Who’s moving? Where’s this room? In the far-sunk depths of him, time started a gradual, a reluctant beat. When is it? Who is this, lying in a bed? His own identity began waveringly to crystallise, close over him. Apprehensive now, he opened his eyes again, saw a figure move across and vanish from his line of vision. He moved his lips and a faint sound came from between them.
There was a soft, rapid forward movement; someone by the bed. A face … Well, well, well! … The girl Olivia. His lids fell again.
“Awake, Dad?” A tiny voice.
After a long while he sighed out:
“Very weak.” A quiver fled over his face.
“I know, Dad. It’s a shame. Never mind. You’ll soon be better.”
Sounded odd: tearful?
“You think so, do you?” That was the line. “What you doing here anyway?”
“Just sitting here for a bit—in case you wanted anything. Do you?”
He waited … Want? Want? Foolish, exhausting …
“Little drink?” she whispered.
“No.”
“Mother’s downstairs, writing letters. Shall I fetch her?”
“No. No.” He waited. “The other one”
“Nurse?”
“Nurse.” She saw amusement break far down below his face. “Very strong woman.”
“Is she? I bet she is.”
“Whisks me up and down, rolls me over …”
“I know”
“Like a blinking baby …”
Weak laughter caught them both, shook them helplessly. Tears crawled down his cheeks. When the spasm had worked itself out, he sighed heavily, groaning almost, and lay like a log. She brought a chair and sat down close beside his bed, and wiped the tears off with a handkerchief. His wasted face with its six days’ growth of grizzled beard, its mouth slack, mournful, cracked with fever, was hideous, strange, distasteful to her. It was a sick old man’s face—not his. But he has his forehead still. Untouched, magnanimous, it rode above the wreck, as if informed with a separate, a victorious life of intellectual strength and serenity: saying: Behold! we shall all be saved …
Is he alive? Has he died? Ought I to go for someone? If he’s dead, I’ll be blamed … I let him talk too much … But he said suddenly:
“Olivia.”
“Yes, Dad?”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Did you, Dad? I’m not. At least I don’t think so.”
“So it seems. Tant mieux.” He sighed. “Very bad dreams. Shocking.”
“It was the fever.”
“No doubt. How long …?”
“About a week.”
“Indeed.”
“I turned up yesterday.”
“I see. Family summoned.” He smiled infinitesimally. “All here?”
“Not James.”
He looked distressed all of a sudden and said, more sharply:
“Oswald?”
“He’s not here … but he shall come whenever you like. Don’t worry about him, Dad.”
“Poor old fellow.” Another tear crept down.
“Mother didn’t want to upset him …”
“Why upset? He’s a sensible chap. She doesn’t want him here. Never did.”
“He’s coming, Dad, I promise you. Don’t worry. I’ll arrange it. Everything’s all right.”
Very slowly his hand came up from beneath the blankets, crawled in her direction. Oh! Don’t … She took it in hers and said, aching:
“You two shall stuff around and stump each other with locus classicuses and read boring books to your hearts’ content. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about anything. Just get better quick.”
He gave her hand the ghost of a pressure. The girl was a nice creature, she meant well. Oh, but so lugubrious … to struggle up and find yourself at the end after all. A laughable disappointment … Give up, go down again? … No … Too late …
He drifted off to sleep again, his hand in hers. It felt brittle, dry, like a claw … Oh, is it going to be worth it for him, after all? How in this spent declining frame could the vitality well up again to replenish him; restore this claw, this mask, to human warmth? … Sparing ourselves the funeral, the black, the money difficulties, only to offer him, after laborious days and nights, a rug, an invalid chair: imitations of living, humiliations; only a fettered waiting on life and death …
His wife came in softly and stood by the bed. Barely perceptibly, her face altered, stiffened.
“He’s asleep. He woke up and talked quite a lot, quite like himself, and then he dropped off again … a moment ago”
“Well … go and get ready for supper. I’ll stay with him now.”
I stole a march. I cheated. She should have had his first words, not I. … I’ve betrayed her …
Guiltily, under her mother’s shuttered eyes, she disengaged their hands.
IV
“Aren’t you going to drink your soup, Olivia? It’s one of Ada’s nicest.”
“No, thank you, Mum.”
“Oh, come now, do try it. It’s all vegetables—so good for you. I found the recipe in the Star.”
“I don’t like soup much, you know, Mum …”
“What a pity. Ada’ll be so disappointed. She made it specially.”
“Look at me,” said Kate. “I’m drinking mine up.”
“Yes. “Approval and exasperation struggled in Mrs. Curtis’s voice. “You’re a sensible girl, thank goodness.”
“You can’t expect to have more than one satisfactory child, Mum,” said Olivia. “Not in these days.”
There was a soup-drinking silence. Olivia’s cup sat before her in smug reproach with its cap and button on.
“And as a child,” said Mrs. Curtis, “you were always the one to have a big appetite. Kate was the fussy one.”
“And now I gorge,” said Kate languidly.
“You don’t gorge, dear …”
“It’s motherhood,” said Kate.
“Dad never could bear a scraggy woman.”
“I know, darling, you’ve said so before,” sighed Olivia. “That’s why he picked us a Ma like you.”
“Well, it’s not right, and what’s more it’s not becoming, I don’t care what people say. Your grandmother always said: ‘If you go against Nature you’ll pay for it.’”
“I don’t go against Nature,” said Kate. “I’m nicely covered.”
“You aren’t fat, dear, not a scrap. You’re just nice.”
“Yes, that’s what I said—just nice. Though, as a matter of fact, Rob really prefers them on the skinny side.”
“Nonsense. Rob has far too much sense.”
Mrs. Curtis’s manner conveyed an arch benevolent unperturbed reproach: for Kate, cured of that early tendency to tart defiance, of that dreadfully nervy phase she’d had after Paris—disagreeable remarks, sarcastic generalisations, tears for no reason at all—Kate had long since turned out entirely sensible and satisfactory. Kate, bless her, had slipped with no trouble into a suitable marriage within easy motoring distance. As the wife of a young doctor with a good country practice, a solid man, a man with a growing reputation; as the mother of four fine healthy children she had established herself beyond question in all eyes. No doubt she was critical still, still impatient of advice; but all the same, sitting over the fire nowadays, each with her knitting, they were very cosy, very happy together. Talk flowed on, as warm, as refreshing as a good cup of coffee. The barrier between generations was dissolved. It was almost like being young: almost—though May was gone and that blank ached irremediably, a cruel amputation—almost like having a sister again. A comfort, yes, a comfort, now that Olivia … now that James … phases, we hope; phases, of course … above all, now that Charles … Saved, but a ruin … I know it … Hush … Pass on.
“Did I
tell either of you, Dolly Martin’s getting married?”
“It can’t be true!”
“Who to?”
“Well, it seems it’s a young missionary out in China. She met him some years ago—when they were both doing work in the East End—and they’ve been corresponding for some time, so Dr. Martin tells me. She sails next month.”
“Well, well, well! Good old Pudding-face! Who’d have thought romance was nesting behind those horn-rims all these years?”
“No wonder she always looked so conceited. It just shows where there’s a will there’s a way, and one never need be sorry for any one.”
“She’s such a capable energetic girl,” sighed Mrs. Curtis. “She’ll be such a help to him. But it does seem a long way to go”
“Let’s hope the suns of China won’t reduce her. She’s a luscious morsel for a missionary.”
“And a very primitive place, I understand, right in the interior.”
“She’ll be captured by bandits,” said Olivia, “for a cert. She’s got just the looks they always pick on. A few more years shall roll and Dolly’ll be held for ransom in a bandit lair. I see her photo in the papers now.”
“These missions do wonderful work,” said Mrs. Curtis with a touch of severity: for why should everything be made a mock of? “It’s a hard life and a dangerous one.”
“Serve ’em jolly well right for interfering,” said Olivia harshly.
“People must do something, I suppose,” Kate yawned.
“His name is Potts,” said Mrs. Curtis, passing on with determination to the particular. “Cyril Potts,—or was it Cecil? Not a very romantic name,” she conceded, smiling; for of course they thought it funny— “But Dr. Martin says he’s got such a particularly nice open face. Olivia, you might send her a line, I thought. She was always more your friend.”
“I might.”
“I’ve been wondering what I could give her that would really be useful.”
“A cake-basket.”
“A cruet-stand … or two cruet-stands.”
“I thought perhaps a little cheque really, then you girls could give her a little something personal. From the two of you. You needn’t spend much.”
“No, we needn’t,” said Kate. “It’s the thought that counts.”
“Poor Dr. Martin, I’m afraid he’ll miss her dreadfully. But Phyl’s coming home to keep house for him. You know she’s been sharing a cottage in Wiltshire with a friend, a Miss Trotter, and breeding—now what is it?—Angoras, I think.”
“Poor old Phyl,” said Olivia. “It’s a shame she should have to give up her career. Hard on Miss Trotter, too. You don’t find a pal like Phyl on every blackberry bush.”
“Yes, Dr. Martin was a little unhappy about it, but she would. She never hesitated. Those girls have always been so devoted to their father.”
“And she may be able to do something with rabbits here.”
Oh, give it up! … Plain, cheerful Martins, companions of childhood, coping efficiently with their lives, sensible women … Dolly would never wake up one morning in China and tell herself: My marriage has failed and my life is empty, futile. Not she. Dolly scored heavily.
“What a divine salad,” said Olivia. “What’s in it—Prunes? Can I have some more, Mum, please?”
A ray of simple pleasure shot across her mother’s face.
“Do, dear. I hoped you’d like it. I told Ada to put a little cream in the dressing.”
And cream was nourishing. And it was all part of the plan, thought out specially to tempt, to please. And she looks so worn. I hate myself.
“Has any one taken Mrs. Skinner’s cottage yet?”
And after that I’ll ask for details of Miss Robinson’s complete breakdown … And after that …
Across the table they began to ply a peaceful shuttle between the three of them, renewing, re-enforcing, patching over rents and frayed places with old serviceable thread. They were tough still; they were a family. That which had chanced to tie them all up together from the start persisted irrevocably, far below consciousness, far beyond the divergences of the present, uniting them in a mysterious reality, independent of reason. As it was in the beginning, is now … Only the vast central lighting-piece no longer stupefied the cloth with a white china glare. When the daughters came home, grown up to have ideas on becoming lighting, they had condemned it; and during their visits, four candles in elaborate Victorian silver candlesticks burned above the expanse of damask, around the silver fruit-bowl. The table floated, a stealthily-gleaming craft moored far from shore, between the beetling promontories of clock and sideboard, below the soaring lighthouse of grandpapa’s portrait. Very restful and pleasant it was too, once you got used to the enormous areas of shade where anything might be happening: though Violet was a worry, always tripping up at the door with the tray: on purpose, Kate said … How young, how pretty Kate looked; no more than a girl; and Olivia too, softened, glowing, as she always used to be … and I too helped, no doubt, more as I would like … as I was, before these wrinkles … Mrs. Curtis finished her glass of claret. Delicious, reviving … The girls had insisted; and certainly it had made a difference,—just for once …
“I needn’t go up just yet,” she said happily, as they rose from table. “He’s all settled for the night and Nurse is there. Isn’t it a blessing he’s taken such a fancy to her? There’s something about her tickles him, though I can’t see anything funny myself … Let’s sit in the drawing-room.”
The fire blazed and the lights stared behind thin, white silk, rose-wreathed shades. Olivia stretched herself upon the white wool hearthrug, between Kate and her mother, facing each other in their arm-chairs. They knitted. Stockings for the children, jumpers for the children, babies’ night-vests, coats, bootees—there was never an end. Kate had taken on and elaborated the theme unfolded in her own infancy by Mrs. Curtis. The little tables either side of the fireplace were choked now with photographs of the grandchildren at all stages: straight-fringed, neat-featured, hygienic-looking. A number of the more rococo pre-war likenesses of Mrs. Curtis’s own young—plumes, curls, ribbons, frothing frills—had been put away to make room for them. From time to time Kate laid down her needles and studied them closely, with a searching frown. From time to time Mrs. Curtis’s hands dropped and she heaved a sigh: her vast unconscious sigh. But nowadays this no longer cast a blight upon her daughters. Olivia smoked, looked at the Illustrated London News. Over her head the two pairs of hands resumed their busy conspiracy, the two voices droned peacefully on … The children, the servants, the children, Rob, Dad, James, the children …
At ten o’clock the telephone rang in the hall.
“Now who can that be?” said Mrs. Curtis. “At this hour?”
“I’ll go.” Olivia sprang up with a sudden tingling surmise.
“Hallo?”
“Could I—er—speak to—er—Miss Olivia Curtis possibly …”
“Speaking.” Yes. It was.
“Oh, hallo, good-evening!” He sounded relieved. “This is Rollo Spencer.”
“Oh, yes! Good-evening …”
“I hope I’m not an awful bore ringing up. I wanted to ask how—if—how your father is …”
“It’s frightfully nice of you, Rollo. He’s better—really better. We think he’s turned the corner.”
“Oh, I’m terribly glad to hear that—terribly glad.” Warm, delighted voice.
“It is sweet of you to ring up.”
“Not at all. I wanted to, I’ve been wondering a lot … I didn’t want to be a nuisance. Mummy’ll be terribly glad, she was awfully sorry when she heard. … She wants to say a word to you …”
“Oh, does she? …” Alarming. “How are you?”
“I’m extremely well, thank you.”
“Are you, really?”
“Yes, truly. How are you?”
“Oh … in my usual rude health …”
They laughed, waited doubtfully, embarrassed.
“Hang on a moment, will you,” he said finally. “Mummy wants to speak to you. Hang on. I’ll give her a shout.”
“Right you are. I’ll hang on.”
Gone. That was all. Full, strong lazy voice, trailing away, inconclusive; nothing said one could fasten on to, or remember; current expressions of superficial sympathy … Only the voice, promising something, raising an expectation … Oh, well, that was that: finished with. All the Spencers had good manners.
“Is that Olivia?” Incisive ringing tones filled the earpiece.
“Yes, Lady Spencer.” At once she felt meek and gratified, nestling under a wing: as of old.
“My dear, Rollo’s told me the good news. I do so rejoice! We’ve been so concerned since Rollo saw you. I hardly liked to ring up but I’ve thought of you all so much. Do tell your mother this with my love. What an anxious time, poor dear. How is she?”
“Oh, she’s very well. A little bit tired, but really marvellously well.”
“Is she? How splendid. She must take care of herself—she’ll feel the strain now the anxiety is less.”
“Yes, I expect she will.”
“Now, my dear, are we going to be able to get a glimpse of you, I wonder?”
“Oh … I don’t know, Lady Spencer. I’d love to. It’s ages …”
“I know. Far too long. Do you think your mother could possibly spare you to us for an evening?”
“I’m sure she could.”
“That would be delightful. Well, now, we’ve got Rollo and Marigold with us till Monday—and they’re so anxious to see you. In that case it would have to be to-morrow evening, wouldn’t it? Would that suit you?”
“To-morrow evening would be perfect.”
“It would? How delightful. Marigold will be so enchanted. Is Kate there?”
“Yes, Kate’s here.”
“Dear Kate. Give her my love.” The voice fell a tone or two, seemed to reflect a trifle doubtfully. “Would she come too?”
“I don’t know. If you wouldn’t mind holding on, I’ll ask.”
Back to the drawing-room she flew, gave rapid messages.
The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels) Page 6