by Rumer Godden
There was a ring at the front door.
In the house there are Roly and Rollo as well as Rolls. Selina tries to possess Roly and fails; Rollo is not as easily possessed, though he might have been. Might have been, said Rolls. It was odd how those words recurred. Was Rolls possessed? It was difficult to tell what Rolls had been. Over him there was ruled a long straight honourable – and exceedingly efficient, in spite of its stultified end – straight line; perhaps they were right and it was red tape, a piece of good red tape called a career; pasted down over him, it hid him entirely. There was nothing of that Rolls, the Rolls of those years, to be seen. What was I? What did I do? Where was I? thought Rolls. Where have I been?
He opened his eyes because he thought he had cried out. He was sure he had cried out aloud but there was silence. His eyes were heavy and puffy and old, but the cry he had felt go through him was young and it was far more fresh and cruel than when he had felt it for the first time. But I didn’t feel it, said Rolls. I was a young puppy. I couldn’t feel. I hadn’t the feelings … And he could not believe he had not cried out aloud. Lark. Where are you? Where are you Lark? And he asked again, bewildered, Where have I been?
‘It was funny,’ said her voice in his ear. ‘You turned out the most important in the end.’
‘Funny!’ said Rolls offended. ‘What do you mean, funny?’
‘I always looked on Pelham as the promising one.’
‘Nonsense, my dear Lark.’ Rolls was testy. ‘Pelham was mostly wind.’
‘You were pretty bombastic yourself. I trembled when I heard you had left San Diego and were back at the War Office.’
Rolls had left the War Office in nineteen twenty-five, to become governor of the island of San Diego. He was recalled on the outbreak of war and was firmly retired eleven months later. ‘The Great Dane fossil’ they called him. He did not care to be reminded of that.
‘Thank you. Thank you,’ he said. ‘And what about you? You belonged to a pretty tattling scandalous set if you like!’
‘I know I did.’ It was as soft as a sigh, as a reproach, and Rolls stirred in his chair. Then she gently mocked him. ‘But if you had forgotten me, and you said you had forgotten me, how did you know?’
There she had him. How did he know? That was his secret, locked away in a drawer in his desk wherever he had been. ‘Pshaw!’ said Rolls, his moustache and eyebrows moving. ‘I used to read about you, Press cuttings; I – collected them of you.’
‘And I of you. Oh Rollo! What unhappy wasted lives we both have lived.’
Rolls was slightly nettled. ‘Well I don’t know that you could describe mine as wasted,’ he said, and he added honestly, ‘It wasn’t unhappy.’
‘Nor was mine,’ said the Marchesa. ‘Now I come to think of it. It sounds unhappy that is all. I enjoyed it very much.’
‘So did I. Then – you disappeared.’
‘You – noticed?’
These conversations often came like this: sometimes not clear, then every inflection crystal-clear as it was now. ‘You – noticed?’ He could hear, crystal-clear, the pleasure, the joy in Lark’s voice.
‘Of course I did,’ he said gruffly. ‘It made me wonder about you more.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ She was delighted. ‘You were too busy. You didn’t have time.’
‘I have always been absurdly sentimental,’ said Rolls.
‘Is it sentimental to stay in love?’
‘Mr Rolls.’
‘Say that again, Lark. Don’t go away.’
‘Mr Rolls!’
‘Lark! Lark!’
‘Mr Rolls. Sir. I am sorry.’
‘Blast you to hell Proutie,’ said Rolls opening his eyes.
‘I had to disturb you,’ said Proutie. ‘Miss Dane has come.’
Rolls looked at Proutie under two horns of eyebrow. ‘What?’ And then he asked, ‘Did you say that, or did I?’
‘I did sir. You have been dreaming,’ said Proutie. ‘I am not speaking of Miss Selina. There is another Miss Dane. You have forgotten. She is Mr Pelham’s grand-daughter, Mr Rolls.’
‘That was a boy,’ objected Rolls. ‘My nephew. He is in America.’ And he said in alarm, ‘We don’t want any nephews here.’
‘Mr Pelham had a son,’ said Proutie patiently, ‘but this is further on sir. This is that son’s daughter, Mr Rolls.’
‘And I thought we were ended: scattered – comfortably finished.’
‘I am glad to think not.’ Proutie was all smiles.
‘Why has she come here? What does she want?’
‘She wants to see you. She is in uniform. Some U. S. corps. She must have come over with that.’
‘I don’t like belligerent women,’ said Rolls.
‘Now sir,’ said Proutie.
‘Pantomime,’ said Rolls. ‘They will have a woman commander-in-chief next, General Boadicea. Pshaw! I hope I am dead.’
‘They do splendid work these girls,’ said Proutie disapprovingly. If he was exceedingly angry with Rolls Proutie called him ‘Sir Roland’. It was on his tongue now.
‘And they throw me out! Retire me. “Retire” is a polite word Proutie but it means “thrown out”, “disgraced”.’
‘Disgraced my foot!’ said Proutie. ‘You wait and see. You see what an obituary notice you will get.’
‘I shall not get an obituary notice.’
‘You will,’ said Proutie unsympathetically. ‘Shall I bring her up, Mr Rolls?’
‘No.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Retired! Candidate for an obituary notice, while this chit of a girl—’
‘Goes in to take your place,’ said Proutie. ‘That is nice sir.’
‘Nice!—!’
‘That is how it is in families.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Rolls disagreeably. ‘I am not a family man.’
‘Not lately?’ asks Proutie and he says, ‘I think she has come to stay. She has brought her luggage.’
‘—!What?’ For a moment words left Rolls.
Then he shouted. ‘Tell her to go away. Tell her I shan’t see her. Tell her to go, I say.’
‘She is a relation,’ said Proutie.
‘We don’t want new relations here. No one, no one, on any pretext is going to force themselves into the house just now.’
‘What am I to tell her?’ said Proutie.
‘What am I telling you? Tell her what is true. That the house is ended. Tell her we are giving up the house. Tell her that it is full. Tell her there is no room.’
Grizel sat in the hall and waited. Occasionally she took out of her pocket a little case that held a mirror and a comb and looked at herself, as if to reassure herself that she was there, the same Grizel. She did not normally need reassurance. She was an independent little cat that walked by itself, very pleasant, very efficient and self-contained. She was successful too; from her training school she had been sent straight on an officer’s course and now on her cuffs she wore two stripes. Grizel’s universe was usually bright and promising but last night, her first night in London, she had been rattled. Rattled is a good word, thought Grizel, looking at the tips of her polished brown shoes. Rattled. Everything in the whole of you, in your compos, is shaken and knocked out of place. You don’t know where you are. That was a new feeling for Grizel, who always knew exactly where she was.
She had thought she knew what England and London would be like; and she did not. She had thought that in the night there would be an air raid; and there was not. She had thought she would experience a thrill, and perhaps a little exaltation in that she and her corps, the Americans, had come with their ambulances to help; and she had not. She was thoroughly disconcerted. In her room, in the house in which she was billeted, was a case of stuffed owls; all night when she lay awake wondering for the first time how she, Lieutenant Dane of the U. S. ambulance corps, might, or might not, behave in a raid – and I am only human, thought Grizel – all night the owls watched her with eyes that she knew were only gla
ss and that looked sagely human. She had a feeling, in her confusion, that the owls’ eyes were far more human than her own. All night, in her tired confused brain, they asked a question. Is it you? Is it you? Are you human Grizel Dane?
Grizel was no more used to being uncomfortable than she was used to being unhappy. If I am not happy, was one of her maxims, I look about for the cause and remove it, or remove myself from the cause. But this time she could not do that. She had decided in the morning that the cause of her feeling uncomfortable was not herself but the owls and, as she could not explain this to her superior officer as a plea for an exchange of billets, she decided to call on her Great-uncle Rolls in Wiltshire Place and ask him to give her a room. I shall be comfortable here, said Grizel, looking round. It seems a nice house. She had no doubt that she could be anything else but acceptable in it.
But she was still not feeling quite happy, in fact she was still feeling unhappy, and she had an increasing feeling that the owls were the symptoms and not the cause. In spite of her maxim she could not find the cause.
Though she liked its colours and shape, the hall looked gloomy to Grizel; it looked grimed, used. But stairs, landings, halls, are more used than any other part of a house, thought Grizel. How did she know? In New York they lived in an apartment on the fifth floor; they never walked upstairs, they used the elevator. Stairs are like roads after all, thought Grizel, and she was surprised at herself. Like roads. A highway, she continued, watching the serpentine twist of the rail out of her sight – Highways link the tracts of country that are unknown, making them accessible and plain. She had read that; somewhere; now it came into her head. She looked up the stairway to where the well showed daylight up above. It is all unknown to me, thought Grizel. It is better I start with the stairs.
I can remember my grandfather, she said, but she had difficulty in remembering him because she had never been interested in him; now, by thinking hard, she was able to recall a hand shaking on a cane and a white silk handkerchief and a watch. That old grandfather came down these stairs; perhaps he even once upon a time slid down these banisters, and she seemed to see another hand, a boy’s that she had not imagined before – never had cause to imagine, said Grizel – a boy’s hand, long ago, out of the past. My grandfather. A boy. He came from this house in a direct line. In direct line I have come back.
It seemed to her all at once that the house was immensely bigger than she first had thought; it had, she glimpsed, a common life far greater than the individual little lives that were her grandfather and herself. It held them both. He was dead, she was alive, but there was no difference between them in the house. Grizel did not like that. She was insistent. No. No, she cried. He is dead. It is I, Grizel, who am alive. Then her cheeks warmed. It was as if someone had coldly remarked, ‘What a clamour you make Grizel.’
She waited. Down the well of the stairs came voices, and argument. Her great-uncle, it seemed, was not in a hurry to see her. She waited. She listened to the clocks, the vibrating that shook the house when a train went under it; she looked at the hall and at the stair carpet. I wonder how many stair carpets wore out? thought Grizel, but she thought that the brass stair-rods must be the same. She looked at the rods with respect and thought how strange it was that small unnoticeable things should often hold such venerableness. The brass rods went up, one after the other, until they disappeared from sight. They shone. I wonder who keeps them clean?
She had a sudden idea of the labour of this house: the labour against the use, the grime. And not only the actual labour, thought Grizel, but to plan it all so that it and all its lives ran smoothly. She was visited again by the sight of the house as she had first seen it from the outside, as she stepped out of the taxi. It had not seemed large then; just now it seemed big: now it seemed vast – then it suddenly seemed to narrow and become small. Vast at one moment, a cumbersome monster that ate lives; and then small and shut in as if it had barred windows. Grizel gave a shudder. Thank goodness, thank goodness, said Grizel, that I am free.
She stood up and walked calmly and resolutely up the stairs from whence the voices came.
‘You can tell her there is no room,’ Rolls was saying. ‘I-will-not-see-her-do-you-hear?’
‘Good morning, Uncle Rollo,’ said Grizel.
Rolls stood up slowly and she could see him against the light, a huge old man with thick white hair, thick massive white eyebrows, crumpled collar and a tweed coat. He held the back of the chair he had been sitting in, while he straightened his stiff back, and glowered at her.
Why does he look so cross? thought Grizel. Maybe he has gout.
Ancestors she knew had gout and Rolls was her ancestor, or did ancestors have to be dead? Nowadays you called them people rather than ancestors. That ancestors were people had not dawned on Grizel. She thought he might have gout and she smiled gently and suitably as she said, ‘I am very pleased to see you, Uncle Rollo.’
Rolls waited until Proutie had gone before he answered. ‘In England we usually wait until we are asked before we walk into people’s private rooms.’
‘In America too,’ Grizel agreed. ‘But this isn’t a room and I didn’t know I should walk straight into it.’
‘What is your name?’ he asked.
‘Grizel.’
‘Grizel. Short for Griselda? That is my mother’s name.’
‘I am not Griselda. I am Grizel.’
‘Same thing. Why did they call you that? After her of course. Daft! She is herself, not you.’
‘And I,’ said Grizel pleasantly, ‘am myself too.’
There was a silence. When Grizel considered it had gone on long enough she broke it. ‘Uncle Rollo,’ she said pleasantly still but firmly, ‘you must forgive me for coming so early but I have to report at nine. We only arrived last night.’
‘Dear me!’ said Rolls. ‘You must have been in a great hurry to see me.’ Her eyes wavered and she stopped. ‘It isn’t quite that—’
‘I know it isn’t,’ said Rolls. ‘You want something, don’t you? I had a letter from your father, now I remember it. I had forgotten. I have so much to think of. Your father said he need not ask me to look after you because you could do that for yourself.’
‘I can.’
‘He said you would come and see me, if there was anything you wanted. What do you want?’ he asked dryly.
Grizel only looked relieved. ‘I am not very interested in families and relations,’ she said with honesty, looking Rolls straight in the eyes. ‘I don’t like history or all this bother about the past. I would have come to see you, Uncle Rollo, honest I would. One day I would have come, but I have come now because I want you to give me a room and let me stay here. My billet is impossible, Uncle Rollo. I shall go crazy if I stay there one more night.’
‘If you are in the Army,’ said Rolls disagreeably, ‘and I suppose you consider yourself in the Army, you take what billets you are given. You don’t go turning up your nose at this and that. You have to make the best of what you are given in the Army.’
‘Yes. When it is necessary,’ said Grizel in her same unmoved soft polite voice. ‘How many rooms have you in the house?’
Rolls’s eyebrows twitched.
‘Your man, Proutie, that is his name, isn’t it, told me there were only the two of you in the house. Only you and he.’
‘Did he?’ said Rolls. ‘Nevertheless all the rooms in this house belong to somebody else.’
‘But they are empty! Why shouldn’t I come? It is the family house. I belong to the family.’
‘And you have only just thought of that haven’t you?’ said Rolls. ‘You have never thought of it before. You didn’t think of it when you came. All you wanted was to get out of an uncomfortable place and make yourself comfortable. You didn’t for one moment think of the house.’
‘But – does one think of houses?’ asked Grizel.
‘I know you.’ Rolls was angry. ‘I know you. You will go all over it and poke into every corner and discover and piece togeth
er and ask questions and want answers. I know you.’
‘I shall when I have time,’ answered Grizel, surprised. ‘Why shouldn’t I? Isn’t it natural? Is there any reason why I shouldn’t? Has anything happened here, Uncle Rolls? Anything unusual?’
‘To be born and to live and to die is quite usual,’ said Rolls. And he added, ‘We have to leave the house in any case.’
‘When?’ said Grizel with curious consternation.
‘When? Shortly.’ Rolls dodged the question. ‘It wouldn’t be worth your coming.’
‘Let me come,’ said Grizel.
‘We don’t want to be disturbed. Do you know what you would be?’ he flung at her – ‘A discord.’
‘I shouldn’t be,’ said Grizel steadily. ‘I should complete the chord.’
Rolls was silent for a moment; then: ‘Come here into the light,’ he said, ‘and let me see how you look.’
Grizel came up to him. He seemed hugely tall as she stood beside him. He was above her in front of the window. The light fell on her face.
‘You have Pelham’s narrow head,’ said Rolls, ‘and you have his hair, that mouse-brown stuff. Selina had it too, and all the others. Mine was chestnut. That is a real colour. Your chin is your own, and your mouth.’ He put his hand under her chin and turned her face up, and his touch was not like an old man’s, an uncle’s, a great-uncle’s; it was warm and vivifying. It surprised Grizel. What a blood he must have been, thought Grizel and clearly, like a bell ringing in her mind, she was corrected: Not a blood. Not a blood, but a blade. What a blade he must have been – and aloud she said softly ‘Uncle Rollo!’ and blushed.
‘Rollo was my name when I was young,’ said Rolls. ‘I had forgotten it – till lately. It is a pretty mouth Grizel. Keep it pretty. Don’t be too hard on it. Don’t be a shrew. I think you are a little shrew you know. Don’t be too efficient – or self-sufficient. You are a woman.’ And he added, ‘You have Griselda’s eyes. I never saw them but they are in the painting of her downstairs.’
‘You have them too,’ said Grizel.
She was remembering something. It was the picture of Rolls in the illustrated paper with the six German generals opposite. In the American edition it was coloured and she remembered how blue his eyes had been; if their gaze was not as straight as Griselda’s, it was straight enough.