by Ursula Bloom
Dinah glanced at him. ‘But what about Daisy?’
‘I’m fixed up. I’m dancing with the French cousin of that ham-faced woman who keeps hens, and has a mind like a hen’s, the one in the cock feather boa. Alas, my poor brother!’ and she floated off. Still Dinah hesitated, and she saw Donald coming closer, felt his arm round her.
‘You do dance, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’
‘You reminded me of Galatea. A statue. You can’t put that over with me. You aren’t Galatea really?’
‘No. My husband has been very ill, and I don’t go about very much. I’m rather tied, you see.’
‘So that is why he isn’t here to-night? By Jove, if I had a lovely wife illness would not prevent me from coming round. I’d be sheep-dog whatever else was going. I know my own sex too well.’
‘Max is a good deal older than I am.’
He laughed. When he laughed, he flung back his head and she saw his throat clear and smooth, without line or cranny; the jaw did not sag. ‘That was your husband on the Sunday? Gee!’
‘Please,’ she said, ‘I love Max very much.’
He ought to have been snubbed by the hurt tone of her voice, but already she had realised that he was the unsnubbable kind. He ought to have been angry with her, but he was the kind that never gets angry. He merely held her closer; she had the impression that he was trying to coquette and was annoyed that it could make her feel like this. As though by accident, his hair touched hers.
‘Anyway I’ve got you now,’ he said.
If only she could stay this impulse to go on dancing, the urge for movement, for quickness of foot, the response to living! She stopped abruptly. ‘Let’s sit down. I don’t want to go on.’
‘What’s the matter? Do I dance as vilely as all that?’
‘No, you dance awfully well, and know it. I’d rather sit down if you don’t mind.’
‘I do mind very much, but as you say. Come to the window, it is pleasantly cooler there and the lilac smells wonderful.’
They went to the window, leaning out across the broad sill, with the wind from the Chilterns blowing to them, and the lilac sweet as it had been at Dukeleys.
He said, ‘You ought not to have married an older man, because you were made for youth, you know. Some are made to love young devils, or old boobies; you’d love a young devil.’
‘You don’t know anything about me.’
‘Don’t I? A painter sees beneath the surface, else he could not paint the surface accurately. A painter knows what he sees and I know you. You’re starved.’
‘Nonsense.’
She would not have been able to keep up this conversation, she knew, but Daisy came for the next dance, claiming Donald and taking him away. Dinah had an idea that between them they would tear her character to shreds, discuss her ruthlessly, for Daisy liked doing that sort of thing; she had the analytical mind, and took a delight in being cruel.
It was a mercy that Dinah herself was dancing with a local J.P. with the huntin’-shootin’-fishin’ mind, and the gourmand’s figure. After him it was a local bigwig who was doing something about town planning. A man who was large in build and small in mind, and destined to destroy acre upon acre with his tinpot ribbon building.
‘Why do you do it?’ she asked.
‘The poor must live, dear lady.’
‘But their living need not mar the whole countryside; where did they live before?’
‘In disgraceful slums and tenements. You don’t want them to live like pigs any longer? That era is dead and will never come back, thank God. You want them to have something better.’
‘Yes, but I don’t want to see every acre of England ruined with asbestos tiles and pink bricks.’
He became haughty. ‘Which matter most, dear lady, the places or the people? The people every time. Always the people.’
He took her to supper and ordered a heavy wine which she loathed. Daisy and Donald came to join them at the table, and talked above the head of the town-planner, so full of his own importance that he could not see the danger signals.
Across the room Muriel Stephens was eating with some long-haired man, who had obviously been persuaded to spend the week-end with them and had come from the School of Music. Neither of them seemed to be enjoying themselves too much.
Dinah did not know why, but she beckoned to them to bring their coffee across to the table where she was sitting. The arrival of Muriel, the height of plainness in a good velvet frock, obviously dedicated to the concert platform and made to come in useful for the Aylesbury dance, was the signal for Daisy and Donald to behave worse than ever. The long-haired youth was fatuous; it appeared that he played the ’cello.
‘Why take up the ’cello? It must be a pest to cart about, besides being a bit obvious,’ said Donald; ‘you could only go one worse, by adopting the double bass.’
‘You cart an easel,’ challenged the young man, who had a high falsetto voice, and apparently did not find shaving necessary.
‘You underestimate my profession, because I paint indoors,’ said Donald; ‘I am not one of those common artists who go out sketching. Oh no! I do my own dirty work in the comfort of my cottage. I paint girls in the nude, very intime, in my own studio. It’s a good idea, don’t you think?’
The young man with the falsetto looked as though he couldn’t think.
‘Cedric is down for the Æolian Hall next week,’ said Muriel, with the proud air of a racehorse owner whose horse is down for the Cesarewitch next month.
The town-planning man was not to be outdone. He beamed. With his one-track mind, he had to talk about town planning and he pursued his single track relentlessly. He failed to notice that nobody was listening. Here, thought Dinah, were six people, each thinking of something different and all of them one-track really. Muriel and her piano; Cedric and his dreadful ’cello; the town planner; Daisy and Donald thinking of life, and spring, and everything that the two combined could offer; she herself following them, reluctantly, she admitted, but following.
The ghost at the table was not the ghost of Max. It was a flag lieutenant who looked back at her over his shoulder. That quick look. The thick wavy hair that her hands longed to caress, and all the time her fingers were obliged to linger on Max’s head, thinning and greyed. That lithe body whose heart beat so vigorously, whilst Max’s laboured.
I mustn’t think of it, she told herself.
2
‘And, if you ask me,’ said Daisy as they drove home together, ‘it was a jolly good dance. A bit provincial, but what do you expect from Aylesbury ducks and drakes? Donald is calling for me in the morning to take me for a picnic on the Chilterns.’
‘You liked him?’
‘Yes, he liked you too. Artists see things, and he saw that something was wrong. I told him.’
‘Daisy, I do wish you wouldn’t talk like that about my having married Max. I chose to marry him and we are intensely happy.’
‘Yes, of course,’ and then sharply, ‘don’t be such a little idiot! I know you think that you’re being clever, but there are some things that you can’t hide.’
It was no use quarrelling; here they were driving through this lovely night, with the flower scent and the sweetness of summer at hand. ‘All right,’ she said.
They garaged the car quietly, as though they were a couple of guilty children. They opened the door of the house and went inside, while the ship’s bell swung to and fro without in the little wind which comes before the dawn. The light still burnt, but Max had gone to bed. On the dining-room table there was wine, and a thermos of hot coffee with the sandwiches set by it.
‘This is fun,’ said Daisy. ‘I liked to-night. I liked Donald; he is impossible but amusing. I think I like impertinence in a man.’
‘I thought he took a bit too much on himself.’
‘A man is no good unless he’s a bit of a devil.’
They sat whispering together so as to disturb no one. When Dinah went to bed, she drew the curta
ins and let in that fresh white light which people miss. They lose so much in not seeing the dawn, she thought, and believed that she had never seen the world so beautiful as it was at this moment with the dying starshine and the waking day. A hand plucking aside a dark curtain and showing life, something that most of the world sleep through every morning of their lives.
The result was that she was late for breakfast.
Max got downstairs punctually, he always stuck to rule and hated being late. The dining-room was quiet; usually before he got to the foot of the stairs he could hear Dinah moving about, but not to-day. Lisa was at the sideboard, and there was no sign either of Dinah or her guest.
‘Is nobody down yet?’ he asked, amazed. ‘Why, it’s half-past nine! Where are the ladies?’
Lisa glanced at him. ‘I expect they are very tired, sir, they got back most late. It must have been the morning.’ And she smiled encouragingly.
‘Yes, I know.’ He pulled out the old heavy watch which had belonged to his father, comparing the time with the clock on the mantelpiece which he set by the radio every night. ‘I know, but you would have thought …’ Then to himself, ‘They ought to be down. There’s no excuse for this; they really ought to be down.’
Lisa bustled forward, cognisant of these symptoms. She understood that mein herr always got touchy when people were late for breakfast, and she knew the palliative.
‘Café au lait,’ she said, ‘with cream on top. An omelette? It is the kind you like so much best.’
Max was only slightly mollified. He said, ‘Oh yes, very good of you, I see,’ and helped himself, but all the time his eye was wandering back to the clock on the mantelshelf.
Ten minutes later, Dinah came in. She was conscious of guilt and knew that he would be irritated with her, although he would be nice, and try not to show it. She came in quietly, going behind his chair, and bending, kissed the bald spot on his head. Instantly she wished that she had not done that. Last night she had been thinking of other hair, thick dark hair. Piers’. Donald’s hair which clung to one’s fingers.
‘I’m so sorry to be late, darling. I know how you loathe unpunctuality, but we did not get back until almost dawn.’
He patted the hands which she had laid on either shoulder, knowing that even her touch could mollify him. ‘It’s all right. I expect I am just a grumpy old man, only somehow I do like seeing you here to greet me when I get down to breakfast. It’s selfish of me, but I can’t help it.’
‘It isn’t selfish really.’ She was at the sideboard helping herself to omelette, although she knew that she had no appetite for it; that was one of the fruits of being too tired. ‘I suppose it is not being used to it that makes it so exhausting.’
Instantly he was magnanimous. ‘You ought to go out more, my dear, and I am glad that you have got Daisy here, because she will liven you up, and that’s exactly what you need.’
She brought her plate to the table hoping that he would not remark on the smallness of her portion.
‘I thought you didn’t care about Daisy?’
‘Nonsense! She’s modern, of course, and thinks differently from my school; but she is your friend, and naturally I like her because of that.’
‘You’re being kind, only you can’t deceive me. Daisy is awfully young in some ways. She thinks youngly.’ For her mind had gone back to last night.
‘And you need youth. I’m too old for you, you know. I’ve grown so very much older lately. No, you needn’t deny it. I’m not blind to my faults, I can warn you, and this beastly angina has knocked spots off me.’
She tasted the omelette and put it back on her plate. Either it was not as good as usual or she had not the heart to eat it. ‘You always seem the same to me,’ she protested.
‘I don’t seem the same to myself. Rheumatism. A bit deaf at times. More stupid and irritable. Oh yes, I notice that too, my dear.’
‘I don’t.’
She heard Daisy whistling gaily as she came down the stairs, opening the door and coming in looking so fresh that one could not imagine she had danced all night. ‘Hello, this is a remarkable feat for me. Getting up with the lark isn’t my strong line. I usually rise with the owl. Particularly when it’s the morning after; but I’m here, and that’s that. Do give me some coffee, for the love of Mike.’
‘I hope you enjoyed yourself,’ said Max politely.
Daisy sat down and leaned her arms on the table. ‘I adored it, and I met a painter man, who does modernistic things. You know the kind that go any old way, down or up, and it’s just the same. Two lumps, please, Dinah. You liked Donald too, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, Max knows him; he is a nephew of Mrs. Wellby, he was here at Easter time.’ She changed the subject hurriedly. ‘Did Mr. Tite come to see you whilst we were out, Max?’
‘Yes, for a short while, but he had to get home; his sister is not very well and he seemed rather disturbed about her.’
Daisy was pursuing her own conversation, quite regardless of everything else. ‘I told you that Donald was coming round this morning. Max won’t mind if he pops along, will he?’
‘Certainly let him “pop along”, but there was something about Max’s tone, an inflection which warned Dinah that he was irritated.
‘If I make up my mind to enjoy myself, enjoy myself I do,’ said Daisy brightly. She had a flow of vivacious conversation which was ill-timed for so early an hour. ‘Marmalade, please.’
Max made an effort. He said, ‘Once I loved dancing. It would be purgatory now.’
‘It won’t ever be purgatory to me,’ said Daisy, still brightly. ‘I like it too much. I’d rather be dead than done with dancing. Oh Lord, have I said something awful? I talk too much. My tongue runs on ahead of the few poor brains I have. Everybody tells me that, but it’s just me. I can’t help it.’
Max’s chair made a slate pencil noise against the brick floor as he pushed it back. It always set Dinah’s teeth on edge, but he would do it, and although she had asked him not to time and time again, it was something that he always forgot. Lately she realised that his heaviness made it difficult for him to push his chair away without making that particular noise, and her complaints therefore would have no effect.
He said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just potter out to see the gardener. He always comes at this time, and I want to discuss the peaches with him. There has been something very wrong with them this year.’
They watched him as he went out at the garden door, and crossed the lawn, going slowly up the flagged path to the walled-in garden at the far end. Daisy turned to Dinah.
‘Now I know I’ve upset him, and don’t know what I’ve said. That’s me all over. Ought I to run after him and murmur sweet nothings, or stay with this delicious café au lait? That’s the joy of having an Austrian servant, most unpatriotic but she can make such excellent coffee, and I’m for the coffee every time.’
‘You’re dreadfully thoughtless,’ Dinah was trying to be severe. ‘Max can’t help being old, and you keep rubbing it in all the time.’
‘The trouble is that I don’t stop to think. I’m so used to being with young men that, whatever I do, I keep on forgetting that you married Methuselah.’
‘He feels his years.’
‘And you feel yours. Oh, I noticed last night, and if you ask me you’re longing for a little bit of life. I honestly believe you’d give your soul to kiss somebody who isn’t wrinkled, to have an affair with somebody your own age. I don’t blame you, darling, because I’d feel like it myself if I’d married my grandpa. I don’t for a moment think you’re wrong, but all the same you can’t deny it.’
‘I shan’t discuss it,’ said Dinah coldly, though inwardly she was indignant. ‘I’ll leave you to finish your breakfast alone and go and get some flowers for the house.’
She went across the lawn after Max, but she knew that now she did not want him. She gathered pink tulips and the white narcissi which smelt so heavenly, and before she had her basket full she saw Max coming o
ut of the kitchen garden, slowly to her side.
‘Well, have you pacified Ernest for my stealing these flowers? He hates me having them for the house.’
Ernest was the gardener, who had a stern objection to any flower not being allowed to die where it stood. ‘Yes. I ‒ I’ve had a bit of a shock, my dear. Poor old Miss Tite died, whilst he was here with me last night.’
‘Max! What a wretched thing to have happen! I am so sorry.’
She saw that his face had gone grey, and realised for the first time that it must be difficult for a man when he himself gets into that autumn which sees the leaves dropping from other trees, and knows that soon his own turn must come.
‘I’m very sorry, Max.’
‘It was so awful for him after all these years together to be away at that particular moment. I want to go round to see him.’
‘Not just yet. Take it quietly.’ She made him sit for a moment on the garden seat, with the pink may tree beside it, and the keria in yellow buttons of flowers. ‘You must think of yourself, dear, rest a little while.’
‘I liked her so much. If only the world stayed still, remained as it used to be and did not go on and on into loneliness.’
‘I know, dearest.’ She patted his hand and he held on to hers. She knew that he did not want to talk. A quarter of an hour later they moved down the garden together, towards the cottage.
3
Donald was in the dining-room with Daisy, and it was quite obvious that there had been something between them, because they moved guiltily apart and Daisy’s eyes were laughing. She looked up.
‘We are going off on a picnic. Would you both be awfully offended if we did this? It’s awfully rude of us, I know.’
Dinah felt that nothing could be more suitable than to get rid of Daisy for the morning. Max had been very much upset by the news of Miss Tite’s death, and now they could have the place to themselves, which would give him a little time to get over it, without the distressing influence of Daisy.
‘Where were you going?’ Max asked.
Donald turned. Dinah might be peculiarly sensitive, but she had the idea that at this particular moment he was sizing Max up, assessing him and his age and the emotion between the two of them which she knew was something that a man like Donald could not understand. ‘The Hadley beech woods are at their best just now, and I thought of taking a bird and a bottle of beer along there.’