by Rumer Godden
I have always hated you, Selina agrees. I always wanted you out of the house. I thought you were gone, that I had dismissed you, from my thoughts and from the house … but after Lark has gone her presence grows stronger. Pelham felt your power that last summer, and Rollo, says Selina.
Rollo, all that summer, before he goes to Afghanistan with Fitzgerald, makes excuses to come home on leave. In all its excitement, with this possibility opening before him – with his transfer to the Piffers with the consultations with Uncle Bunny – with the polo and the Pumas for whom he played – through it all Rollo is beset by a vision. It is mingled for him of sunlight and summer and flowers, though afterwards he says he has no time for flowers; in it the light is a clear sunny light but with it the summer is a vision of green. He can smell the flowers and they are intrinsic; they are always there. Was Lark singing in the garden? No, he knows that she was not. At Wiltshire Place the gardens are not green; this is a garden green with groves, and as soon as he says that, he sees it clearly; there are groves of trees; there is a stream and there are swans. The strange thing is, that though this comes through Lark’s singing, in the garden she is silent; she is not singing, nor talking, nor laughing, but looking at him and he sees her, her hair, her trailing skirts, and the ribbon in her hat. In this vision she is Rollo’s; she belongs to him; but as soon as he arrives at Wiltshire Place he does not pursue her but avoids her. ‘It is fatal to marry young, unless you have money.’ They all tell him that. ‘He ruined his career, silly chap,’ they say. ‘You are a youngest son, you have your own way to make,’ says Pelham. ‘Rollo? But of course Rollo can’t think of marriage for ages,’ says Selina. Lark says nothing at all.
‘I could never remember you,’ said Rolls to the Marchesa. ‘The more I thought about you, later, the more I wanted to remember, the less I could.’
‘Perhaps you didn’t look at me sufficiently,’ suggested the Marchesa. ‘You were rather busy that summer looking at yourself.’
‘No. I was afraid to look at you,’ said Rolls.
Nothing ever really happened between them, argues Selina, looking at the daisies that grow a sooty bitter purple in the old earth of the beds. Nothing happened. It only might have been. It was slight. It was impermanent. Lark ran away; Rollo went out to Afghanistan with Fitzgerald; Lark married the Marchese; it was made impermanent. It remained.
‘Won’t you come and see me Rollo? Come to the house again? Come home?’
I am staying at my club not half a mile away. I am in India, China, Basutoland, ten thousand miles across the ocean. What difference is there? ‘No Selina. I shall not come home. No Selina, no.’
It is an evening in November, eighteen ninety, and Rollo has been to a levee.
He comes in afterwards to surprise the family but the family is out. Slater, eyeing his magnificence, says they will not be long. ‘There is a dinner to-night,’ says Slater and he adds, ‘It is Miss Lark’s birthday, Mr Rollo.’
‘Lark’s birthday?’ asks Rollo and for a moment he is silent. Then he asks, ‘How old is she Slater?’
Slater smiles; between his tufts of white hair left either side of a bald pate, Slater’s pale face looks all at once human. ‘She is eighteen, Mr Rollo. A lovely young lady if I may say so. She came out this spring. She has been very much admired.’
‘Has she?’ says Rollo, and more thoughtfully, ‘Has she?’ This is disconcerting. If one has a vision one rather expects it to remain one’s own, not to develop independence, or worse, to be in danger of becoming someone else’s vision. For the first time it occurs to Rollo that he will have – or have not – to make some definite move over Lark. He cannot go on dreaming of her and avoiding her forever. But I am not ready yet, he complains. It seems however that Lark is ready. Rollo is put out. I liked her best as a dream, he might have complained. That is how she suited me best. But Lark will not be a dream; she is flesh and blood, with admirers; a vision in fact, capable of giving, not a slap in the face, or yes even a slap in the face because she may not care for Rollo, but certainly a stab in the back. Admirers. That of course rouses Rollo and pricks him. But just now? he asks doubtfully, Now? When everything is on the verge of fruition? Fruition because the seeds were laid long long ago, and the plant has been so carefully watched and grown. Now? It really is very inconvenient of Lark to have grown up just now.
Rollo understands precisely why his presence has been required at this levee. He knows that there is a possibility that is more than a possibility that when he goes to India it may not be to join his new regiment, or even to stay in India at all. His transfer is according to plan. ‘Fitzgerald asked at once if you were in the Indian Army,’ said Uncle Bunny, with a chuckle. ‘I was able to assure him that you were. Quick work, my boy.’ There is to be a mission to Afghanistan. Lord Fitzgerald, the Fitzgerald who was with General Roberts at Dakka and Char-asiab, and Kandahar in ‘seventy-nine and ’eighty, Lord Fitzgerald is going out to take over the Afghan Army and remodel it for the Amir on British lines. Lord Fitzgerald? Yes, Uncle Bunny knows him well but there is no backstair way with old Fitzgerald. It is his policy to choose his personal staff himself and only on Rollo himself can the choice depend. Rollo is introduced one afternoon at Ranelagh. ‘Piffers?’ said Fitzgerald with an approving glance. It was his policy also to choose for this only officers of the Indian Army. This afternoon at the far end of the room, Rollo has seen Fitzgerald looking at him; he sees Fitzgerald nod and say something to the exalted personage beside him; he sees the exalted personage look across too and answer. Later they pass Rollo and Fitzgerald stops. ‘Well young Dane, the game didn’t go your way after all. Hard luck. You played damned well. Well, see you soon.’ No, says Rollo slowly thinking of Lark. No it wouldn’t be possible or wise. I couldn’t possibly. Not now. As soon as he says it, he is filled with a burning desire to see her and to know who those admirers are.
‘I suppose she goes to dances Slater?’
‘Oh yes, Mr Rollo. They are going on to a dance to-night. The first of the winter dances as you might say. In Orme Square. Mrs Kingdon Charles.’
‘Mrs Charles? We had children’s parties there.’ And he says, ‘Will you have a note sent round for me Slater? I should like to go too. Who is dining here?’
‘Dinner is for ten. There are Mr and Mrs and Miss Cresswell. Sir Arthur and Lady Bartram. Major Allison and an Italian gentleman, Mr Rollo, the Marchese Zacca del Laudi.’
‘Zacca del Laudi?’ says Rollo in surprise and whistles.
‘He very often comes these days,’ says Slater with pride and with meaning.
‘The devil he does,’ says Rollo. ‘Wait Slater. I shall give you that note.’
When he has written it he draws circles and faces on the blotting paper. Rollo can see, with the dazzling clarity which all the Danes possess when assessing money or position, the exact difference between himself and the Marchese; that the Marchese is a funny little man, almost mannikin, does not occur to him; if it did it would hardly seem to affect the position. But how did she meet him? thinks Rollo. Pelham, or Selina, must have been wangling some good invitations. To him there does not appear to be anything reprehensible in this; wangling, and using friends, or making friends to use them, is merely sensible to Rollo. Was not his own godfather, Uncle Bunny, chosen to be of use to him and is he not being of extreme use? No really, just now, I mustn’t think of it. It isn’t possible, decides Rollo. Anyway she probably wouldn’t look at me with the Marchese and probably that is just as well, but as he says that he is filled, simply and completely, with a biting jealousy.
He tries to remember Lark exactly and he finds he cannot. ‘I never could remember you,’ said Rolls to the Marchesa. ‘The more I thought of you, the more I wanted to remember, the less I could.’
As a matter of fact, no one afterwards can remember Lark that summer. The reason is that she is never the same; never fixed; never comprehensive. There is no idea or mood that lasts for more than a day. Meanwhile she behaves with a gaiety that is attrac
tive and that has a spice of wantonness in it. ‘That little Ingoldsby girl is a flirt,’ say the mothers disapprovingly and they could shake Edith or Mary or Dorothy sitting there, bare shoulders and wreath of forget-me-nots, quite dumb while that little nobody walks away with anyone she chooses on the floor. Of course, Lark really should not be at these dances ‘but that Pelham—’ ‘Pelham,’ says Selina bitterly, ‘Pelham is bewitched.’
Perhaps he is. Afterwards, he finds he cannot remember Lark then either. Was she serious or gay? He knows that she was gay but the remembrance is oddly one of seriousness. Nor can he remember her face; her dresses, yes; her voice; her hand with his birthday bracelet on its wrist; but he cannot remember her face. She kisses Pelham good night and he horribly resents that sleepy trusting childish kiss, but he can never bring himself to stop it; he remembers all day the scent of her skin, the brushing of her hair against his, and the light unnoticing touch of her lips; it makes him angry in a way in which he has never felt angry before. Pelham is a mild little man but he could sometimes hurt Lark physically for the way in which she kisses him good night.
Lark wears a pale-green dress; a white one; white taffeta with a chenille fringe; she has a cream tulle dress with ribbons of petunia and black. She has fans – she leaves one on the hall table; it is white, of ostrich feathers, with an ivory handle. How does Lark come to have such a beautiful fan? Pelham gives it to her. Pelham is bewitched. ‘You are ridiculously extravagant over Lark,’ says Selina. ‘You never gave such things to me or Rollo.’ Flowers come for Lark on ball nights. ‘Will you be at Ponsonby House on Tuesday?’ ‘Are you going to the Neves’?’ Flowers arrive in long white cardboard boxes with a card, and always, lately, there is a card with a small gold coat of arms. Proutie takes them up to her. ‘Solomon’s lilies,’ says Proutie gravely as he hands them to her at her door. Proutie is fond of Lark but if he too were asked exactly what she looked like then, he too would not be able to say.
Now, as Slater takes Rollo’s note, Lark herself, with Pelham, comes into the drawing-room. She stops still just inside the door looking at Rollo and Rollo at the writing table looks back at her, and slowly, still looking, he stands up. Neither of them notices Pelham as he comes past Lark into the room.
‘Good Lord!’ says Pelham as he sees Rollo. ‘Good Lord!’
Rollo does not notice him. He looks at Lark. She is wearing a long dark-green coat and the ermine cap and stole and muff that arrived for her that morning.
‘Ermine,’ says Selina reverently as she turns back the tissue paper. ‘Ermine!’ She picks up the card that has again the small gold coat of arms: Con omaggio. Vostro devotissimo, GUIDO. ‘The Marchese! But you can’t accept this from him Lark.’
‘Why not?’ asks Lark.
‘No lady could.’
‘I am not a lady,’ says Lark serenely. ‘You must remember how ill-bred I am, Selina. You are always reminding me of that. And if someone nice – and he is nice, poor little man,’ says Lark with her eyes gentle – ‘If it makes him happy to give me things why shouldn’t I accept them?’
‘But you should take him seriously. He is serious,’ says Selina.
‘I know he is, and I am sorry,’ says Lark and then she laughs. ‘But I could put him in my pocket.’
Now the fur looks brilliant against Lark’s skin and hair and happy eyes; she does not attempt to hide the happiness. It is there as she sees Rollo.
‘Is this new?’ asks Pelham walking round Rollo. ‘I have never seen it before.’ Rollo is in full dress: high black boots, white breeches, dark-green tunic frogged with black, and a crimson sash. He looks immensely tall, a huge young man. Dear Pelham! thinks Lark as she watches Pelham walking round him, Don’t do that. You look like a bantam round a fighting cock. Rollo looks at her over Pelham’s head and she sees such wonder and recognition on his face that she is lifted up on wings of tumultuous joy. Steady, says Lark to herself, Be calm. ‘Hullo Rollo,’ she says aloud as she comes to join them in the room. He does not answer. He is perfectly still. Then: ‘I have been to a levee,’ he says suddenly transferring his attention to Pelham.
‘A levee? Well really Rollo my boy, that new dress is magnificent. Look at the sash Lark. Did you ever see a better colour?’
Lark picks up one of the heavy white gloves and slips her hand into it. It is still warm and hastily she takes her hand out and drops the glove back on the chair.
‘You seem about seven feet high,’ says Pelham and there is a wistful look in his eyes. ‘Magnificent. Really most impressive.’
He becomes aware that he is talking into a silence. Lark and Rollo in the same instant hear that too.
‘Was the Queen there?’ asks Lark. ‘It is much colder—’ begins Rollo.
He breaks off and Lark asks again, ‘Was the Queen there?’
‘No, only the Prince of Wales. The Queen is at Osborne.’
‘Yes of course. The Queen would be at Osborne.’
After a moment Lark says again, ‘Of course. The Queen would be at Osborne wouldn’t she?’
Pelham looks from one of them to the other. ‘Lark, it is time you were getting dressed,’ he says slowly.
‘Why wasn’t I told about this birthday?’ asks Rollo.
‘We didn’t think you would be interested.’
‘You were wrong,’ says Rollo, his eyes on Lark. ‘I have just written to Mrs Charles to ask if I can join you to-night.’
‘O – h!’ That escapes from Lark’s lips and there is no mistaking it. It is a sigh of bliss.
Pelham objects. He has to object or stifle. He makes the only objection he can think of: ‘Is that very polite to Mrs Charles? At the last moment?’
‘Oh Pelham dear!’ says Lark. ‘Don’t be so stuffy.’
Stuffy. The word rings on the air and Pelham reddens to the tips of his ears. ‘Well at any rate,’ he says, ‘it is time for you to dress.’
‘I shall have to come as I am,’ says Rollo.
‘That won’t matter,’ says Pelham, who is always fair. ‘There will be plenty of full dress there. Lark dear.’ He is at the door.
‘You go,’ says Lark.
Neither she nor Rollo notices when he goes.
‘Did Pelham give you a birthday present?’
‘This.’ She shows her bracelet, a little chain locked with a heart of sapphires and small rose diamonds.
‘Oh ho!’ says Rollo. ‘How poetical! Quite expensive too – for Pelham. He was done though. The stones are poor.’
‘How can you be so horrid!’
‘He is no judge of a stone, old Pelham,’ says Rollo, and he looks at Lark. ‘And the Marchese? What did he send?’
Lark slowly blushes. Suddenly and sharply, she regrets the ermine. She recognizes that this large young man, whom she has idealized into a cardboard hero, possesses a very real power to make her behave. If I were with you, thinks Lark, I could behave. I would be good and sensible. She thinks back over her behaviour that summer and her blush grows deeper.
‘Look at me Lark?’
As she looks, she sees that he is freckled lightly along his cheekbones and down his nose, and that seems to make him more real too. She is delighted, lifted again on those wings.
‘So you will live in Italy, and spend your time eating macaroni and going to the Opera.’
‘I shall if I want to,’ says Lark joyfully.
‘I shouldn’t Lark,’ says Rollo coming close to her. ‘They eat Larks in Italy.’
‘I – must go and get dressed,’ says Lark.
‘What are you going to wear? Wear white,’ says Rollo.
‘It is white; white tulle with knots of black velvet and white marguerites with black centres. It is French. So lovely Rollo.’
‘Did Pelham give you that too?’
‘Poor Pelham has to give me everything.’
That should come as a warning to Rollo, though he has a surge of desire to oust Pelham, never to let Pelham give her anything again. I forbid you to accept a thing, anything from Pelham,
but at the same time he feels a brake. You can’t live on your pay, it says. Don’t be mad. Don’t be so foolish. He is checked and he prepares to fortify himself, and then finds he has said, ‘Well I am going to give you a birthday present too, do you hear? And it will make Pelham open his eyes.’
Lark works on extravagance like yeast on dough but now she says, ‘No Rollo. Don’t. Don’t please. Please don’t. I don’t want anything at all.’
‘Want it or not,’ says Rollo. ‘You are going to have it, because I want to give it to you, see? And no one is going to give you a better one. Not even your Marchese.’
Oh! thinks Lark with a pang. Ermine! And Selina will tell him. I know she will. She shuts her eyes because she is too happy to keep them open any longer. Keep calm, says Lark. Help me to keep calm, she prays. Help me to keep my face, and my head. This comes to everyone. I must remember that. It is a common experience. It comes to everyone. Everyone falls in love. But I haven’t fallen in love, she objects. I am merely confirmed in it. But it feels anything but mere; it feels heady and giddy. Keep your head, says Lark sharply. It is the commonest thing on earth. And it doesn’t always make you happy. There is no reason why it should. Don’t go leaping to conclusions, says Lark severely and she opens her eyes and smiles dazzlingly at Rollo.
Rollo has been saying ‘Fitzgerald’ sternly to himself. Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald. He forgets it completely as Lark smiles and in a curious voice which is quite unlike Rollo’s, husky and blurred, he says ‘Lark?’
‘I – must go and get dressed,’ says Lark.
The house has its occasions.
There are the occasions that come regularly in season; they give meaning and rhythm to the year. The earliest of all, and the one that flutters out of fashion first, is St Valentine’s Day; who knows now that that is the day on which the birds are supposed officially to mate? Selina is the last person in the house to get a Valentine; it is a pretty one, of paper lace, painted with lover’s knots and cherubs, but Selina wholeheartedly laughs at it and puts it in the waste paper basket. It is anonymous. Next in the year is April Fool’s Day, but this is not, in the Dane household, for grown-ups but strictly for children and servants, just as Derby Day is not for children, but for grown-ups and servants; Slater once wins a hundred pounds. Then comes Easter, and Easter includes Lent: no marmalade for breakfast, no jam for tea, fish twice a week, no sweets; and Palm Sunday, when at Children’s Service small crosses of palm are given out; and Good Friday, with hot cross buns for breakfast, and church on a week-day; until finally, with a burst of happiness, it is Easter Sunday. It is Griselda’s custom, and later Selina’s, to send flowers to her friends at Easter. Pelham, Selina, Roly, later Lark, all help to deliver them on the afternoon of Saturday: lilacs, jonquils, hyacinths in pots; the first daffodils. The colours of Easter are white and yellow; the church is decorated in yellow and white: the children are wearing, perhaps, their new white spring coats and bonnets; but the eggs at breakfast are painted in every colour: scarlet, pink, and yellow and blue.