“He’s getting old.”
“He’s getting lazy.” Or perhaps he considered himself a permanent fixture.
“He’s dependable, and that’s what I need,” Payton said, as much on the defensive as he would ever allow himself to be. He rose, adding, “I’ll remember to make an appointment for you with Dr. Formby.” He hesitated for a moment. “Any other news for me?” he asked suddenly.
She evaded his eyes. “Nothing much. The luncheon was dull. I saw Mother there, by the way. Only for a moment, though: she had another meeting at three o’clock. She wants us all to go to Whitecraigs on Sunday.”
“Sunday?” He shook his head. “That’s impossible for me.”
It always was, she thought unhappily.
Payton said, “But why don’t you take Kate along? Say I’m sorry, that I’m nursing a heavy cold.”
“I’ve used that excuse before,” she reminded him. “Really, Payton, for a man who is as healthy as you are, you do think of the strangest excuses.” She was half laughing. But he wasn’t amused.
“Sunday’s quite impossible,” he said stiffly. He bent over and kissed her cheek. “It’s two o’clock, and not a time to argue. Good night, dear.”
He paused at the door to say, “I hear Jan Brovic is back in Washington.”
“Yes,” she said. “We—we were discussing that at dinner.”
There was a silence.
Sylvia said, “What are you going to do, Payton?”
He looked startled for a moment. “About Brovic? Why, nothing at all. Is there any need to do anything?”
She said, wondering why she hadn’t the sense to drop all further mention of Jan—except that to be too silent about him might seem odd, “You used to see him a lot.”
“Things have changed since then.” He didn’t leave, but stood watching her as if he expected her to say something more.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you agree with Martin Clark,” she said, trying to make her voice light. “Stewart Hallis will be shocked.”
“Good night, Sylvia,” he said abruptly and left.
At least, she thought, Payton will show no interest in Jan Brovic. We shan’t see him. And after a week or two Jan will stop trying to see me. It has to be that way. It has to be, for Jan’s own safety. What madness it had been to speak to her today!... But then, Jan had always taken chances. No, it’s all over, she told herself angrily, all over. But why do you persuade yourself so much?
She didn’t answer that. She forced herself to think of Payton, of Payton’s gentleness and trust. She became calm and practical again. She began to pull the pillows into place for sleeping, wondering a little that Payton’s political tolerance for once had found a limit. He was the kind of man whose own thinking was as honest and straightforward as Martin Clark’s, but whose willingness to see all sides of a question made him as broadminded as Hallis. She had been prepared for a small speech on the cruel prejudices of today’s politics, such as he had given when Minlow had resigned and lost some of his friends. Instead, he had spoken as if Jan Brovic deserved any snubs that were coming to him. Jan, she was thinking again, remembering him as she had seen him today. Jan...
She was stifling. She rose and opened the window wide. She stood looking out over the garden. Against a white wall, the yellow forsythia’s long straight sprays were silvered by moonlight. The magnolia tree was a dark shadow, waiting for the warmth of spring: in another month it would be heavy with flowers and fragrance. Dogwood and lilac, they’d come soon, too. The garden was wakening from its cold sleep. Even the grass, this week, had grown to life, fresh and green again; the first daffodils were showing, the early violets...
The curtains beside her were suddenly sucked out by the night air. She turned. Payton, his dressing-gown wrapped tightly around him, stood at the opened door.
“Sylvia, you’ll catch cold. Get to bed,” he said almost harshly. He stood there, unmoving, watching her as she obeyed him. She was trembling a little.
But he didn’t come forward. He said, slowly now, “Sylvia, we were talking about Brovic. I don’t expect you ever to see him again. You understand?”
She lay quite still, scarcely breathing. She stared at his face. He knows, she thought, he has always known about Jan.
He left as suddenly, as silently as he had entered. Sylvia lay staring at the closed door. And at last, she reached out to switch off the light. But she didn’t fall asleep.
5
Kate awoke, as she usually did, at half-past six, not that she thought there was any particular virtue in early rising, but simply because a firmly established habit was hard to break. Each day’s life had begun briskly on the ranch at Santa Rosita; and at Berkeley, classes started at eight o’clock. So here she was, wide awake, ready to get up there; and there wasn’t a sound from the rest of the house.
“I’ve too much to see, today,” she told the canopy arched overhead, “to lie here and stare up at you.” She rose and had her shower, dressing quickly, her excitement growing with the strangeness of the new world that lay outside her windows, waiting to be explored. It was almost seven o’clock, now. The house was still as silent as an empty church.
She opened one of the windows wide and leaned on its high, narrow sill. Below was the street, clean-washed by heavy rain which had fallen mysteriously during the night. I might have been dead for all I heard it, she thought. While we’re asleep, we are dead; and yet when we’re asleep the mind is alive. We see and hear nothing if we’re deep in sleep, but poets can waken to write lines they hadn’t imagined yesterday. I wish I were a poet and could write about this empty street, lonely as it is now, pulling me back a hundred and fifty years or more. Now, it looks real. It looks possible. It isn’t invaded by men in smart double-breasted suits or women in nylon stockings and short skirts to turn it into something quaintly historical.
But once, almost two hundred years ago, this narrow street would have been called contemporary. These houses would have been thought fine specimens of all that was up to date. Who wanted a Jacobean house, or even early Georgian? After all a new house was new, wasn’t it? And Robert Adam, that young modernist in Scotland, was designing the most exciting rooms down to the last detail. (Poor Robert, fame had robbed him of his first name.) No doubt, Robert had prided himself on being new and different, she thought—oh, why don’t I think of things like that to say at dinner parties?
A glossy car, very 1951, with a wide set of chromium teeth in full grin, drove through the street and broke the spell. She turned away from the window. I’m hungry, she admitted. It was half-past seven. And breakfast?
She went downstairs quietly. There was a soft movement in the hall. Walter, wearing a green apron, carrying a dustpan filled with cigarette stubs, had come out of the drawing-room. His solemn face looked startled for a moment. He was a man of about fifty, with a solid waistline and a thatch of white hair well-watered into place. But even at this hour, in shirtsleeves and apron, he still managed to look the gentleman’s gentleman imported from London. In his own way, he was a period piece, too.
“Good morning, Walter.”
“Good morning, Miss Jerold.”
“When’s breakfast?”
“Minna will prepare your tray and take it upstairs along with Mrs. Payton’s. At nine o’clock, miss.”
“Oh—And Mr. Pleydell?”
“He has breakfast downstairs. At a quarter past eight. He likes to breakfast alone.”
There was a slight pause. “I’m hungry, Walter,” she said, and waited with amusement.
“I’m sorry, miss.” He frowned at the dustpan of cigarette stubs. “I’ve to clear the downstairs rooms and air them. Then I make and serve Mr. Pleydell’s breakfast.” His accent had become more pronounced, as if to reprimand her for forcing him to make distasteful explanations.
“Oh,” she said. Was Walter actually advising her to go upstairs, climb back into bed and wait for a breakfast tray? “Of course,” she said, smiling, “you could dire
ct me to the nearest drugstore for a cup of coffee.”
But Walter was not amused.
“Perhaps,” she said, slightly quelled, “you would ask Minna to give me breakfast now?”
“Minna doesn’t come here until half-past eight.”
“Look,” she said, annoyed, “I know I’m a nuisance breaking into your routine, but I am hungry.”
He glanced unhappily towards the dining-room, as if to show politely the work he had still to do. “Mr. Pleydell likes—”
“Quite.” That’s how Payton would talk. “So just show me the kitchen and let me find some breakfast for myself.” He was horrified.
“Where’s the kitchen? Through this door?” He looked so unhappy that she smiled to cheer him up. He has his routine, she thought, and he is stuck with it. “It’s all right, Walter. I can cook.”
His face was frozen, disapproving. She pushed open the door into the pantry. If that’s a servant, she thought, then give me an automatic dishwasher. How stupid can people get? Not one suggestion to offer, except a scarcely hidden wish that I’d vanish, melt into the air. Perhaps that’s what he really wants— all of us to melt into thin air and leave him in peace in this house, with three good meals a day and only his own cigarette stubs to clear away.
Quickly she prepared breakfast and set it on a tray to carry upstairs. Seven minutes, she noticed. Walter had almost spent as much time in explaining. As she crossed the hall, she could hear him opening windows in the dining-room to show how busy he was.
As she settled down to breakfast in her room, with a guide to Washington opened beside her, she found she was thinking about Payton Pleydell. He might have excellent taste in Latrobe mantelpieces and an appreciative eye for beauty, but was he such a good judge of people after all? Was he too impressed by surface qualities, by appearance, by people who said “Yes” to him? “Poor Sylvia!” she exclaimed suddenly, and then was a little startled. Now, why had she said that? And said it so feelingly? Last night she had been congratulating Sylvia. Perhaps, she thought as she began to laugh at herself, perhaps when I was dead asleep my mind was alive with its own fancies. Perhaps it was deciding a lot of things for me. Nonsense, she told herself, you’re still ruffled by Walter. That’s all. Vanity, vanity...
* * *
Minna, small and broad, with a gentle cow-like expression on her white peasant face, came into Sylvia’s room with the breakfast tray. She was a silent woman who never expected any attention. She had been brought up on a small farm in Austria, where her father had yelled his commands and his daughters had run to carry them out. Her husband must also have assumed that yelling was one of his inalienable rights, for she avoided Walter as much as possible, worked quickly, and was ready to scurry out of sight whenever the master himself appeared on the scene. It was only with Sylvia that she behaved like a normal human being. But she never said a word against men, as if a violent yell and a well-aimed blow might suddenly be delivered out of the heavens.
“The young lady’s gone out already,” Minna reported as she laid the neat tray on Sylvia’s lap.
“So early? Did Walter give her breakfast?”
Minna, who never understood one-half of what Walter told her, could only shrug her shoulders. “And you’ve a nice present,” she said, remembering the vase she had left outside the door. She smiled as she brought it into the room, holding it up high, delighted with the surprise she was helping to give.
Sylvia looked at the masses of red roses. “Who sent them?” She sipped her coffee slowly.
“There was no card.” Minna set the vase on the dressing-table, so that the roses were reflected in the large mirror. “So beautiful, such expense,” she said admiringly. “Today we must order,” she added almost in the same breath and pulled out from her apron pocket a slip of paper filled with her jagged writing.
“Oh, yes.” But Sylvia still looked at the red roses. And she knew it was Jan who had sent them. “Take them downstairs, Minna.”
Then she studied today’s order, but she couldn’t concentrate. “This seems all right.” She handed the piece of paper back to Minna. She looked again at the roses. “Has Mr. Pleydell had breakfast?” She averted her eyes from the flowers.
“Yes.” Minna looked surprised. Mr. Pleydell was never late.
Did I hope to break the spell, Sylvia wondered, by speaking Payton’s name?
The telephone rang, first of all downstairs, then in the room.
“Perhaps the young soldier calling for Miss Jerold again,” Minna suggested.
“Again?”
Minna nodded and smiled, and left quickly. She had forgotten to take the roses with her, after all.
Sylvia lifted the receiver. “Hallo,” she said.
“Sylvia.” It was Jan Brovic.
She stared across at the dressing-table. Oh, Jan, why do this, why torment us both?
“Sylvia—are you there? Can you hear me?”
No, no... And yet she listened, listened to the worried, urgent voice and her eyes filled with tears. She took a deep breath to steady herself.
“Sylvia!”
“No. Please... no.” She put down the receiver. Then she covered her face with her hands. She was remembering Payton as he had stood at her door last night. He had known all along about Jan; he had never charged her with it. She had gone on living in his house, and he had behaved as if nothing had happened. Until last night. And even then, the admission had been made in Payton’s own way as if to save her shame and embarrassment. Instead, her shame had doubled: guilt was twice as heavy when you hurt someone who protected you so well.
The telephone rang again.
She didn’t move to answer it.
How had Payton found out? And when? When? The word kept ringing as insistently as the telephone bell.
Then at last there was silence.
Silence. And the roses, filling the room with their colour and fragrance. She pushed the breakfast tray aside. She sat quite still, her arms clasped around her knees, her eyes watching the flowers, her thoughts filled with the memories that were coming to life again.
* * *
May. It had been early May. And a war was over in Europe. “I’m having a party,” Miriam Hugenberg had said on the telephone, “just a few friends. A spur-of-the-moment party. We must celebrate. Payton can’t come? My dear, imagine arranging a meeting for tonight of all nights! Then come by yourself. Darling, you’ve got to come.”
That’s how it had started, the party for a few friends. They numbered about fifty, at first. Uniforms everywhere, gay dresses worn for the first time in years, laughter, happy excited voices, music for dancing on the terrace, food and wine on the patio, a garden filled with flowers and lighted by sparkling stars set against black velvet. May at its best. The merry month come into its own, at last.
“We’ve still got the Japs to lick,” a Navy captain had been saying to the group around Sylvia. But he sounded more dutiful than gloomy.
“Tomorrow, we can remember that,” a man’s voice said as he joined the group. “But tonight—” Jan Brovic smiled down at Sylvia. “Like to risk a rumba with me?”
And she rose, smiling too, and left the little crowd of uniforms.
“The truth is,” Jan said as they reached the terrace, “I don’t dance very much nowadays. But I couldn’t think of any other excuse to get you away from the Navy. Insistent guys, aren’t they?”
“If you don’t want to dance”—she remembered his wound— “it doesn’t really matter.”
“I don’t suppose a game leg would be noticeable in a rumba. All you do, anyway, is stay on one spot and limp in rhythm.” He slipped an arm round her waist and turned her to face him. “Easy, see?”
It was. He must have been a good dancer once. They didn’t speak, now. He held her in his arms, lightly, at a distance, as the dance required. He looked down at her face, and her eyes were caught by his. And then suddenly, the grasp round her waist tightened and he drew her nearer. He watched the colour come to her che
eks, the nervous half-smile on her lips, and he felt the sudden tenseness of her hands.
Just then, the music stopped. They stood together, his arm still round her waist. She turned her head away, but she didn’t step away from his arm. The music began again. Now it was a waltz. “That defeats me entirely,” he said. “If it had been a polka, I might have managed it: dot and carry one is all right for a polka. But not for a waltz.”
She laughed with him, reaching back to safe ground again, moving away from the quicksand of emotions that had almost trapped her for a moment. She was in control once more.
She said, “I haven’t danced for months. I couldn’t manage a waltz either.” She took a step towards the wisteria-covered pergola that would lead them back to the patio. She made her way quickly, almost as if she were running away. But he followed her.
And the patio was now crowded.
As she hesitated, he took her arm. “No room, here,” he said. “Too bad.” He grinned. She had looked up at him as he spoke. And she had to smile.
“This way,” he said. And he led her to the narrow flight of stairs that would take them down into the garden. She hesitated for a moment. “We’ve got to talk,” he said. “Tonight’s as good a time as any.” She went with him.
There were people, too, in the garden, but he found a path that circled round a rosebed and then skirted a silent row of trees spreading their thick branches over a stretch of short dry grass. They sat under a copper beech, in a purpled mass of shadows. He didn’t touch her. Yes, she thought, let’s talk this thing out. Let it be decided, now. It’s too dangerous to let it drift on like this. And it was she who spoke first.
“You think I’m a coward, don’t you?” she asked.
He looked at her. Was it with the usual smile in his eyes? “No. You’re afraid, that’s all. And I’m afraid, too.”
“Afraid?” She couldn’t quite believe that. Jan afraid of a woman? She laughed. “Afraid of me?” she asked with amusement.
“Since the first time we met,” he admitted. “I looked at you for a whole evening and told myself, ‘There’s danger. Jan, old boy, keep out of it. There’s a woman you could fall in love with. There’s a woman who could tie you to her for the rest of your life.’ But I went on seeing you, meeting you, watching you. Because I had been wrong.”
I and My True Love Page 6