Olivia burst out laughing; and Marigold’s rapt ferociously frowning expression relaxed gradually into a look of puzzled, faintly amused relief.
“I suppose it’ll work out all right,” she said vaguely; adding after a pause: “I wonder if dying’ll be a sort of dream too? Don’t you? I can’t believe it’ll seem like me, me dying … Ugh! Have I really got to?” She opened her eyes to their widest, and they looked blank and blind with their dilated pupils, like eyes made of glass. “I get moments when it sweeps over me—in the middle of the night or when I’m by myself in the house—and depressed. It’s like dropping through a trap-door unexpectedly.”
She turned round and leaned her arms along the mantelpiece and her head down sideways on her arms. Her curls tumbled over out of their sophisticated dressing, and looked irresponsible, childish. What the years had done to her looks became suddenly evident. The face, that sketch in a few light lines, had acquired not precision exactly, not an adult cast, but a curious clarifying and definition of each one of the old tentative ambiguities and contradictions. Enthralling, paradoxical interplay of planes and surfaces seen momentarily in repose: cold, sensual, tender, adamant … transparent, dissimulating … moving romantic creature … Sinister creature. Mad, bad, and … No, what nonsense! …
“Are you often by yourself and depressed?”
She lifted her head and looked round at Olivia out of the corners of her eyes.
“No, no, not I.” She looked slightly sheepish, slightly mocking, as she used to look in the Shakespeare class when they caught her drawing rude Skinny Gingers. “I’m practically never alone and I enjoy myself frightfully practically always. Don’t you? It’s so silly not to, don’t you think? … Livia, darlin’, tell me more about yourself. I’ve been talking too much about me. Why did you go and drop out of my life? I wish people wouldn’t do that. I hate it. I was so excited when Rollo told me … He was quite determined you were to be got to come—not that he needed to be determined, because of course we all wanted … Only it was funny of Rollo, he doesn’t often … I was so glad. I do hope you like him. Poor sweet, it’s time he had a break.”
“Why? Does he need one?”
“I think he does. He’s just wasted. Only he’s so kind and easy-going it ’ud never occur to him. Between you and me, and any one else who cares to listen, that Nicola’s no damn’ good.” She made a grimace, and came and flung herself down in one of the leather arm-chairs opposite Olivia. “There! That clinches it: this chair smells of Albert’s hair-oil. I suppose he wantons in it with the housemaid. I always thought this room had a sort of lustful atmosphere.”
“Why do you say she’s no good?”
“Who? Oh, Nicola? Oh, she’s a bitch. She loathes me and I loathe her. She’s jealous. Mummy can’t do with her either, only of course wild horses wouldn’t drag it out of her … All this family bunk! Of course, Rollo won’t hear a word … He adores her—or he thinks he does. My only hope is that some-body’ll enlighten him one of these days.”
“You mean you don’t think he does really?”
“No, it’s only he’s so loyal … She doesn’t give him a thing …”
“I don’t believe that makes much difference … In fact, quite the contrary sometimes.” Why do I go on? Why feel embarrassed—almost guilty? … and pleased as well? “Is she double-crossing him or something?”
“Oh, no, not that! She’d never have the guts … If only she would do something definite, like have a lover or take to drugs, there might be some hope. Oh, I don’t know. There never was such a witless die-away ninny. And not an ounce of humour. She had a miscarriage once, quite an ordinary one, at least two years ago, and instead of going ahead and trying again she’s decided she’s an invalid—or her mother has. Her mother’s a proper sabre-toothed tiger. I bet she’s told Rollo Nicola’s too delicate to take any risks with and he mustn’t go to bed with her. She’s always lying on sofas and if she’s crossed she cries and her mother says her nervous system’s ruined … Poor old Rollo …” She took up a tiny silver-framed snapshot from the table beside her and examined it through screwed-up eyes. “Who’s that pursy infant? One of us, I suppose.” She put it down again, thrust out her gold-sandalled feet and examined them, wriggling her toes. “The point is … she’s awfully sweet in some ways. She’s just an infant, a spoilt one. And of course she’s quite, quite lovely. One can’t help rather cherishing her. There’s no vice in the girl … Not like Sam, he’s full of it. Livia, you must meet Sam. You’d like him. Women always do. He’s terribly attractive and he’s rather sweet too, only he’s got a lousy temper, specially when he’s a bit tight …
“He’s sort of unexpected too: he’s very musical and he goes to concerts by himself … and he gets worked up about Ireland: he’s Irish, you know, so of course he’s got the gift of the gab and he’s not awfully reliable.” She sprang up again, looking restless and undecided. “I must say I’d like to know what he’s been up to this week-end … I thought there was something in the wind: he was so emphatic about being bored to death where he was going … Shall I ring him up and give him a glorious surprise? Shall I? Now?”
“If you like.”
She looked at Olivia in a vague yet insistent way … Ringing up Sam an act of hostility to which I’m to lend support …
“I jolly well will.” She started towards the telephone, stopped. “No, I won’t … I don’t know where he is, and that’s a fact. I meant to ask him, but I forgot.” She went off into one of her silent laughing fits. “Livia, marriage is the devil, isn’t it? It’s too degradating … It suits me all right though, really.” She looked suddenly sobered: remembering my ambiguous state. “Livia …” she said with affectionate vagueness.
“Mine turned out to be a non-starter. My marriage, I mean.” Olivia coloured and giggled.
“You laugh just like you used to … Darlin’, I’m sorry. It’s a gamble and no mistake, to put it in an entirely original way.” She spoke uncertainly, as if wondering what to say.
“Oh, it can’t be helped. I shouldn’t have married him … I dare say I’m not particularly suitable to marriage.”
“Aren’t you? Why not? Come to that I don’t know who is, on the face of it. Perhaps Mary. Marriage or murder …
I know which I’d put her down for God, what a week-end, really! They make such a point of my coming down, and of course I do love to—only why will Ma collect all these specimens—rattling their bones and reeking of moth ball? Talk of feasting with skeletons! … Tante Henriette’s all right—the French one—she’s got some kick left—she’s a devil—only she’s deaf and ill … But as for the others! Can you imagine when you’re old wanting to sit round like they do and track down all your relations and relations by marriage, known and unknown, all ages and generations, and whether they’ve inherited the family squint or hammer-toes or whatever it is? …”
“I know. My mother’s just the same. I suppose it makes them feel safer … as if they weren’t going to disappear altogether.”
“I suppose so.” She looked sober. “Poor darlings. What with Daddy being so ga-ga … I don’t think they feel awfully cheerful any more. Everything falls flat. Have you noticed he’s not frightfully bright? It is a shame. There’s nothing to be done. He’s best with old friends that don’t notice him.”
“I expect he’s quite happy really, you know. He doesn’t notice. He looks very peaceful.”
She said with grateful eagerness: “Yes, he does, doesn’t he? He didn’t when he first got ill, he looked so melancholy I couldn’t … But now he’s quite serene. And he still makes his little jokes, and he can do a bit of fishing and let off his gun … Only there must be moments when—” She stood and stared. “He really was rather a good person. I’ll tell you what he was—magnanimous. People aren’t often.” Suddenly she put out a foot and switched off the electric fire. “What are we doing in this most unprepossessive room? Let’s go b
ack.” She drew Olivia close to her, an arm round her waist. “Darlin’ Olivia, it’s lovely talking to you again. How thin you are. Like a boy. Are you all right?”
“As right as rain.”
They leaned against one another. Marigold said abruptly, her voice pitched at its highest: “Do you know any queer people?”
“Lots.” Olivia laughed. “Nothing but …”
“What I meant was—you know—what d’you call ’em— Lesbians and things …”
“Oh, I see.” Olivia made a slight involuntary movement away. “Oh, a few, I s’pose.”
“Do they fall for you?”
“No—not particularly …”
“I wonder what it would be like … I don’t think I should like it. I’ve never felt inclined that way … but I once knew someone who was. You never know … Lots of people are, aren’t they? Far more than one realizes …”
“I expect so.”
“Have you ever felt attracted like that?”
“No, I never have.”
“I bet if I were like that I’d make a pass at you.” She patted and stroked Olivia’s hip with a light clinging touch.
“Thank you. The same to you.” Olivia put up a hand and ran it quickly over the curls … But I feel foolish, uneasy …
“D’you remember that time you stayed the week-end and we slept in the same bed and pretended to be a married couple? How old were we, I wonder? About fourteen? … Innocent fun …”
“I remember.”
A silence fell. The smell, the weight, the darkness of plush, mahogany and leather seemed to Olivia to swell out around them, closing them in suffocatingly. What’s she driving at? She turned and looked at Marigold and said: “But that’s not why my marriage didn’t work.”
“No, of course … I didn’t meant that …”
Oh, didn’t you … But why? My looks? A rumour? A sudden, reckless shot of her own at random?
“Not a lover of any sort,” said Olivia, laughing. “Nothing romantic. It was more like getting on and off a moving bus very clumsily with the wrong foot and being left sprawling in the road with your hat crooked and your stockings muddy, feeling a fool … For weeks I wasn’t sure whether to go back or not. But I just didn’t. I drifted away somehow. There wasn’t what’s known as a clean break.”
“Well, I think it was frightfully brave of you,” said Marigold vaguely, losing interest. “I’d never dare …”
She pushed her hair back carelessly with one hand and it fell once more into its apparently careless, inevitable arrangement of curls. She took a few steps towards the middle of the room and stood still again, with the dull yellow light from the ceiling full on her fresh silvery skin and greenish gold-shot dress. In this claustrophobic lugubriously human room she looked strange, nymph-like, imprisoned. Her unfathomable individuality of appearance belonged to no period of fashion in looks, seemed independent of care, effort and artifice. She hasn’t once glanced in a mirror or fussed with her frock the whole evening … What’s she thinking about?
“I s’pose we must rejoin the giddy throng,” she said finally.
She sighed deeply, slipped her hand through Olivia’s arm, and walked with her up the long empty passage, humming softly. They said nothing more. There was not another word to say.
She’s rather bored with me, after all … She made a false step with me. So she’s finished; indifferent now. It’s ten years ago, and these efforts to recapture … a mistake, really. She’d like to yawn. It’s been a failure, she won’t try again.
This is the last time we’ll ever be alone together.
The gentlemen had rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room.
Rollo … He was leaning against the mantelpiece, talking to George. Directly they came in he glanced towards them, glanced away again, went on talking with apparent absorption. The other men were standing about: the evening had not settled down yet. Lady Spencer was sitting opposite Aunt Blanche at the backgammon table, in the middle of the room. Busily they rattled their dice, not looking up. This is the first time I’ve seen her relaxed, absorbed in a private diversion, not on the qui vive, not ready aye ready, official and in control. She looked less old and worn now, her pale face had smiles beneath it. She’s beating Aunt Blanche.
Madame de Varenne was in the room again now; sitting in an upright, high-backed chair, not far from Mary, smoking a small cigar and staring at the fire.
Rollo? … Surely he hasn’t finished with me for the evening … The old familiar sense of loss, of insecurity swept over her.
“Oh, there you are!” cried Mary, laying down her work and staring at them. Her face with its prettyish, loose, trivial moulding seemed to reach out like a sea anemone. “I thought you’d been spirited away.”
“Did you?” said Marigold, with marked languor, taking up Country Life and examining a page of properties for sale.
“Up to mischief?”
“Mm, rather. We’ve been arranging a murder, haven’t we, Livia? I’ve often thought I should make a first-class murderess. It’s all a question of selecting a victim. And I think—I think … I—have selected—mine …”
Rollo, still leaning against the mantelpiece, turned his head slightly, as if listening. Olivia caught his eye; he smiled, almost imperceptibly. The French eyes had shifted too, were resting on Olivia and Marigold, but there was no flicker in their blackness. Could she hear? Was she observing?
“Marigold! Rollo!” called Lady Spencer from her table, shooting a casual arrow of duty without looking up. “Does any one want to play bridge? … Double.”
“Does any one want to play bridge?” repeated Marigold gloomily. “Hands up for not on your life,” she added in a mutter to Olivia, flinging up an arm in a ribald waving gesture.
“Yes, now, who’s game for a rubber?” called out Mary, looking hopeful. “Harry’ll play if he’s needed, won’t you, Harry? Who else is feeling energetic?” There was no answer, and she added winningly: “Who’ll be my partner?” She put her head on one side and looked up at Rollo.
He detached himself from his support and lounged across to Olivia’s side.
“Play bridge?” he said.
“No, I don’t. Don’t know how. But don’t bother about me. I shall be quite happy.”
“With a photograph album,” said Marigold.
“Must I play bridge with Mary?” groaned Rollo under his breath.
“No.” Marigold leaned against him, fingering his studs, looking dreamy. After a moment she said: “Stay and talk to Olivia and seem as if you weren’t paying attention to anything else in the room. Don’t take your eyes off her, and if Mary calls out, be deaf.”
“I can do all that.”
She left them rapidly and went over to the fireplace.
“She’ll manage it,” said Rollo. He turned his back on the company, and leaning an elbow on the piano, bent an amused unwinking gaze upon Olivia. “Please look as if we were discussing philosophy … or something … Olivia, are you enjoying yourself?”
“Yes, Rollo.”
“Tell me something else. Shall we meet in London?”
“Yes, Rollo. Yes.”
“Good. Good. Now ask me something.”
“Where’s Lucy?”
“You’ve got that dog on your mind. Sh! Asleep in her maiden basket behind the sofa. She turns in at ten sharp, thank God, no matter what’s happening. So after the hour has struck, I can range at will.”
“I noticed you seemed freer.”
“Much freer. Is anybody noticing us?”
“Your father. He looks as if he’d like to talk to you.”
He turned quickly at that, and Sir John who had come to a halt in his slow walk towards them, as if uncertain of his welcome, now trod ponderously forward again and joined them.
“Hallo, Daddy.”
“Hallo, my bo
y.” He stood in front of them, creaking, breathing deeply.
“What you going to do with yourself?”
“Absent me … absent me from felicity.” The last word was almost imperceptibly blurred.
“I should.”
“I might go and smoke a pipe in the library. Then bed, I think, eh?”
“That’s right, Daddy. Cut along. I’ll look in on you later.”
Affection flowed between them, warmly, as in the old days, but now its quality was changed; was protective, indulgent, tender in Rollo, and in his father tinged with a sort of doubt and appeal, as if he felt a bit lost, liked simply to be near Rollo.
He stood as if weighted down into the carpet.
“We were discussing the Polish question,” said Rollo.
“Ah,” said Sir John. “Ticklish …” and the melancholy inert mass of his face lost its fixity, lifted and became mobile with amusement over its whole surface. Now they smiled all together, feeling at ease, intimate, making an isolated, conspiratorial ring in the room. If Mary had noticed, she’d have called out: “What’s the joke?”
Sir John said, without warning: “Do you like heliotrope?”
“Very much.”
“So do I.”
“I don’t seem to see it often nowadays.”
“Nor do I. I don’t know how it is. Old-fashioned taste, I suppose … We bring forth this sort of thing by the ton.” He jerked his head towards a large tub of chrysanthemum and poinsettia. “Elaborate vegetation … Not flowers to my mind.”
“Well, I admire them awfully. Only perhaps a bit too prosperous …”
They laughed.
“A bit too prosperous.” Indistinct again. “Yes,” Sir John meditated, his eyes on her … Wondering where on earth I’ve sprung from, if he knows me … What about the women in his life? He must have been a handsome man, virile, well setup, like Rollo. What memories were shut in his head, or what had he forgotten? Dear dead women with such hair too … What old once-battering secrets between him and her alone? Or was it all plain sailing?—a straightforward uneventful history of monogamy, duty, fatherhood …? It was all nearly over. His time was past.
The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels) Page 11