And now Stephen was trembling. In spite of her strength and her splendid physique she must stand there and tremble. She felt deathly cold, her teeth chattered with cold, and when she moved her steps were unsteady. She must climb the wide stairs with infinite care, in case she should inadvertently stumble; must lift her feet slowly, and with infinite care, because if she stumbled she might wake Mary.
4
TEN days later Stephen was saying to her mother: ‘I’ve been needing a change for a very long time. It’s rather lucky that a girl I met in the Unit is free and able to go with me. We’ve taken a villa at Orotava, it’s supposed to be furnished and they’re leaving the servants, but heaven only knows what the house will be like, it belongs to a Spaniard; however, there’ll be sunshine.’
‘I believe Orotava’s delightful,’ said Anna.
But Puddle, who was looking at Stephen, said nothing.
That night Stephen knocked at Puddle’s door: ‘May I come in?’
‘Yes, come in, do, my dear. Come and sit by the fire—shall I make you some cocoa?’
‘No, thanks.’
A long pause while Puddle slipped into her dressing-gown of soft, grey Viyella. Then she also drew a chair up to the fire, and after a little: ‘It’s good to see you—your old teacher’s been missing you rather badly.’
‘Not more than I’ve been missing her, Puddle.’ Was that quite true? Stephen suddenly flushed, and both of them grew very silent.
Puddle knew quite well that Stephen was unhappy. They had not lived side by side all these years, for Puddle to fail now in intuition; she felt certain that something grave had happened, and her instinct warned her of what this might be, so that she secretly trembled a little. For no young and inexperienced girl sat beside her, but a woman of nearly thirty-two, who was far beyond the reach of her guidance. This woman would settle her problems for herself and in her own way—had indeed always done so. Puddle must try to be tactful in her questions.
She said gently: ‘Tell me about your new friend. You met her in the Unit?’
‘Yes—we met in the Unit, as I told you this evening—her name’s Mary Llewellyn.’
‘How old is she, Stephen?’
‘Not quite twenty-two.’
Puddle said: ‘Very young—not yet twenty-two …’ then she glanced at Stephen, and fell silent.
But now Stephen went on talking more quickly: ‘I’m glad you asked me about her, Puddle, because I intend to give her a home. She’s got no one except some distant cousins, and as far as I can see they don’t want her. I shall let her have a try at typing my work, as she’s asked to, it will make her feel independent; otherwise, of course, she’ll be perfectly free—if it’s not a success she can always leave me—but I rather hope it will be a success. She’s companionable, we like the same things, anyhow she’ll give me an interest in life.…’
Puddle thought: ‘She’s not going to tell me.’
Stephen took out her cigarette case from which she produced a clear little snapshot: ‘It’s not very good, it was done at the front.’
But Puddle was gazing at Mary Llewellyn. Then she looked up abruptly and saw Stephen’s eyes—without a word she handed back the snapshot.
Stephen said: ‘Now I want to talk about you. Will you go to Paris at once, or stay here until we come home from Orotava? It’s just as you like, the house is quite ready, you’ve only got to send Pauline a postcard; they’re expecting you there at any moment.’ And she waited for Puddle’s answer.
Then Puddle, that small but indomitable fighter, stood forth all alone to do battle with herself, to strike down a sudden hot jealousy, a sudden and almost fierce resentment. And she saw that self as a tired old woman, a woman grown dull and tired with long service; a woman who had outlived her reason for living, whose companionship was now useless to Stephen. A woman who suffered from rheumatism in the winter and from lassitude in the summer; a woman who when young had never known youth, except as a scourge to a sensitive conscience. And now she was old and what had life left her? Not even the privilege of guarding her friend—for Puddle knew well that her presence in Paris would only embarrass while unable to hinder. Nothing could stay fate if the hour had struck; and yet, from the very bottom of her soul, she was fearing that hour for Stephen. And—who shall presume to accuse or condemn?—she actually found it in her to pray that Stephen might be granted some measure of fulfilment, some palliative for the wound of existence: ‘Not like me—don’t let her grow old as I’ve done.’ Then she suddenly remembered that Stephen was waiting.
She said quietly: ‘Listen, my dear, I’ve been thinking; I don’t feel that I ought to leave your mother, her heart’s not very strong—nothing serious, of course—still, she oughtn’t to live all alone at Morton; and quite apart from the question of health, living alone’s a melancholy business. There’s another thing too. I’ve grown tired and lazy, and I don’t want to pull up my roots if I can help it. When one’s getting on in years, one gets set in one’s ways, and my ways fit in very well with Morton. I didn’t want to come here, Stephen, as I told you, but I was all wrong, for your mother needs me—she needs me more now than during the war, because during the war she had occupation. Oh, but good heavens! I’m a silly old woman—did you know that I used to get homesick for England? I used to get homesick for penny buns. Imagine it, and I was living in Paris! Only—’ And now her voice broke a little: ‘Only, if ever you should feel that you need me, if ever you should feel that you want my advice or my help, you’d send for me, wouldn’t you, my dear? Because old as I am, I’d be able to run if I thought that you really needed me, Stephen.’
Stephen held out her hand and Puddle grasped it. ‘There are some things I can’t express,’ Stephen said slowly; ‘I can’t express my gratitude to you for all you’ve done—I can’t find any words. But—I want you to know that I’m trying to play straight.’
‘You’d always play straight in the end,’ said Puddle.
And so, after nearly eighteen years of life together, these two staunch friends and companions had now virtually parted.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
1
THE VILLA DEL CIPRÉS at Orotava was built on a headland above the Puerto. It had taken its name from its fine cypress trees, of which there were many in the spacious garden. At the Puerto there were laughter, shouting and singing as the oxen wagons with their crates of bananas came grating and stumbling down to the wharf. At the Puerto one might almost have said there was commerce, for beyond the pier waited the dirty fruit steamers; but the Villa del Ciprés stood proudly aloof like a Spanish grandee who had seen better days—one felt that it literally hated commerce.
The villa was older than the streets of the Puerto, though much grass grew between their venerable cobbles. It was older than the oldest villas on the hill, the hill that was known as old Orotava, though their green latticed shutters were bleached by the suns of innumerable semi-tropical summers. It was so old indeed, that no peasant could have told you precisely when it had come into being; the records were lost, if they had ever existed—for its history one had to apply to its owner. But then its owner was always in Spain, and his agent who kept the place in repair was too lazy to bother himself over trifles. What could it matter when the first stone was laid, or who laid it? The villa was always well let—he would yawn, roll a cigarette in his fingers, lick the paper with the thick, red tip of his tongue, and finally go to sleep in the sunshine to dream only of satisfactory commissions.
The Villa del Ciprés was a low stone house that had once been tinted a lemon yellow. Its shutters were greener than those on the hill, for every ten years or so they were painted. All its principal windows looked over the sea that lay at the foot of the little headland. There were large, dim rooms with rough mosaic floors and walls that were covered by ancient frescoes. Some of these frescoes were primitive but holy, others were primitive but distinctly less holy; however, they were all so badly defaced, that the tenants were spared what might otherwise h
ave been rather a shock at the contrast. The furniture, although very good of its kind, was sombre, and moreover it was terribly scanty, for its owner was far too busy in Seville to attend to his villa in Orotava. But one glory the old house did certainly possess; its garden, a veritable Eden of a garden, obsessed by a kind of primitive urge towards all manner of procreation. It was hot with sunshine and the flowing of sap, so that even its shade held a warmth in its greenness, while the virile growth of its flowers and its trees gave off a strangely disturbing fragrance. These trees had long been a haven for birds, from the crested hoopoes to the wild canaries who kept up a chorus of song in the branches.
2
STEPHEN and Mary arrived at the Villa del Ciprés, not very long after Christmas. They had spent their Christmas Day aboard ship, and on landing had stayed for a week at Santa Cruz before taking the long, rough drive to Orotava. And as though the fates were being propitious, or unpropitious perhaps—who shall say?—the garden was looking its loveliest, almost melodramatic it looked in the sunset. Mary gazed round her wide-eyed with pleasure; but after a while her eyes must turn, as they always did now, to rest upon Stephen; while Stephen’s uncertain and melancholy eyes must look back with great love in their depths for Mary.
Together they made the tour of the villa, and when this was over Stephen laughed a little; ‘Not much of anything, is there, Mary?’
‘No, but quite enough. Who wants tables and chairs?’
‘Well, if you’re contented, I am,’ Stephen told her. And indeed, so far as the Villa del Ciprés went, they were both very well contented.
They discovered that the indoor staff would consist of two peasants; a plump, smiling woman called Concha, who adhered to the ancient tradition of the island and tied her head up in a white linen kerchief, and a girl whose black hair was elaborately dressed, and whose cheeks were very obviously powdered—Concha’s niece she was, by name Esmeralda. Esmeralda looked cross, but this may have been because she squinted so badly.
In the garden worked a handsome person called Ramon, together with Pedro, a youth of sixteen. Pedro was light-hearted, precocious and spotty. He hated his simple work in the garden; what he liked was driving his father’s mules for the tourists, according to Ramon. Ramon spoke English passably well; he had picked it up from the numerous tenants and was proud of this fact, so while bringing in the luggage he paused now and then to impart information. It was better to hire mules and donkeys from the father of Pedro—he had very fine mules and donkeys. It was better to take Pedro and none other as your guide, for thus would be saved any little ill-feeling. It was better to let Concha do all the shopping—she was honest and wise as the Blessed Virgin. It was better never to scold Esmeralda, who was sensitive on account of her squint and therefore inclined to be easily wounded. If you wounded the heart of Esmeralda, she walked out of the house and Concha walked with her. The island women were often like this; you upset them and per Dios, your dinner could burn! They would not even wait to attend to your dinner.
‘You come home,’ smiled Ramon, ‘and you say, “What burns? Is my villa on fire?” Then you call and you call. No answer … all gone!’ And he spread out his hands with a wide and distressingly empty gesture.
Ramon said that it was better to buy flowers from him: ‘I cut fresh from the garden when you want,’ he coaxed gently. He spoke even his broken English with the soft, rather sing-song drawl of the local peasants.
‘But aren’t they our flowers?’ inquired Mary, surprised.
Ramon shook his head: ‘Yours to see, yours to touch, but not yours to take, only mine to take—I sell them as part of my little payment. But to you I sell very cheap, Señorita, because you resemble the santa noche that makes our gardens smell sweet at night. I will show you our beautiful santa noche.’ He was thin as a lath and as brown as a chestnut, and his shirt was quite incredibly dirty; but when he walked he moved like a king on his rough bare feet with their broken toe-nails. ‘This evening I make you a present of my flowers; I bring you a very big bunch of tabachero,’ he remarked.
‘Oh, you mustn’t do that,’ protested Mary, getting out her purse.
But Ramon looked offended: ‘I have said it. I give you the tabachero.’
3
THEIR dinner consisted of a local fish fried in oil—the fish had a very strange figure, and the oil, Stephen thought, tasted slightly rancid; there was also a small though muscular chicken. But Concha had provided large baskets of fruit; loquats still warm from the tree that bred them, the full flavoured little indigenous bananas, oranges sweet as though dripping honey, custard apples and guavas had Concha provided, together with a bottle of the soft yellow wine so dearly beloved of the island Spaniards.
Outside in the garden there was luminous darkness. The night had a quality of glory about it, the blue glory peculiar to Africa and seen seldom or never in our more placid climate. A warm breeze stirred the eucalyptus trees and their crude, harsh smell was persistently mingled with the thick scents of heliotrope and datura, with the sweet but melancholy scent of jasmine, with the faint, unmistakable odour of cypress.
Stephen lit a cigarette: ‘Shall we go out, Mary?’
They stood for a minute looking up at the stars, so much larger and brighter than stars seen in England. From a pond on the farther side of the villa came the queer, hoarse chirping of innumerable frogs singing their prehistoric love songs. A star fell, shooting swiftly earthward through the darkness.
Then the sweetness that was Mary seemed to stir and mingle with the very urgent sweetness of that garden; with the dim, blue glory of the African night, and with all the stars in their endless courses, so that Stephen could have wept aloud as she stood there, because of the words that must not be spoken. For now that this girl was returning to health, her youth was becoming even more apparent, and something in the quality of Mary’s youth, something terrible and ruthless as an unsheathed sword, would leap out at such moments and stand between them.
Mary slipped a small, cool hand into Stephen’s, and they walked on towards the edge of the headland. For a long time they gazed out over the sea, while their thoughts were always of one another. But Mary’s thoughts were not very coherent, and because she was filled with a vague discontent she sighed and moved even nearer to Stephen, who suddenly put an arm round her shoulder.
Stephen said: ‘Are you tired, you little child?’ And her husky voice was infinitely gentle, so that Mary’s eyes filled with sudden tears.
She answered: ‘I’ve waited a long, long time, all my life—and now that I’ve found you at last, I can’t get near you. Why is it? Tell me.’
‘Aren’t you near? It seems to me you’re quite near!’ And Stephen must smile in spite of herself.
‘Yes, but you feel such a long way away.’
‘That’s because you’re not only tired out but foolish!’
Yet they lingered; for when they returned to the villa they would part, and they dreaded these moments of parting. Sometimes they would suddenly remember the night before it had fallen, and when this happened each would be conscious of a very great sadness which their hearts would divine, the one from the other.
But presently Stephen took Mary’s arm: ‘I believe that big star’s moved over more than six inches! It’s late—we must have been out here for ages.’ And she led the girl slowly back to the villa.
4
THE DAYS slipped by, days of splendid sunshine that gave bodily health and strength to Mary. Her pale skin was tanned to a healthful brown, and her eyes no longer looked heavy with fatigue—only now their expression was seldom happy.
She and Stephen would ride far afield on their mules; they would often ride right up into the mountains, climbing the hill to old Orotava where the women sat at their green postigos through the long, quiet hours of their indolent day and right on into the evening. The walls of the town would be covered with flowers, jasmine, plumbago and bougainvillea. But they would not linger in old Orotava; pressing on they would climb always up
and up to the region of health and trailing arbutus, and beyond that again to the higher slopes that had once been the home of a mighty forest. Now, only a few Spanish chestnut trees remained to mark the decline of that forest.
Sometimes they took their luncheon along, and when they did this young Pedro went with them, for he it was who must drive the mule that carried Concha’s ample lunch-basket. Pedro adored these impromptu excursions, they made an excuse for neglecting the garden. He would saunter along chewing blades of grass, or the stem of some flower he had torn from a wall; or perhaps he would sing softly under his breath, for he knew many songs of his native island. But if the mule Celestino should stumble, or presume, in his turn, to tear flowers from a wall, then Pedro would suddenly cease his soft singing and shout guttural remarks to old Celestino: ‘Vaya, burro! Celestino, arre! Arre—boo!’ he would shout with a slap, so that Celestino must swallow his flowers in one angry gulp, before having a sly kick at Pedro.
The lunch would be eaten in the cool upland air, while the beasts stood near at hand, placidly grazing. Against a sky of incredible blueness the Peak would gleam as though powdered with crystal—Teide, mighty mountain of snow with the heart of fire and the brow of crystal. Down the winding tracks would come goats with their herds, the tinkle of goat-bells breaking the stillness. And as all such things have seemed wonderful to lovers throughout the ages, even so now they seemed very wonderful to Mary and Stephen.
The Well of Loneliness Page 35