by Dodie Smith
‘Richard,’ she said, importantly. ‘I must speak to you at once and very privately. Not here – it’s far too public.’
She led the way into the drawing-room where they sat on two dust-sheeted chairs.
‘Such a pretty room this used to be when I took charge of the house.’ She looked around disapprovingly. ‘Always full of flowers, so beautifully arranged by Clare. Well, now: I’m sure the dear child won’t have told you quite all she told me but I gather you know the main outline of the situation. And I want to impress on you the necessity for the utmost discretion.’
He looked at her blankly. ‘Are you talking of Clare? Do you mean you’ve seen her?’
‘Yesterday. It was my main reason for going to London, though I spent some time on very necessary shopping before I began my inquiries. It was quite easy to find her as Jane Minton told me she was staying at one of the very best hotels. I asked first at the one I like most – where I’ve often been for tea. And there she was and simply delighted to see me. She told me the whole story at once. Poor child, she expected me to be shocked!’
‘And you weren’t?’ said Richard dazedly.
‘Of course not. But some people would be. That’s why I urge complete discretion. Nothing must be known in the village; be careful not to talk in front of the maids. I’ve said nothing to Violet. And I strongly advise you not to tell Jane Minton. She’s a good creature but her standards are essentially middle class. An affair like this needs the aristocratic approach.’
‘Oh, quite,’ said Richard, tickled to hear his aunt dissociate herself from the middle class.
‘A king, whether reigning or not, is always above petty conventions. Perhaps Clare will assist him to regain his throne.’
‘I don’t fancy he wants to,’ said Richard.
‘He may now, on Clare’s account. Perhaps we shall see her a queen – for of course he wishes to marry her. Unfortunately I was not able to meet him as he’s abroad for a few days. He now reigns over what I believe is called a Business Empire. Clare hopes to present me later.’
She continued to chatter happily, stressing Clare’s affection for her. ‘The dear girl pinned these roses to my coat. A perfect setting for her, that lovely room, but no doubt her own house will be even more delightful. Our tastes, of course, have always been similar.’ And gradually it dawned on him that she was partly identifying herself with Clare. Perhaps her past treatment of Clare, at times amounting to persecution, had been an effort to re-create Clare in her own image and she was now replacing this by re-creating herself in Clare’s image, in order to enjoy a longed-for romance. He was more and more sure she was a little mad but her madness seemed harmless – indeed benign, for it emerged that she had decided to leave Dome House and live in London, to be near to Clare.
‘But can you afford to?’ he asked involuntarily.
‘With economy, at some quiet hotel. I shall let my house.’ No point in reminding her she’d told him it was already let, also that she was practically penniless; he doubted if she now knew the difference between fact and fiction. She might be inventing Clare’s pleasure at seeing her, or had Clare, out of the largesse of her happiness, found some affection to spare for her once-hated old aunt? He thought it possible. Had not Clare said: ‘I couldn’t hate anyone now’?
‘When do you plan to leave us?’ he inquired politely.
‘Almost at once. I came here as soon as I saw your father’s name in the papers, to do all I could to help; at such times, family solidarity counts for so much. But you’re over the first shock now and Clare’s need of me is greater.’
How revelatory they were, those words ‘name in the papers’! For her they had indicated not a reprehensible notoriety but a romantic celebrity, something it would increase her self-importance to share in; that was why she had come. And now her ego was feeding on thoughts of sharing far more romantic circumstances – he noted the visionary look in her faded blue eyes. He also noted something else: a faint but indubitable resemblance to Clare. And it occurred to him that there, but for the grace of God, went Clare in her old age, finding in some hazy cloud cuckoo land a refuge from a lifetime of repression. Though it seemed a bit blasphemous to equate the grace of God with Charles Rowley.
Incidentally, he wondered just how long his aunt’s new dream world would last. For would Clare, however kind her present mood, be willing to see much of a half-dotty old woman? Pleased though he was that Aunt Winifred would soon be on her way, he felt a little sorry for her.
Edith, looking worried, opened the drawing-room door. ‘Will you come and see Burly, Mr Richard? We’re wondering if we ought to telephone the Vet.’
Richard rose at once, saying, ‘You go back to the fire, Aunt Winifred.’
‘That dog should be put down, Richard. It’s not pleasant having an ailing old dog around the house.’
How swiftly she had lost his sympathy! Seeing Edith’s outraged expression he whispered to her as they crossed the hall. ‘Never mind. She’s going.’
‘Thank God for a bit of good news,’ said Edith.
Cook was kneeling beside Burly who lay with his heavy golden head flopping over the edge of the basket, every line of his obese body indicating exhaustion. His wide-open old eyes stoically faced his fast-approaching death; they had been capable of that expression since puppyhood.
‘Is his ear still bleeding?’ asked Richard.
‘Not now, but he won’t eat,’ said Cook.
Richard knelt, studied the selection of food which had already been offered, then festooned Burly’s greying muzzle with a thin strip of boiled ham. In an effort to dislodge this, Burly got a bit inside his mouth and failed to disguise interest. After that, he accepted all there was for him and seemed to want more. Cook went happily to the refrigerator and no more was said about the Vet.
‘Still, we won’t take him to the Swan tomorrow,’ said Edith. ‘It upsets his pride. And one of us must stay at home with him. Mr Richard, was there a letter from Drew?’
He admitted there had been and that Drew had nothing against letting rooms to Miss Willy. ‘All the same, I can’t decide yet.’ He hurried out of the kitchen. Damn it, even Burly was now rooting for Jane’s scheme. Finding Violet, horizontal in black lace, alone in the hall, he went to his bedroom until supper was ready. It proved to be a sparse meal only nominally liver and bacon, Burly having been given much of the liver.
After supper, Richard said: ‘I have an important piece of work to finish and I shall be most grateful not to be disturbed unless it is absolutely necessary.’
This remark was greeted with such a stunned silence that he guessed he must have sounded pompous. But Jane did eventually manage a kind ‘We quite understand.’
He went to his music room and locked himself in. If Violet arrived he would tell her to go to hell. He was not coming out until he had made up his mind.
But had it not been made up for him by Jane, Cook, Edith, Drew and even old basket-loving Burly? What opposition was there, now Aunt Winifred was going and Violet would surely leave willingly provided he accepted her invitation for London weekends? (He wasn’t going to consider her suggestion that he should live in London … Well, he wasn’t going to consider yet.) Why shouldn’t he sit back, accept the Willy contingent, live peacefully here in his music room and work, say, five days a week?
He only knew that he loathed the idea of it. Well, that was just too bad as there was no alternative.
He looked around the room, trying to see it as a warm, comfortable bed-sitting-room. It was not only cold now; it was beginning to feel damp. His books would soon be mildewed and his piano would be affected. His eyes travelled from it to his gramophone. The Third Rasoumovsky Quartet was still on the record-player. Should he listen to it now? Certainly not. He must make up his mind.
Thinking of the quartet reminded him of Merry and her still unread letter. Well, he would allow himself that. He took it from his pocket and began to read, admiring the pretty, already formed hand which she could
write with surprising speed.
Darling Richard,
I have written direct to Claude and told him where I am. If he wants to come here he must – it will be my cross and I deserve to bear it for my disgusting behaviour. Oh, Richard, I am deep in sin! I sinned against myself, as I told you, and now I have sinned against Claude and it is all due to vanity. Why do I lust to show off? I shall never achieve anything unless I cure myself of it. I may have a bit of talent (false humility – I’m convinced I’ve quite a lot) but it won’t get me anywhere if I have a cheap, vain little soul.
Anyway, I haven’t shown off in my letter to Claude. I’ve told him the plain truth – that I made a mistake through being young and foolish. And if he does come here I won’t show off then – though I may act a bit and seem even younger than I am; I think that will cure him more than anything. I hear you say: ‘Don’t overdo it.’ All right, I’ll resist the temptation to be playing with my tiny bucket and spade on the sands (only shingle here). I’ll be young in the dullest way, gawky and flat-chested – perhaps I can hire a brace to put on my teeth.
Poor Claude! It will be terrible for him to find he loves a girl who doesn’t really exist. One might write a play about it – very good part for me. I truly do feel sorry for him and I’m ashamed that I called him a codfish. It was a cliché, anyway – but he does have a cliché face.
Now about Clare. Drew says you were shocked. Oh, Richard, you shouldn’t be. What’s happened is a miracle of rightness – for her. She’d never have married some nice young man, as one expects a pretty, rather colourless girl to. The truth is, she was only colourless because she was so bored with life – I can see it so clearly now. Somehow one expects anyone who looks so angelic to be angelic, anyway conventional, and dote on children, domesticity, arranging flowers and the like. I never knew Clare to dote on anything and thought she wasn’t capable of it. Now I realize there was simply nothing at home she found dote-worthy. Why did we never guess she was too romantic for everyday life? Drew has a theory she’s somehow invented the life that’s right for her. And Charles Rowley sounds to me ravishing (suitable word, now I come to think of it, but perhaps that shocks you). Handsome men are dead out – oh, sorry, darling Richard; anyway, you’re not handsome in a conventional way.
I wish I felt as happy about Drew as I feel about Clare. I can’t help thinking he will become a prisoner here, imprisoned by Miss Whitecliff’s need of him. She’s an absolute pet, somehow like an old lady and a very bright child rolled into one. I don’t mean that she’s the least bit crazy. It’s just that, for her, it’s ‘O brave new world, that has such people in’t’ – the people being Drew and the world being brave because he’s showing it to her. I’m sure he finds it rewarding work but will he always? Anyway, he’ll one day be rich because she’s left him half her money. She told me, with glee, that she’d changed her will just before her niece last came here, so that she could promise the niece she never would change it if the niece would leave her alone. I found Drew didn’t know about this, though he can see now that it fits with her behaviour the day the niece came. He was grateful but seemed a bit upset too. Perhaps it makes him feel all the more tied. Oh, I expect things will work out. She gets more independent every day – and is avid for modernity, rather fancies flying! And in a way, I can see it’s right for Drew. Anyhow, he’s so good and good people are usually happy. But do happy things happen to the good, or can the good make happiness out of unhappiness?
And now about you. Drew’s said so little and he wouldn’t let me read the letter that came yesterday, only gave me the gist of it, so I suspect he’s hiding something. If so, you probably told him to and I won’t worry you by questions. But I want to say, in the loudest possible shout, that I utterly disapprove of the Weary Willy invasion idea. And if I rank as a voting member of the family, I vote NO, in outsize capitals.
Richard, you would loathe it. Remember, I know Weary Willy’s teachers. You’d die of embarrassment when you came in for meals (not to mention baths) and probably end by being rude to them. And you can’t live your whole life in that dreary music room. There’s something wrong with that room, Richard. I felt it again when I was in there last week, playing the Third Rasouniovsky. I don’t mean it’s haunted – nothing so exciting – but it’s somehow lifeless, like a church that’s never been prayed in.
He broke off, staggered by her insight, which had revealed something he had never before admitted. At no time on entering the room had he felt a hopeful excitement, an eager readiness to work. He had experienced it in various other rooms: an attic in Germany, a practice room at school, the drawing-room at Dome House where he had first learned to play the piano. But here he had to chum up eagerness, kick himself into working – even when, as so recently, he had felt eagerly ready up to the very moment of opening the door. He looked around at his musical instruments, his library of scores, critical studies, books on composition – could one ask for a better equipped work room? Why, then, was it so hard to work in?
And it was no use blaming some inimical psychic emanation from the old barn, because he had loved the barn when it was a barn, often jotted down work here; indeed, his love of it was one of his reasons for converting it. But now …
He went back to Merry’s letter.
Please forgive me if I seem impertinent, but I don’t think you are ready yet for a peaceful, creative life – and therefore what should be the peace in your room is a kind of false peace, rather like death. Things would have come right if Father hadn’t bolted. You wouldn’t always have stayed put at home and gradually you’d have – well, caught up with your music room.
Did she mean that his room was pretentious, suitable for a talent more proved than his? If so, she was right. As well might one furnish a room with dictionaries and hope to turn into a poet. And he had always known he should have stayed in Germany longer; his father would have gone on financing him instead of footing the bill for converting the barn. But he’d missed his family and the comfort of his home – a womb-like comfort, no doubt … What more had Merry to say?
People who act, or perform in any way, can count on already created work to learn their job on. But creators have nothing but themselves, they just have to be – and surely it’s very hard to be without doing a bit of living first? (Unless one’s a Mozart and I always think he’d carried forward some living from a previous life.) It’s most unfair that Clare and Drew and I have put in quite a lot of living this last month, while you’ve been tied to a niggling, worrying life which is most unnatural to you. And you still feel tied. It’s utterly wrong, darling Richard. So I have done something which may annoy you. I won’t say what it is, because nothing may come of it; besides, this letter must end now, if I’m to catch the post. But if anything does happen, please try to see some way. You could do it; however impossible it seems. Anyway, please don’t be angry with me.
Your most loving sister, admirer and well-wisher
Merry.
Well, whatever she’d done, he wouldn’t be angry with her; he was too grateful for her letter, all the more so because she had written it at a time when her own affairs might have been expected to fill her mind. And how astonishing that anyone of her age should be so shrewdly clear-sighted! Well, he’d always thought she had the best brains in the family. Still, he didn’t see how she could have found any way of helping him.
He went to his record-player and started it at the Andante of the Third Rasoumovsky, telling himself he would play it as a tribute to Merry … and also to get away from the thoughts her letter had provoked. He lay down on his divan and listened.
But the music did not as usual take over. Instead, he found himself thinking of Merry’s menace-filled mist … and then of Violet calling through the mist that afternoon, Violet sitting on the stubble with her long legs in laddered stockings thrust out in front of her. No other woman had ever told him she was in love with him. Suppose he did go and stay with her? At least that would be – in Merry’s phrase – ‘a bit of liv
ing’. Pretty luxurious living, he suspected, amused that like his brother and sisters he was gravitating towards riches. According to a theory of Drew’s, one got from life what one subconsciously expected. Well, perhaps early security had conditioned them all to expect its continuance. And there were precedents for young composers having rich patrons. Violet, dear horizontal Violet, would make a charming patron. He found his mental stress driven away by a relaxing surge of emotion …
But he was incapable of sustaining such a mood for long and he soon felt annoyed with himself for using the music as a mere background for it. He got up and turned off the record-player. And as he did so, there was a knock on the door.
It would be Violet, of course. He was instantly furious with her, yet some of the tenderness of his banished mood remained. And the fury and the tenderness combined in a curiously pleasing manner. For once, Violet had chosen her moment well. He unlocked the door and flung it open.
Jane stood outside.
‘Richard, I am sorry, but there’s a personal call for you – from somewhere in Yorkshire.’
‘There can’t be. I don’t know anyone in Yorkshire.’ Perhaps it was one of Aunt Winifred’s myths. ‘Did my aunt take the call?’
‘No, I did, and I’m quite sure about Yorkshire, though I didn’t hear the name of the place clearly. It sounded like …’
But he barely waited to hear. He had suddenly remembered that he did indeed know someone in Yorkshire. So that was what Merry had been up to …
Epilogue Under the Dome
Jane
Unwisely, she’d let herself sit down in the music room after Richard went to the telephone, and had at once begun thinking of Rupert Carrington. She would always associate the room with their last meeting. When in there talking to Richard, a few days before, she’d held such thoughts at bay; but, left alone, she didn’t even attempt to and was soon extremely depressed. For some while now she had given up hair-splitting as to the exact nature of her feeling for Rupert and simply accepted the fact that he mattered greatly to her; but her work, her plans, and an only occasionally lifted embargo on what she thought of as ‘sentimental wallowing’, had kept her cheerful. The music room provided an irresistible background for wallowing and it was a good ten minutes – Richard hadn’t come back – before she returned to the house. She had found the hall deserted, had her bath and gone to bed.