Answering her smile he said finally: “Know this part of the world?”
“She’s a neighbour, Daddy.” Patient voice. “Little Comp-ton she lives.”
“Ah, yes. Little Compton … So you live at Little Compton. I don’t often have occasion to go that direction nowadays. If I remember rightly, my old friend Charles Curtis had a house there.”
“Yes. He still has. He’s my father.”
“What, you Charles Curtis’s girl? … Bless my soul, how time flies. Well … Very nice for my old friend Charles Curtis.”
“Thank you.” She gave the correct smile.
“Very able man … and what’s better and rarer, a very witty man. Used to be. Sorry to hear not so fit as he was.”
“No. Poor darling, he’s a great invalid these days.”
“Ah, very sorry indeed to hear that. Hard luck for an active fellow like him. Can he—can he get about pretty well, eh?”
“No. Not very well. Not just now, anyway.”
He shook his head in melancholy. “Poor fellow. You give him my greetings … Mm.”
“I will indeed.”
He was thinking: I’m still active on my feet: not like Charlie Curtis.
He laid a large lean vein-corded hand on Rollo’s shoulder and said:
“What about a ride to-morrow?”
“Yes, Daddy, thanks. I rather thought of a short one before breakfast if the weather holds up.”
“Good. I’ll get a message to Naylor.”
“I did, Dad. Save you trouble.”
Sir John nodded.
“Wish I could come with you.” His face puckered into a smile, unconscious of pathos. “Think I won’t, though.”
“I shouldn’t. I wouldn’t be so hearty myself, only I must get back to London by lunch-time.”
“Must you? Hoped you could stay over to-morrow. Sure?”
“Afraid it’s impossible, Daddy. I’ve got an appointment.”
“Pity. Ah, well”
Sir John nodded again and raised a hand, sketching an awkward gesture of farewell. His face drooped again; carefully he set himself in motion and disappeared through the double doors.
Marigold caught Rollo’s eye and made a reassuring grimace; and he and Olivia went back to the fireplace. Mary was stitching away, her eyes bent on her work, her mouth pressed in a sour twist. Marigold was lying on the arm of her godmother’s chair, one arm flung across the lean purple-brocaded shoulders. The cigar was puffing furiously. Sir Ronald was in the act of dropping his monocle and putting on a pair of glasses to examine the Gainsborough—a long-necked young woman in rose-coloured satin, with high arching brows and protuberant slanting eyes; graceful, lively, fragile.
“Beautiful bit of painting,” he murmured. His large upturned pink-moon face looked beatific. “You know, Rollo, m’boy, I consider vis the finest fing in the house—one of ve finest examples in England, what’s more. On a small scale, but it’s masterly. I’m not sure vough—I’m not altogevver sure it’s hung in ve right place. I’ve never been sure it does itself ve highest justice here. I’ve an idea I’d like it on ve end wall vere between ve cabinets … I’ve an idea I would …”
“Would you?” said Rollo politely.
“By Jove!” cried Harry, with awestruck frantic zest, “I do believe you’re right.”
He stared first at the picture, then at the wall, then at the company, his jaw dropping with the intensity of his interest. But his enthusiasm fell flat into a disregarding silence. He continued to stand and stare, straddled on his little thick legs, stretching up his short red neck until the roll of fat above his collar swelled out like inflated rubber.
Scenting collapse, mistrusting her children, Lady Spencer now called once more through the click of counters: “No bridge to-night?”
“Not to-night, Mum. Everybody’s lazy,” called Marigold quickly; adding, to deflect attention: “Who’s winning over there?”
“Your mother,” said Aunt Blanche, with bitterness. “She’s had every scrap of the luck. I never saw anything like it.”
“Luck, dear?” said Lady Spencer sweetly, shifting and discarding with intent glee.
“You always were revolting at games.”
“How pretty it looks,” said Olivia, looking across at the board with its long narrow red and black triangles and piled shining counters.
Marigold leaned forward and pulled her down beside her on the broad chair-arm. Madame de Varenne turned her head and, through the faint smoke-screen of the cigar between her teeth, scrutinised her unwinkingly. After a few moments she remarked in a harsh crackling monotone:
“C’est un visage assez bien fait.”
“N’est ce pas?” cried Marigold, nodding vigorously.
“Mais l’autre là bas …” She jerked her cigar towards Mary. “Je la trouve assommante, hein?”
Again Marigold nodded, her eyes dancing. She put her lips to her ear and said:
“Specimène très mal réussi.”
“Quelle banalité … Mon Dieu!” She removed her cigar, and a long sigh, as of unutterable scorn and boredom, stirred her shrunken, padded-looking breast. After a moment she continued:
“Mais qu’est-ce qu’elle vient donc faire ici, cette petite?”
“Aha! Aha! Voilà!” cried Marigold, leaning on her godmother’s shoulder, playing with one of her ornaments, a heavy cross of diamonds and topaz. “Voilà ce que je me demande!”
She laughed at Olivia out of the corners of her eyes … Not saying: She is my friend of childhood … Not including me in her laughter … leaning away, remote, mocking, estranged … Now she looks like a pretty rat.
A cold menacing wind blew round the hearth. These people are not my people. I don’t want to come here any more … Rollo … I’ll tell him I must go …
Harry had buttonholed him and was saying cheerily:
“I say, old man, you know all about these things … be a good chap and give me a tip …” Something about a shooting syndicate … But Rollo was cool, off-hand.
Poor Harry, he wasn’t at ease either in this house. Looks of indifference, of suppressed irritation, well-mannered rebuffs appeared his lot. Was he aware? Did he complain in the bedroom, over the collar studs, the black tie; worry away on his side of the double bed? Did Mary rally him, comfort him?—or snub him impatiently, with scorn, deploring her mate, wishing in her heart for another face upon the pillow? … A natural bore: every gesture and intonation revealed him purebred, true blue; but something more separated him from the rest of them: something deeper: Harry was not out of the top drawer … Mary—possibly a little past her first hopeful bloom—had married out of, say, the third drawer down: her father’s agent?—her brother’s tutor?—her mother’s secretary? … Relatives had turned the smooth public face of acceptance upon her choice, for the sake of the family, for dear Mary’s sake …?
He didn’t look a happy man, but on the whole he looked more assertive, more gratified than anxious. Tufts of sandy hair sprouted out of his ears and nostrils; and his thin lips stretched smirkingly beneath the bags of his cheeks and the pink beaky little nose … What could it be like to go to bed with him? … Something tough, reptilian, was in him, something scaly and resilient, something between a turtle and a salmon … He and she had the same light blue eyes, pouchy, rapacious.
“Il est beau, Rollo, hein?” croaked an abstract voice behind her ear.
“Très beau.”
“En voilà un au moins qui n’a rien d’ignoble de sa personne. A votre âge il m’aurait fait faire des folies.”
Olivia looked at her, dubious, smiling; and all at once she smiled back, an irresistibly moving smile, spontaneous, friendly, humorous, lighting her face, her past …
“Elle est gentille,” she remarked to Marigold after a pause, making the bare statement.
Olivia put out her h
and and gave hers with its long fingers and encrusted rings and bracelets a quick pressure.
Warmth started to creep in again round the hearth. It was all right after all. Only one of those moments …
“Comme on est triste ce soir!” Her voice was lively, taunting. “Ronald, viens donc ici me raconter quelque-chose … Et toi, Rollo, qu’est-ce que tu fais là a te gratter le menton? Voici une demoiselle qui s’ennuye horriblement auprès de moi. Tu n’a rien a lui proposer?”
“Mais beaucoup de choses …”
Ceasing to yawn and rub his shoulders against the mantelpiece he leaned forward and pulled Olivia to her feet, keeping his hand through her arm.
“Zero hour,” said Marigold.
She jumped up suddenly and went to George, saying:
“Darling George, come and see the kittens.”
“Kittens?” said George. “Rather, Marigold.”
“Nothing jollier than a two-months old kitten,” said Harry.
“Oh, these haven’t got their eyes open,” said Marigold. “They’re not worth seeing, only George loves kittens.”
“Harry,” broke in Mary sharply, “you might fetch me my jacket from my room, will you? The black velvet one. It’s in the wardrobe. I feel a bit chilly. I don’t know if there’s a draught or what. I may have caught a chill this afternoon. I got my feet so wet in that long grass, and I always get a chill if I get my feet wet.”
“Better turn in with a hot-water bottle,” suggested Harry.
“No.” Peevish. “I’ll be all right. Just fetch my jacket.”
“Right.”
Dutifully, without alacrity, Harry made off.
“Try a hot lemon and whisky,” said George kindly. “Nothing like it.”
“Ugh! no.” She made a face of disgust. “Lemon always upsets me, and I simply can’t touch whisky. It makes me sick.”
“Who’s got a cold?” called Lady Spencer from her table, not looking up. “Ammoniated quinine …”
“Oh, come on,” said Marigold, still with her arm through George’s. “We don’t want to keep the poor kittens up till midnight.”
“Are you interested in kittens?” said Rollo to Olivia.
“Very interested.”
“They’re only ordinary little tabby ones,” said Marigold, “but you shall see them.”
Mary followed the departing procession with a goggling stare.
“Oh, what time is it?” said Marigold yawning, collapsing on a chair in the ante-room. “It feels like three o’clock. I want to go to bed and pick my toes.”
“I must go home,” said Olivia.
“No, no,” said Rollo quickly. “Marigold’s remarks were purely rhetorical, weren’t they, Maggie? Now we’ve managed to shed the husks at last, we can start the evening.”
“Then I must have a drink,” said Marigold, with her eyes shut. She’s so bored she could die. Hopeless, all of them …
“Where are the kittens?” asked George.
“The kittens? … Oh, the kittens!” Marigold sat up, looking tragic. “Oh, George! There was such a disaster. I didn’t like to tell you before. Those poor little darlings … ten of them … they were all born dead.”
“Good God!” said George, shocked, fond of animals.
“It was for the best, George.”
“The fact is, George,” said Rollo, “they didn’t really come to anything, poor devils.”
George looked blank, then his face cleared.
“Oh, I get there …” He broke into a slow prolonged guffaw. “Aaah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Subterfuge, eh?”
“Aren’t we ones?” cried Marigold. She got up and gave him a hug. But when he tried to keep his arm round her, rapidly she detached herself.
Olivia said to him: “Do you still hunt?”
“Me?” He looked surprised. “Oh …off and on, you know … Whenever I can.”
“George is a man of affairs nowadays,” said Rollo. “Sport’s loss has been the city’s gain.”
“And the fox’s opportunity,” said Marigold.
“You don’t remember me.” Olivia beamed on him.
A spasm went over his face. He gathered himself together suspiciously, stubborn, alarmed.
“N-no … I’m afraid … I can’t say I do.”
“Never mind. I’m glad. Because the last time we met you were obliged to correct me. You did it very kindly considering. I’ve never forgotten.”
“Good Lord! … Me? … You must be thinking of some other bloke, eh?”
“George never spoke harshly to a woman in his life,” said Rollo, “unless she’d done something unpardonable in the hunting-field.”
“This was in the hunting-field. A bad toss.”
“Another leg-pull, eh?” George’s face cleared, ready for a laugh.
“What are you talking about?” said Marigold with another yawn. “I want a drink. Drinks in the hall.”
She sprang up, opened the lid of the wireless cabinet, turned knobs, swooped through a range of snarls, whoops, wails, and opened out full blast on a jazz band.
“Hamburg.”
She floated out in front of them, pausing for a second on her way to snatch up a large, smiling, plump debutante’s photograph of herself and whisk it face to the wall.
In the hall, among the antlers and skin rugs, the Spanish chests and chairs, the music beat insistently through the open door. Marigold began to hum and sway, glass in hand; then draining it and setting it down, put both hands on George’s shoulders and danced him off.
Drinking a whisky and soda, Rollo watched her a minute or two, standing beside Olivia. Then:
“Dance,” he said, putting an arm round her.
After a turn or two he gave a sigh, as if weary or impatient.
“Why do you sigh?”
“Did I? Sorry. Bad habit.”
He went on turning and swaying with the soft, subtle balance and rhythm of a good dancer. After a bit he said suddenly:
“Let’s get away … mm?”
It sounded so rapid, toneless, odd, in spite of the questioning inflection—as if it had slipped out unawares, unconsciously almost …
“Get away … Do you want to?”
“Do you?” He looked down at her, not smiling. Uncertain, disturbed, she hesitated; and after a moment he gave a brief laugh.
“No. Never mind. Don’t know what I’m talking about … One can’t, anyway, can one?”
“I suppose not.” I’m not helping him, I’m stuck … “At least I suppose one can … a bit … if one wants.” … Careful, be careful … But he’s waiting. I must say something. “It depends if one has ties—that are going to stop one …”
“That depends on oneself, doesn’t it?” he said quickly. “Whether one’s going to let ’em … They needn’t …”
“Needn’t they…?”
“There are occasions—very rare ones—when I personally shouldn’t let them … It would be all right, absolutely, from my point of view … What about you?”
“Well, I can’t judge. I haven’t any ties.”
“None?”
“I’m on my own—entirely.”
“You’re lucky.”
“I don’t always think so. You are …”
“I’m not sure.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I want something—and I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to get it.”
“I expect you get most things you want.”
The voices were so light, quick, toneless, answering each other, they might have been repeating something trivial learnt by heart. They went on dancing, mechanically, not looking at each other now. She felt her heart beating and his hand just quivering. What’s happened? All’s been said. Hush, put it away now, not another word. It’s not to be true yet.
Pr
esently he said in a drowsy peaceful voice:
“People do manage to come across each other once in a blue moon … It beats me how, considering the population of the globe.”
She laughed, feeling happy suddenly, peaceful too.
“The whole thing beats me,” he said. “It isn’t as if one went about sort of looking for it in a business-like way … One had given up worrying too much about all that—given up feeling young and excitable and all that … Put the stopper on. Told oneself to lock up and turn in.”
“Who’s one?”
He laughed. His words, his new soft easy alarming manner burrowed and lodged, hiding in her mind, too insinuating—decisive—too …
“I ought to go now.”
“Yes. I’ll take you home now.”
“Are you going to take me?”
“Of course I am.”
So it’s going to be true. I can’t stop it.
She became aware again of Marigold and George. They were at the drinks table and Marigold was saying in a quarrelsome, insistent way:
“Why shouldn’t I? I’m not tight. What makes you think I’m tight? George keeping an eye on my drinks! I like that, I must say! I should hide the next one or pour it away. Save me, George, save me! The demon drink’s got me!” She drank off a stiff whisky and soda and said more peaceably: “I am a bit tight—but no more. I wish I was blind—and I would be if I was anywhere but in my own home. There’s something about the roof-tree that makes it impossible to get absolutely roaring. I must confess to you, George, I’ve had enough to make me, what with one nip and another—but it’s working the wrong way or something. I’ll be sick if I go on or start to boo-hoo and you’ll have to put me to bed. And you’d hate that, wouldn’t you, George?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” he said.
“Well, I would. I don’t want to be beastly, but I really would. You are one of my oldest, dearest friends, George, but I simply would hate to be put to bed by you. Oh dear! I don’t feel a bit witty or exulting or anything … Don’t let’s dance any more, for God’s sake. It’s too idiotic padding round and round and round … like those two … Oh, no, they’re not any more.” She handed her glass to Rollo. “Give me another, Rollo, darlin’.”
The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels) Page 12