by E. H. Young
Once a month she set off for a bookshop kept by an attractive young man in a street leading off the Slope. He made her very welcome and she generally stayed there for an hour or two before she departed with her chosen book. She would have been daunted by his charming ways and suspected him of laughing at her if she had not known she was on her own ground there, was better read than he was and had a sounder judgment and she did her best to improve his which had a leaning towards anything unpleasant or obscure, when he was not busy and they could talk. On the arrival of another customer, she settled herself in a comfortable chair, for his shop was almost a parlour, read one of the books she did not intend to buy, and then, having decided on her purchase, she walked richly home.
On this particular afternoon, two days after Rosamund had posted her letter, rain started heavily just as she was making ready to go and she hesitated at the door.
“But you mustn’t go out in this!” the young man exclaimed with solicitude.
“No,” Miss Spanner agreed, for she was flimsily clad, but at that moment, the door was opened and there bounced into the shop, shaking her wet curls, a laughing girl.
“Not to buy one of your old books, darling,” she explained. “Just to shelter.”
“Whatever it is,” the young man said in a voice quite embarrassing in its tenderness and, as he patted the girl’s damp shoulders with a gay silk handkerchief, he offered Miss Spanner the loan of his umbrella.
An hour or so later, when she returned to the Square, the rain was still falling in a steady slant and in spite of the umbrella, which had chiefly protected the new book, the lower part of her body was very wet when she went down the area steps into the kitchen.
“You look as though you’re wearing trousers,” Rosamund said, as she saw the thin frock clinging to Miss Spanner’s legs. “Get them off quickly and I’ll make some tea for you.”
“I’ve had tea,” Miss Spanner said portentously, “and this is the bookseller’s umbrella. He practically bribed me with it to get me out of the shop. A girl, of course.”
“Pretty?”
“A healthy lump. She looked as if she’d never read a book in her life,” Miss Spanner said scornfully. “Well, he’s not the only one to neglect his business—or his work—” she added with emphasis, “for the sake of a pretty face.”
“I hope not,” Rosamund said.
“Do you?” Miss Spanner asked. “Yes, at a distance, I daresay, but not when it comes nearer home. Very much nearer,” she said with a violent squint.
“If you don’t go and change,” Rosamund said, “I shall have to nurse you through pneumonia and I should hate it.”
“And such a wisp of a thing, too,” Miss Spanner said, going towards the door. “More like thistledown than anything I’ve ever seen before. That’s the attraction, I suppose, but I wouldn’t mind betting she’s really as hard as flint.”
“I thought you said she was a healthy lump.”
“I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about the one I saw in the teashop. I had to pop in to get out of the rain and there they were, in a corner, Felix and this flippertygibbet, with no eyes for anyone else.”
“There was probably no one else so good to look at.”
“But they were so serious! That’s what I didn’t like. I thought that was a bad sign and I’d better warn you. I slipped out before they would have to pass me, but I needn’t have worried. I expect they’re there still, and the worst of it is I was so startled that I let some of the butter from my crumpet drip on to my new book.”
“Then, if that’s the worst of it, there’s no need to worry.”
“You never had any real respect for literature,” Miss Spanner said, and left Rosamund to pass in mental review all her children’s friends known to her and to find no one who could be likened to thistledown or suspected of being as hard as flint. Well, she had always made up her mind not to interfere or show curiosity in such affairs, but she would have been happier if she had not discovered the puritanical strain in Felix’s character. There was danger there and Agnes was probably right in distrusting the seriousness of the pair. And what sort of girl could this be, she wondered, of whom he had never spoken, and how endlessly tiresome children were. When they were babies she had looked forward to the time when they would not need constant care and now she found that keeping them out of the fire, from falling downstairs and eating unsuitable substances was nothing to the inaction she had imposed on herself, the advice she must not offer, the knowledge that they would never consider themselves in need of it. Life, it seemed, had been planned to make the experience of one generation useless to the next and for all her pretence of casualness she saw her responsibilities lasting as long as she did and she was troubled by the thought of that piece of thistledown. Thistledown floats elusively but when it finds a resting place to its fancy it can show a surprising tenacity and, as she looked at her son that night, she decided that no one could be blamed for adherence to him. She thought he had grown graver lately—there was cause enough for that without personal complications—and she admired him for not flicking an eyelid when Miss Spanner, squinting at him, spoke of the excellent tea she had had that afternoon and recommended the shop.
“I know it,” he said. “Were you there too? I didn’t see you.”
“And I’m not surprised at that,” Miss Spanner said grimly.
“And didn’t you see me?” he went on, and Rosamund silently commended this attack.
“I’d just bought a new book,” Miss Spanner replied.
“Well, of course I couldn’t compete with that,” he said. “But what a pity! We could have had a nice little party.”
“He got the better of you there, Agnes,” Rosamund said that night. “And serve you right.”
“It’s just as well he should know I know and would be sure to tell you,” Miss Spanner said airily.
“It’s not just as well he should think you an interfering old cat. I don’t want the boys to get those horrid ideas about women.”
“He’ll get horrider ones, sooner or later, from that girl of his, you mark my words.”
“You’d say that about any girl he took out to tea,” Rosamund said, hoping she would be given some of the information for which she would not ask.
“And it would be true of most of them. You can’t even tell nowadays whether a girl’s what we used to call respectable or not. They daub themselves up until they all look alike.”
“They don’t feel properly dressed without all that stuff on their faces.”
“Then Felix’s young woman must like going about naked. She looked unnaturally natural.”
“Oh, I do hope she isn’t dowdy,” Rosamund said earnestly.
“There you are! That’s always the way with you. Clothes first and character afterwards. Now, if I had a son—”
“Yes, I wonder what he would have been like?” Rosamund said thoughtfully, and Miss Spanner, remembering the tentative suitor her father had driven away, replied with resignation, “He would have been very odd. Not handsome. A long thin neck and a big head, outwardly timid but inwardly very arrogant and not at all nice to me.”
“But Agnes, what an extraordinary person to invent!”
“I know, but I can’t help it. He always turns out like that. I’ve tried other kinds but they’re never right. What else could you expect? And it’s one of the consolations of my life that I see him like that and haven’t really got him. I’m much better off as I am and I’m coming to the conclusion that the happiest people are the ones who have missed everything they thought they wanted. Look at me,” said Miss Spanner, gathering her dressing-gown more closely round her, “I’m as bare as a monument and as invulnerable. And I don’t envy you in the least. I used to, when I was young, but not now. All my unnecessary lumber, and I never had much, just drops off as I get older and you’ll carry yours with you to your grave.”
“Exactly what I’ve been thinking, too,” Rosamund said. “However, well, I may as well tell you now as later, I shall soon have a little less of it. But lumber! What a word to use in connection with Fergus, or with any of them, for that matter.”
“Fergus?” Miss Spanner said sharply. “But you’re rid of him already.”
“Not in the eyes of the law. Now, you’re not going to pretend to be shocked, are you? When the holy bonds have worn as thin as ours have it’s much better to break the last threads, isn’t it? Agnes, don’t look like that!”
“You don’t mean you’re going to divorce him?” Miss Spanner said with horror.
“That’s what he wants me to do.”
“Don’t do it,” Miss Spanner begged earnestly. “Don’t do it.”
“But what difference will it make? What difference, Agnes?”
“All the difference in the world,” she replied in a hollow tone, and pursing her lips and huddling against the back of her chair, she shut her eyes and did not see the dismay on Rosamund’s face, the lips which so seldom drooped, parted woefully. And for a few seconds, Rosamund, too, shut her eyes, squeezing back the tears that suddenly pricked them. She had never believed that Agnes would fail her in the mind or in the flesh or that the prejudices of her upbringing lay so near the surface, but nothing, it seemed, was permanent or secure, not even this queer, life-long friendship, and pain and astonishment kept her silent.
“I knew, all the time, I ought to have stored my furniture instead of selling it!” Miss Spanner exclaimed at length.
“There’s quite enough in your bedroom to furnish a whole house,” Rosamund said.
“And you said I was here for life!”
“And aren’t you?” Rosamund asked sadly.
“Well, is it likely?” Miss Spanner asked in the loud voice of her distress and went away without another word, but outside her own bedroom door she paused, remembering the unhappiness on Rosamund’s face. She could not bear that, she must go back, she thought but, as she turned, she heard a sound on the upper staircase and saw a pale figure running down and looking, Miss Spanner thought afterwards, like a winged victory with her arms outspread in the wide sleeves of her wrapper, and a moment later she found those arms enclosing and firmly holding her in a warm, sweet-smelling darkness.
“Oh, Miss Spanner, I’m so sorry,” Chloe said, loosening but not relinquishing her hold. “I was coming down, so fast that if I hadn’t caught you I should have knocked you down. Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”
“No, no, just a moment’s shock,” said Miss Spanner, and Chloe’s arms tightened gently.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again as. Miss Spanner seemed to welcome her support. “Shall I see you into bed?”
“Oh no!” Miss Spanner exclaimed. Under the electric light, she doubted whether Chloe would be so tender with her.
“Mayn’t I? And you’re sure I haven’t given you a black eye or broken your nose or anything? Then good night, Miss Spanner. I was just going to see Mother for a minute.”
“Be kind to her,” Miss Spanner said.
“Why yes. But is anything the matter? Does she need kindness, specially?”
“We all do,” Miss Spanner said severely as she went into her room.
She did not turn on the light. She wanted to keep, for as long as possible, the dark sweetness and warmth in which Chloe had enfolded her. This was the nearest thing to an embrace she had ever experienced. Rosamund’s hugs were lovingly matter-of-fact and, though Chloe did not love her at all, she had given the impression that she was holding something precious and Miss Spanner let out a quivering sigh for everything she pretended she was glad to have missed. And Chloe’s softness and gentle strength, her laughing yet solicitous voice, the faint smell of flowers that came from her, made Miss Spanner bitterly envious for a moment, before she groped her way to her bedside lamp and settled down to her new book, to a pleasure that lasted far beyond youth and beauty and the desire to love and to be loved.
Chapter XIX
Yesterday’s rain had given the world a thorough cleaning. There was a polish on the evergreens in the Oval and every tree Rosamund could see in her little garden and beyond it had lost its air of beginning to be bored with its own abundance. In middle age, a little spurt of new interest in life seemed to have been given to them, a state strongly contrasting with her own as she prepared breakfast for her large household and saw years ahead of her through which she continued to supply four meals a day, a task requiring mountains of plates and dishes and a huge armoury of knives and forks. But perhaps it would not be like that, she thought, pausing in her work to look into a different future and the time might soon come when she would wish she had so many large appetites to satisfy. In the meantime, she could not forestall that longing, that nostalgia for the past. She was concerned with the present which did not please her. She and Fergus between them had made a mess of their marriage, she had to publish the fact and she foresaw that Agnes would have to carry her sacred virginity elsewhere. Fergus’s desertion had not hurt her so much. She was able to take part of the blame for that and so justify the love she had given him and keep the memory of it sweet, but Agnes’s attitude was unbelievably petty in the desire to protect a reputation no one would trouble to assail. Rosamund had expected indignation against Fergus, a show of being shocked and an assurance of sturdy faithfulness and there was a nightmarish quality in last night’s disappointment. And she would be lonely without Agnes. She would miss, too, her generous contribution towards the household expenses but that was quite definitely a smaller matter. She could get another lodger if she must; she would never get another friend. And the sense of failure with Fergus and with Agnes, her fond belief in her power to hold them without any care or conscious effort, her assumption that because there was love there was safety, when she should have recognized it for the frail thing it was, hung round her like a cloud and she could not disperse it when she heard Sandra on the basement stairs.
“It’s chiefly bad temper,” Rosamund said, in answer to the anxious widening of Sandra’s eyes. “I’m sure I shall burn the bacon.”
“Then I’d better do it. But you’re never bad tempered.”
“Tired, perhaps.”
“Yes, perhaps,” Sandra said in a politely sceptical tone. “Has the postman been yet?”
“No. So you see I haven’t had any bad news. That’s a possibility eliminated, isn’t it? Now you’ll have to think of another. Can’t you let me be a little cross sometimes without jumping to worrying conclusions?”
“I’ll try,” Sandra said, “but Chloe stayed with you for a long time last night and I thought there might be something the matter.”
“You would, but there isn’t, and in case you think I’ve been run over or murdered or that I’ve decided I’ve had enough of you all—”
“And I expect you have, really,” Sandra said.
“Don’t be surprised if I’m not here when you come back from school. I’ll leave everything ready for you. I’m going to have a picnic all by myself. I’ve just thought of it. Now that’s the truth and nothing but the truth. Do you believe me?”
“Of course,” Sandra said. “But the ground will be very wet after all that rain. You’d better take a mackintosh to sit on.”
“I’d rather not sit,” Rosamund replied.
She found it a little difficult to behave normally with Agnes who had suddenly become half a stranger and was pathetically propitiatory that morning. She was eager to help; she would look after the family; she would do the shopping.
“You’d better go house-hunting,” was Rosamund’s ungracious reply, regretted as soon as it was uttered and cancelled, she hoped, with a hasty kiss.
Then she set off across the bridge. To take any other direction did not occur to her. This was the inevitable way and though, on the other side of t
he water, there were more houses than there used to be, more fences and locked gates and warnings to trespassers, the soft, wild flavour in the wind was the same. She was in another county, another world, the one in which her kind, grave father became gaily inconsequent long before they stopped at the inn for lunch, with cider for him, fizzy lemonade for her and bread and cheese for both. But soon she left the houses behind and, prevented by the new wire fences from taking the old short cut across the fields, she walked on the horse track beside the road until she came to higher ground, within sight of the inn and everything else as it had always been. The lane she followed towards the Monks’ Pool was a lane still, with grassy hedge-topped banks. On one side was a field of dull gold whence the hay had been gathered; on the other, grey-green oats rustled and whispered like an expectant crowd and, under a sudden gust of wind, they all swayed in the same direction and whispered with more vehemence, as though what they had been waiting for had arrived at last. But for that whispering and the short notes of birds and the occasional rumble of traffic in the road she had left, the world was very quiet and she went down the sunny lane until, when she looked back, the hedges seemed to meet and shut her in and to shut out everything that troubled her. And she was alone. With surprise she realized the delight of solitude, the relaxation of every nerve in this freedom from the impact of any other mind or the proximity of any other body. Perched on a gate and eating her sandwiches, this pleasure seemed to flow over her to the rhythm of the light breeze, the fluffy, leisurely clouds, the sibilant movement of the oats behind her. On this first day of July the air was spring-like and the resilience of her own nature met and mingled with it. She felt young and carefree, glad simply to exist in the sunshine as it drew earthy smells from the damp banks and sure that life, which had always been good to her, would continue this excellent habit. The sound of a car coming up the lane was an annoying intrusion. A car had no right in her lane but, when she recognized it, drawing its trailer, it was forgiven and its driver, when he recognized her, drew up and alighted.