely inadequate depression in the shingle; George would have noticed it fast enough in less fortunate circumstances, for he was young enough and shy enough and badly enough brought up to feel embarrassed at having to change on an open beach even when everyone else bathing had to do the same.
The unwonted exercise and sunshine tired him a little, and he spent the afternoon idly turning the pages of the book of adventure he had brought with him for holiday reading. Marjorie, at her mother’s instigation, went unashamedly to bed to recover from the strain of the last few days, while Mrs Clair kept the children amused in the convenient adjacent field. In the evening they all three sat together in the deep verandah of The Guardhouse watching the sun slowly set behind the Downs. They put their feet up on the rail, and they smoked cigarettes, and chatted lightly and with a growing intimacy. Marjorie kept to herself the feeling of the difference it made to her to have a man with her who could contemplate with equanimity the passage of a whole evening without drinking beer. For years now all her relations with the one man she had anything to do with had been coloured and influenced by the fact that on each evening, no matter where they were or what they were doing, beer had to be drunk or at least violent grumbling indulged in instead. A sequence of three thousand days, each subject to this special condition, had formed so strong a habit of mental anxiety on the point that the relief from it was intense.
Nor was this the only, or by any means the main factor, which determined Marjorie’s mental poise this evening. She was free for three weeks to come of the pressing need to decide upon what she should do in the matter of her husband. Three weeks of permanence to her, after the dreadful insecurity of the days preceding the holiday, seemed unendingly long. There was nothing to worry about. And she had enjoyed a long and satisfying rest that afternoon. No wonder that she was vivacious and lighthearted, chattering freely, and keeping the other two amused all the time.
George Ely was drawn irresistibly in
to the gaiety of it. He felt as if he had never lived before this holiday – he felt it although naturally the feeling would never be expressed like that in words, George being an inarticulate young man, and one who had never acquired, either at school or in the world, the ability to think in orderly fashion. Like so many of his breed, George directed his affairs under the guidance only of instinct and impulse. All he was conscious of at the present moment was a feeling of wellbeing and superiority, and he made not the smallest attempt to discover why.
That night, when they were going to bed – Marjorie was sharing with her mother the room which on previous holidays she had shared with Ted, while George had the room Dot had shared with Mrs Clair – Marjorie said, ‘It’s been a lovely day. I think I’m going to enjoy this holiday more than any holiday I’ve ever had.’
‘I hope you will, dear,’ said Mrs Clair. ‘I’m sure I hope so!’
Mrs Clair wriggled out of her underclothes under cover of her nightdress, and pulled out from under her nightdress collar the pathetic little pigtail of grey hair. She knelt down beside the bed to say her prayers – but with Marjorie in the room she said them to herself, and not in the reverent whisper she usually adopted. When she got into bed she watched Marjorie cold creaming her face at the mirror. Marjorie’s nightdress was of frivolous cut, and her bare arms were lovely in the subdued light. The long dark plait of her hair swayed to her movements, and the curve of her bosom as indicated by her nightdress was exquisite. Her mother thought of her as a beautiful caged bird, whom soon she was going to set free – just as she thought of her husband as some loathsome reptile, exuding venom, whom she was going to crush under her heel.
Marjorie finished her preparations, and walked round to her side of the bed. For a moment she hesitated – she had long abandoned the practice (which her mother had so strictly enjoined during her childhood) of saying her prayers nightly. But in deference to her mother’s presence she went down on her knees and put her face in her hands. Tumultuous thoughts, but all of them vague and nebular, streamed instantly through her mind. Blurred pictures of George Ely in some of the attitudes in which she had seen him during the day, moved momentarily before her eyes. Then she turned out the light and climbed into the bed beside her mother.
10
There were days and days now of a happiness and a companionship which neither Marjorie nor Ely had known before. The motor car was in frequent use; they ate ice creams on the promenades of half a dozen seaside resorts, where they could watch with a satisfying feeling of superiority the crowds of red-necked young men and loud young women who did not live in a pleasant stone house outside the noisy towns and who did not enjoy the proud privilege of owning a motor car. They eyed, wonderingly, the grey beauty of Bodiam, and its moat with its ducks and waterlilies, and the thin thread of the Rother winding down through its valley.
The motor car nosed its way into the quiet lanes through the woods about Hawkhurst – Marjorie, by anxious application, learned quickly enough how to read a map so as to pilot Ely, who was still far too engrossed in the business of changing gears and rounding corners to carry any route in his head past the first crossroads. Certainly it was the motor car which supplied their earliest bond of union. When, labouring heavily, it managed to crawl up some minor gradient in top gear, Marjorie was quick to nod her appreciation – she was early infected with Ely’s enthusiasm for this first motor car of his. The first puncture was an event; they felt they had achieved something well out of the ordinary when, with no expert help at all, they had jacked up the little car and changed its wheel and found that the car went as well as ever afterwards.
Marjorie thought Mother was perfectly adorable during this time; she was always ready to assume responsibility for the children so as to set them free, and she was avid of housework, so that domestic duties consumed little of Marjorie’s time or energy. And it was the little friendly things that Mother said which helped to establish the friendly and carefree atmosphere of that holiday – other holidays had been tainted with bickerings with Ted, and even occasionally with Dot. This holiday was a period of quite unalloyed happiness.
Ely felt the same about it. He might be called almost an embittered young man in that experience had taught him always to expect disappointment. It was a delightful surprise to him to find that the long hoped for ownership of a motor car brought him all the pleasure he had wished for, doubtfully. It was still more of a surprise to him to discover that Mrs Grainger, the wife of his official superior, was so sympathetic and approachable, so readily infected with keen enthusiasm. No other women had ever found any use for or any merit in George Ely, and this was the most beautiful woman he had ever known, as well as the cleverest. Long hours of driving together imprinted indelibly on Ely’s mental retina a picture of her profile (a composite picture acquired in many hasty glances when a clear road enabled him to relax for a second his concentration upon steering), alert and yet sympathetic and reposeful.
And besides those blissful drives there were happy hours spent upon the beach, warm in the sun, with the chatter of the children to keep him just awake – George Ely was not experienced enough to realize how Marjorie’s tact and prompt interpositions prevented the children from ever annoying him, so that he had all the pleasure of their company and none of the annoyances or responsibilities. George was naturally fond of children, and he came to delight in the touch of Anne’s soft hands and in Derrick’s rogueish friendship. It was small wonder that for both Marjorie and George those weeks slipped by so fast.
At the end of one of those golden days Marjorie came out onto the verandah after having put to bed two weary and ecstatically happy children. George was washing his hands now that the bathroom was clear – one of the contrasts between George and Ted was the frequency with which the former washed his hands – but Mother was sitting knitting in her deck chair.
‘Well, my dear?’ she said, as Marjorie emerged.
‘Derrick was asleep before I could get Anne into bed,’ laughed Marjorie, sinking into her chair. Her head dropped back, and she thrust forward her bosom as though to meet the embrace of the evening sun which streamed in upon her.
‘This holiday’s done us all a world of good, I’m sure,’ said Mother.
Perhaps there may have been something of finality in the tone of her voice, some implication of the ending of a chapter in the way she spoke. Marjorie stiffened a little, and the sunshine seemed to her to lose some of its mellowness, and the gold and green landscape assumed a tinge of grey. For the first time in those mad weeks Marjorie remembered that they must end, and soon.
‘What’s today?’ asked Marjorie, hurriedly.
‘Wednesday,’ said Mother. ‘We’ll be going home on Saturday. I was just thinking when you came out that we’ll have to start finishing off the food here, dear. And if I were you – I don’t want to interfere, dear, but I thought I ought to remind you – I should start making out a list of the shopping you’ll want when you get home. You’ll need pretty nearly everything, and you’ll only have Saturday night to get them in.’
Marjorie said nothing in reply to this homely speech – she only half heard it. There were only two full days left between her and Ted, or between her and the decision she must make. She was appalled at the realization, like a spendthrift staring at the newly arrived and unexpected notification from the bank that his account is overdrawn. Mother went on placidly with her knitting – of course there was no chance of her suspecting Marjorie’s unhappiness, despite the sharp eyes which she lifted from the busy needles.
Marjorie set herself desperately to think, but time and again her mind swerved away from the problem. She was in a panic now; she even had to exert a little of her will to keep herself from actual physical flight.
‘Ah, here you are, George,’ said Mother, as Ely made his appearance. ‘Are you going to sit down?’
George took the third deck chair, and Mother’s needles went on clicking, and the sun sank lower
in the west.
‘You haven’t been out in the car today at all,’ said Mother, conversationally.
‘No,’ said George. ‘I was too busy making a castle with Derrick and Anne.’
‘It’s a lovely evening,’ said Mother. ‘Why don’t you go out now?’
It was a fine suggestion, in George’s opinion. He looked at Marjorie.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Marjorie, and then, with a twinge of conscience ‘What about you, Mother?’
‘I shall be all right,’ said Mother. ‘I want to turn this heel before I have to put the light on.’
That physical panic which Marjorie had felt was still very noticeable. She wanted to get into the car and drive and drive and drive, as though that would carry her away from the crisis which she dreaded.
‘Let’s go,’ she said, rising from her chair.
George coaxed the car out through the narrow gate with a facility painfully acquired, and Marjorie, who had been piloting him out, climbed in beside him.
‘Where shall we go?’ asked George.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Anywhere, I don’t mind,’ said Marjorie desperately.
‘I shall go to bed if you’re late,’ called Mother from the verandah. ‘But come back when you like.’
The car headed towards the golden sunset. It reached the main road, busy with the summer evening’s traffic, swung off into a by-road which George remembered, swooped down into a wooded valley, and climbed a wooded hill, climbing and climbing round tricky turns. In the premature twilight cast by the trees rabbits skipped and scuttled across the lane. The car rattled gallantly up to the crest, where suddenly the trees fell away on either hand. Far off over the grassy sky line, they could see the blue sea, with a big red sun hovering over it.
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