Dusty Answer

by Rosamond Lehmann

  Then all at once a far train-whistle roused her, cutting across this immense strangeness with a suggestion of ordinary familiar things; and Judith, faint with home-sickness, sent towards it the desire of all her being to fly in its wake back to the life she knew …

  Impossible to stay in this room. She opened the door and wandered down the corridor. At the far end was a great chatter of voices through a half-open door. Peering in she saw a cloud of cigarette smoke and a room full of girls sprawling in chairs and on the floor.

  ‘Who’s captain of hockey? Jane of course you’re going to play hockey? And lacrosse … Jane I must say it’s topping to see you again … Jane, your year looks a dull lot … Who’s the one who planted herself at our table? … Oh d’you think so? She’s got such a haughty expression … sort of superior … Perhaps she’s shy…’ A clear voice, high and extraordinarily resonant cut in. ‘She’s the most beautiful person I ever saw. I adore her … Have some toffee someone.’

  Judith half-saw half-imagined the flash of a head under the lamp as she fled past. If that voice … ? that voice had the sun in it.

  She went on downstairs, looked for the fifth time in the box labelled E for letters addressed to herself, knew for the fifth time there could be none, and went on again, wandering among the ground-floor corridors; desired in sudden panic to get back to her room and found she had lost her way.

  A girl came out of a door carrying a hot water can. She wore a pink flannel dressing-gown.

  ‘Could you tell me,’ asked Judith, ‘how to get to a corridor called C?’

  The girl looked at her closely and then beamed behind her glasses.

  ‘Oh Miss Earle! Of course! We were up together for Scholarship Exams. Come in.’

  Judith, helplessly conscious that this unpleasant dream was becoming a definite nightmare, followed her.

  ‘Sit down,’ said the girl. ‘I’m so glad you came to find me. You remember my name – Mabel Fuller.’

  Oh God! The creature thought she had been singled out for the purpose of soliciting friendship …

  ‘I am so very glad you came to see me. I dare say you feel very strange?’

  ‘A little. But I’m quite all right, thank you.’

  ‘One feels very lonely at first. Never mind. Do you know anyone else? No, nor do I.’ Her eyes glinted. ‘We must stick together till we’ve got out bearings. It’s a great thing to – I had a friend here once. She said the life was very jarring – such a whirl. We must try to make our little rooms as restful as possible. Do come to my room and work whenever you like. I always think it helps, don’t you, to have somebody else in the room concentrating.’

  Earnestly her eyes beamed and glinted behind their glasses. Presumably she was kind and well-meaning, but her skin was greasy and pink was not her colour; and her lank hair smelt; and when she talked she spat. The colourless face had nothing of youth in it Perhaps this was what really clever girls looked like.

  ‘I’ve spent today putting my room to rights,’ said Mabel, looking happily round her. ‘I do enjoy having a little corner of my own, my own things round me and … Tomorrow I must start work in earnest. How do you feel about your work? You’re bound to waste time at first unless you plan out your day methodically. You must come and work in here. I won’t disturb you. I’m a very hard worker myself. I shan’t mix much with the other students.’ She flushed. ‘I shan’t have time. And then of course there’s getting into Cambridge for lectures and … Do you ride a bicycle? I find since I had pneumonia it tires me so … We must go to lectures together at first – keep each other company …’

  ‘Are you reading English too?’ said Judith with sinking heart.

  ‘Oh yes.’ Mabel bit her finger nervously. ‘I didn’t manage to get a scholarship, you know. It was a disappointment. I was feeling very poorly and altogether … I didn’t do myself justice, Miss Fisher said. She wrote such a nice letter and … I was so set on coming here, it meant so much to me, I want to teach you know – if my health permits … I haven’t very good health … to with what I’d managed to save and a link help from my mother … she couldn’t afford it really but when she saw what it meant to me … so I must do well … I can’t disappoint her … Are you preparing to earn your living?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Judith blankly.

  ‘You don’t look like it,’ said the other hurriedly with a furtive half-hostile glance at Judith’s clothes. ‘Most girls who come here have got to depend on their brains for a livelihood, so of course no one’s got a right to come here just to amuse themselves, have they? But I dare say you’re going to do very well. Miss Fisher told me this morning you’d done very good work for the scholarship. Oh yes. She quite praised you. I thought perhaps … some of my notes and essays might be of use to you … I take very full notes – my memory rather fails me sometimes and then … I thought perhaps if we worked together we might – you know – help each other … Another mind coming fresh to a subject … We might …’

  Her eyes betrayed her brain-sucker, probing for new full-blooded life. Judith thanked her politely and rose to go.

  ‘Don’t hurry,’ said Mabel. ‘I’ll make you a cup of cocoa. I always think cocoa’s so nourishing.’

  She busied herself with a saucepan over the fire and breathed stertorously through her nose. Her skin glistened unhealthily in the firelight. The room was very close, full of pink casement cloth, and china ornaments. She had not minded the carpet: she had decorated the room to suit it. On the mantelpiece stood many photographs of creatures stoutly whaleboned about the throat or heavily whiskered and collared according to sex; and alone on top of the book-case was set the incongruous lovely photograph of a girl with curly bobbed hair. The large eyes laughed at you mischievously: the face insisted on being looked at – a soft face, sensuous and wilful, with a wide bow of a mouth; the smile a trifle consciously sweet, but irresistible.

  ‘Oh, how pretty!’ said Judith.

  ‘My sister Freda,’ said Mabel. ‘Yes, she’s generally admired.’ She glanced suspiciously at Judith, as if to intercept the look of one saying incredulously: ‘Your sister?’ But Judith only looked dreamy.

  For which minded most: Mabel because Freda was so pretty, or Freda because Mabel was so repulsive? Or were they fond of each other, sharing confidences and joking about Freda’s lovers? … And was Freda vain and heartless or …

  ‘Here’s your cocoa,’ said Mabel. ‘Drink it hot.’

  It was thick and syrupy, and Judith gave up after a few sips; but Mabel drank hers with obvious relish and ate doughnuts greedily out of a bag.

  And did Mabel’s mother console her by saying she was proud to have a clever daughter at College? – because she couldn’t say, for instance, with any truth: ‘Your hair, Mabel, is of a much finer quality than Freda’s’ – there was nothing of that sort to be said. Or did she pet Freda and neglect Mabel? …

  ‘I really must go now,’ said Judith. ‘Thank you so very much. Good night.’

  ‘Would you like to go for a walk with me on Sunday after church? We might go and hunt for pretty autumn leaves and berries. I always think they make a room look so bright …’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  College leaves, college berries, picked with Mabel … Supposing you looked like Mabel, would you love beauty even more passionately, or be so jealous of it that you hated it?

  Her eyes yearned at Judith. It was curious: they had in them a sort of avid glint – almost like the eyes of old men in railway-carriages … And did Freda maliciously encourage her to wear pink flannel? And …

  ‘One thing more,’ she said. ‘I do hope you won’t allow yourself … I mean we mustn’t allow ourselves to – to get into a foolish set. It’s so difficult to know at first … There’s a set here, I’m told’ – she paused, flushing unbecomingly to her forehead – ‘there’s a set here that thinks a great deal too much about – abo
ut going out, and dancing, and – men – all that sort of silliness … There, I’m sure you don’t mind my telling you. You can always come to me for advice … I’m told the Mistress judges us by the people we go about with …

  ‘Good night, Miss Earle,’ she finished earnestly. There’s your way: up the stairs and turn to the right. I’ll look out for you at breakfast tomorrow.’

  Black Mabel-haunted days and nights stretched out. No hope. No escape. Three years of Mabel settling down like a nightmare-bat, blotting out the light. Nobody but Mabel was going to speak to you for three years.

  She passed two maids, flaxen-haired, red-cheeked, thick-featured­ Cambridgeshire types. They were turning out the lights in the corridors; and they smiled broadly at her. Maids were always nice, anyway.

  ‘Good night,’ she said shyly.

  ‘Good night, Miss.’

  At the corner of the corridor she heard one remark to the other: ‘There’s a sweet faice.’

  A little comforted, she came to her own room, undressed and dropped a few tears.

  If he could have known how very unlike his Cambridge this place was! Too late now… There was not a spire, not a light of Cambridge to be seen, not a whisper to be heard. Almost she could believe something Childe Rolandish had happened to it and it was gone; so that even its unseen nearness was no comfort.

  ‘Come in,’ she said in startled response to a tap at her door. Someone stood there in a dressing-gown, with bright hair rolling over her shoulders.

  ‘Oh!’ cried Judith in uncontrollable rapture. ‘I did hope …’

  They gazed at each other, blushing and radiant.

  ‘I saw you at Hall.’

  ‘Yes. I saw you.’

  ‘I sat at the wrong table. It was awful.’

  ‘I wish you’d been sitting beside me … What’s your name?’

  ‘Judith Earle. What’s yours?’

  ‘Jennifer Baird.’

  Yes. Jennifer was the right name.

  ‘That’s a nice name.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come yesterday?’

  ‘I just forgot. I muddled the date … Wasn’t it an awful beginning?’ They laughed.

  ‘I always make muddles, don’t you? I never remember dates and things.’

  ‘Nor do I.’

  They laughed again.

  ‘I am thankful to find you, I can tell you,’ said Jennifer. ‘I was thinking I should be obliged to leave.’

  ‘So was I.’

  They beamed at each other.

  ‘This is the third time I’ve come to find you. Where on earth have you been? I was afraid you’d locked yourself into the lavatory to cry or something.’

  ‘I’ve been …’ Judith laughed happily. ‘I’ve been with something awful.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s called Mabel Fuller.’

  ‘My God! Fuller. Has she pounced on you already? She tried me this morning. It’s a funny thing, – she makes straight for the pretty ones. That sounds as if I meant I was pretty.’

  ‘So you are.’

  ‘I only meant I wasn’t so hideous as her and you’re lovely. She’s a vampire-bat. D’you know, I found out something: she’s twenty-seven at least. Think of it! I was rude to her. I suppose you weren’t. I should say you were much more well-bred than me.’

  ‘I wondered if she wasn’t a tiny bit pathetic?’

  ‘God no! What an idea! She hasn’t a notion how revolting she is. She actually prattled about dress to me, – wondering how she’d look in a jumper like mine. As if anything but an Invisible Cloak would improve her. I can’t stand people who spit when they talk.’

  ‘I do wonder,’ pondered Judith, ‘how people like that get produced from quite normal parents. It must be the working-out of some ancient and fearful curse.’

  ‘She’s an ancient and fearful curse anyway,’ said Jennifer gloomily­. ‘I’ll tell you another thing. I believe she’s got sex-repression­.’ She stared impressively at Judith; then broke into loud whistling. ‘Have you got a cigarette? Never mind … I’ve just learnt to blow smoke-rings. I’ll teach you.’ More whistling. ‘It’s terrible to be so swayed by appearances. I’m afraid it’s a sign of a weak character. Ugly people rouse all Hell’s devils in me. And beautiful ones make me feel like the morning stars singing together. I want beauty, beauty, beauty … Don’t you? Lovely people round me, lovely stuffs, lovely colours – lashions and lashions of gorgeous things to touch and taste and look at and smell.’ She flung her head back on its round white throat and took a deep sighing breath. ‘O colours! … I could eat them. I’m awfully sensuous – I look it, don’t you think? Or do I mean sensual? I always get them muddled; but I know it’s unladylike to be one of them. I say – why didn’t you speak to me after Hall?’

  ‘Oh, how could I? You had people all round you. I passed your room, and there were dozens of girls in it.’

  ‘Oh yes! Creatures I was at school with. I had a year in Paris after I left school. I think it developed me. I feel so much more mature than my contemporaries. I used to hunt at Chantilly. Have you ever done that? … They were all talking about you.’

  ‘I heard them say I had such a haughty expression. I haven’t have I?’

  ‘Of course not. That’s women all over. I wonder if men are really nicer? I suppose you’re not engaged?’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Nor am I. I don’t suppose I shall ever marry. I’m too tall, – six foot in my stockings. It’s awful, because I’m sure I shall always be falling in love myself – and I’m terrified of getting repressions. Are you in love?’

  Judith thought of Roddy, blushed and said no.

  ‘Oh well, you’re too young I suppose. I’m twenty and two months – God! … Perhaps we shall both get engaged while we’re here. Me first, I hope.’ She chuckled deeply.

  ‘But we shan’t have time for anything except work,’ said Judith. ‘Mabel says we’re expected to do at least eight hours a day.’

  ‘Christ! Does she though! Just the sort of miserable immorality she would feed you up with. We’re in the world to enjoy ourselves, not to pass exams, aren’t we? Well then … I have a prejudice against intellectualism. It leads to all sorts of menaces. Perhaps you don’t know … I dare say you were brought up in blackest ignorance, – like me. But I’ve managed to overcome all obstacles in the way of enlightenment. Do you call innocence a virtue? I don’t. I call it stupidity.’ She talked on so rapidly that her words ran into each other and got blurred. Leaning heavily on the mantelpiece she continued. ‘Are these photographs your people? They look divinely aristocratic. You’re not an Honourable are you? You look as if you might be. Come and see my room. I say, let’s make our rooms absolutely divine, shall we?’

  ‘Mother told me to get whatever furniture and things I wanted,’ said Judith. ‘But what’s the good with that carpet?’

  ‘I’ve turned mine upside down,’ said Jennifer. ‘It’s an artistic buff now. Come and look.’

  She led the way back to her room and opened the door upon a scene of chaos. Her clothes had been half-unpacked and left about in heaps. The room was full of smoke and reeked of stale Gold Flakes. Gramophone records, biscuits, apples, cake-knives, spoons, glasses and cups smeared with cocoa-sediment were strewn about the floor.

  ‘It isn’t as nice as I thought,’ said Jennifer. ‘The swine have feasted and rioted; and left me to clear up after them. Christ! What a spectacle! Have an apple.’

  She sat down in her trunk and looked discouraged.

  ‘I say, Judith Earle, do you think you’re going to enjoy College?’

  ‘Not much. It’s so ugly and vulgar.’

  ‘It is. And the students are such very jolly girls.’

  ‘Yes. And I’m frightened of them. I don’t know a soul. I’ve never in my life been with a lot of people and I don’t feel I shall
ever get used even to the smell of them. It’s different for you. You’ve heaps of friends already.’

  ‘Nonsense. There’s no one. I’ve been screeching like a parrot all the evening, pretending to be awfully jolly too; but it strikes me as pretty grim …’ She brooded and whistled. ‘More than a little grim …’ She drooped, flickered out completely.

  ‘We’d – we’d better stick it out together,’ said Judith with a blush, fearful lest her suggestion should condemn her to Jennifer – for Mabel had said it and she had felt sick.

  ‘I should say we will. A thing’s much less bloody if you can talk about its bloodiness to someone else. Do you mind the word bloody? I noticed you flinched. It’s all a question of habit.’ She revived – ‘Christ! To think only a few days ago I was stalking in Scotland with my angel cousins! It’s a very broadening thing for a young girl to have boy-cousins of her own age. I’m indebted to them for a lot of useful information – about sex and one thing and another. One of them gave me a bottle of champagne as a parting present. We’ve been drinking it – out of tooth glasses. Ugh! I dare say I’m a little tight. Don’t you think so? One’s got to do something … I’d offer you some, but I’m afraid the swine finished it. The bottle’s in the cupboard.’ She climbed over a trunk, opened the cupboard door and looked in. ‘As I thought. Not a drop …’

  There was a silence. She lit a cigarette, formed her full and vivid lips into an O and struggled painstakingly with smoke-rings.