Dusty Answer

by Rosamond Lehmann

  ‘That’s better. Thank you, Judy. Do stay with me.’

  It was bliss looking after him. He had ceased to withdraw himself and be proud: he was utterly dependent. You bent and kissed his forehead …

  Martin broke in upon her dream, saying: ‘Quite comfortable, Judith?’

  And after he had adjusted the wind-screen, explained to her some of the devices on the dash-board, looked round to see that the others were all right, he addressed himself with satisfaction to his driving again, resuming his one-sided muttered conversations with his car and with passers-by.

  ‘Now, now, come along old lady … that’s right … What’s the matter with you? Got a pain? … Well done old girl.’ … ‘Now my dear sir, what are you up to? … Put out your hand Madam before you turn corners like that … Look out, you little brutes, spinning tops in the road. Lucky for you I didn’t run you clean over … Oh, so you think you can race me, do you? Well, try, that’s all.’

  As a variant he read the signposts aloud.

  Judith watched the deep-golden, dark-shadowed country slip by: its woods and fields wore a sullen empty look.

  They reached their destination at tea-time, and walked down the steep slope to the edge of Monk’s Water.

  Bracken and long grass came pouring from the top of the hill to the very bank of the stream; and the beech-trunks rose up from that soft, swirling blue-green cascade, up and up, as far as eye could see. They sprang up clear from their lovely symmetrical pattern of naked roots and climbed the air in one long pure lift and flow, or in a lightly twisting spiral. Ardently they soared, column after smooth grey-green column, lightly balancing on their roots, gathering their power, sweeping it upwards for the final high breaking of the boughs. The strong outflung whirl of the snaky boughs was lost at last in a fountain of foliage. The bright spray wove closely and shut out the sky; but the sun pierced it and lay beneath it in pools of dappled green light.

  The smell of bracken was on the air, and the little Monk’s Water slipped past in front of them, brown and clear, singing over its shallows, hiding beneath its over-hanging greenery.

  ‘This is where I once found a new kind of beetle,’ said Julian, looking round him with pleasure.

  ‘I shall bathe after tea,’ said Mariella. ‘Boys, we must all bathe. I rather wish I’d brought Peter now. Don’t you, Julian?’ She looked at him uncertainly.

  ‘Well I told you to, didn’t I? You said he’d got to stay with his governess,’ he said, in an unkind voice.

  ‘Never mind, Mariella,’ said Martin quickly. ‘I think you were right not to bring him. He’d probably have found it very tiring, a long expedition like this.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said, agreeing with a sort of pathetic childish complacence.

  Judith remembered once again, with a pang of amazement, that Mariella was a mother.

  ‘What about tea?’ said Martin. ‘God, I do hope nothing’s been forgotten.’

  He opened the picnic basket and searched eagerly among its contents until he found a napkinful of raw tomatoes and lettuce.

  Judith smiled at him suddenly. Whoever changed, Martin remained unchanged. He had always been, was now, and would be till he died, kindly, greedy and comforting. He would always eat raw vegetables and smell very faintly of healthy sweat, and ask nothing much of life save that the people he was fond of should be cheerful.

  He caught the smile and answered it swiftly, radiantly.

  They ate sandwiches, fruit and cake; and the flies, gnats, mosquitoes and midges came in murmurous clouds around them; and Julian started to lose his temper.

  ‘Smoke, all of you, smoke! Don’t stop for a moment!’ he shouted. ‘My God, we shall all be devoured. Now you know what the Insect Age will be like. Now you see to what end you’ve been helping to produce the next generation, Mariella: to battle with insects and to be defeated.’

  They lit cigarettes and frenziedly puffed smoke into the air until the main body of the cloud died away.

  ‘Now please may we go home?’ he said plaintively. And all at once Judith was reminded of Charlie as a small boy, difficult, petulant, imperious, and yet all the time half laughing at himself in a way that disarmed rebuke: as who should say: ‘I know I’m-being a beast and I will be a beast, as long as I like; but you mustn’t mind and you mustn’t take me seriously.’

  Julian went on:

  ‘Let’s all go home and have a nice quiet game of something in the billiard room. Oh I do hate outdoors so. I do hate the country.’

  Martin looked distressed.

  ‘You’re very ungrateful,’ said Mariella. ‘It was Martin’s treat for you.’ She took Martin’s hand and patted it.

  ‘Because you said you remembered coming here once when you were a boy and finding a new insect, and how you’d always wanted to come back,’ explained Martin.

  ‘Oh my accursed sentimentality! I wanted to bring back the days when I was a carefree beetle-hunter. Weren’t there any flies then? Or didn’t one notice them?’

  ‘I remember one of the beetle walks when I went with you,’ said Judith. ‘We came back with our legs and arms swollen up like balloons.’

  ‘Do you remember that?’ He sat up and smiled at her. ‘Did we go on beetle walks together?’

  ‘Yes.’ She blushed. ‘Sometimes. I was very proud when you took me.’

  He laughed delightedly.

  ‘I believe I remember. You were a peculiar child. What else did we do when we were young? Can you remember?’

  ‘I remember a lot.’

  ‘Oh do tell us.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘What were we like? Who was the nicest? Martin of course: you needn’t answer that. But who was the most attractive? Which did you like best?’

  ‘If you can’t remember I shan’t remind you.’

  ‘Oh I believe it was me!’ cried Julian; ‘I’m almost sure it was. Haven’t I always been your favourite?’

  She laughed teasingly in his face.

  ‘Well, I’m sure I deserved to be,’ he said. ‘You were my favourite anyway. Absolutely my favourite woman. You always have been … Have we changed very much?’

  ‘No. Very little.’

  ‘Which of us has changed most?’

  Judith paused a moment and then answered: ‘Mariella.’

  And directly she had said it she realized afresh how true it was: too true to have been so lightly spoken. Mariella had changed indeed.

  Her smile, and Julian’s, faded abruptly.

  ‘Oh, have I?’ she said, looking away embarrassed.

  ‘I don’t think Mariella’s changed a bit,’ said Martin with surprise.

  ‘Ah well,’ said Julian coming out of a deep musing, ‘I feel changed, Heaven knows … Now I shall have a short sleep, my children, and then I am at your disposal for a jolly game of tag. Judith has, as usual, cured me of most of my bad temper, and slumber will complete the process. Judith, angel, you’ll stay by me won’t you, and wave cigarettes? … Go away chaps. Judith and I are going to converse until I fall asleep. Remember I haven’t seen her for three years.’

  ‘I’m going to look for a place to bathe,’ said Martin. ‘Mariella, will you come?’

  ‘Yes.’ She held out her hands to him, giving him her sweet, small smile of the lips. He pulled her up on to her feet and they started to walk away.

  ‘I’ll come and find you,’ called Judith. ‘I want to bathe too.’

  Martin turned eagerly.

  ‘There are one or two pools somewhere down this way,’ he said. ‘Will you follow us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  He waved and she waved back; and they were lost round the corner.

  Julian lay down in the shade of an elder bush, lit another cigarette, and looked at Judith with bright appraising eyes.

 
‘Well, Judith?’ he said, and smiled. And as of old the smile transfigured the whole harsh face with beauty.

  ‘Well, Julian? What have you been doing with yourself?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’

  ‘You’re happier than you were last time I saw you.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Your – acting is much more natural.’

  He laughed and made a face at her.

  ‘Doesn’t my elegant and elaborate window-dressing dazzle you? Well, never mind. It never did, did it? And I never minded. You’re the only woman I’ve never been able to deceive to whom I have remained consistently attached.’

  ‘Are there many you’ve been able to deceive, Julian?’

  He paused.

  ‘There are some who have loved me,’ he said. ‘So they must have been deceived.’

  ‘You think if they hadn’t been they couldn’t have loved you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Ah, I don’t believe that. Nor do you.’ She sighed, ‘It’s a thing I never would have believed … how one can go on loving a person one knows to be – cruel and selfish and indifferent.’

  Whom did she have in mind, – she wondered as she said it. That was not Jennifer, surely: surely not Roddy?

  ‘Not,’ she added quickly, ‘that you’re any of those things. I can’t allow you the satisfaction of thinking so.’

  ‘I’m all of them,’ he said:

  ‘…bloody,

  Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful.

  Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin

  That has a name…

  And that reminds me Judy, I hear you acquitted yourself with supreme distinction in your tripos. I’m very glad – very proud to know you.’

  ‘It hasn’t given me much satisfaction.’

  ‘Now, now! Less of that.’

  ‘It’s true. I’m not being modest.’ She turned away from him and said: ‘I worked very very hard. I thought of nothing but work, because I didn’t have anything else – particularly pleasant – to think about. One doesn’t much value that sort of success.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘And I suppose,’ said Julian, ‘that’s all I’m to be told about it.’

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘There’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Just that.’

  ‘Nobody ever will confide in me,’ he complained. ‘I don’t know why. I’m quite madly interested – especially in love affairs. I suppose my face puts them off.’

  She laughed … No, nobody would confide in Julian. He would be too clear-sighted, too scientifically interested, too cold and reasonable. He would give such good advice and so much of it. People only wanted a muddle-headed outpouring of sympathy.

  He went on:

  ‘It’s far too long since I last saw you. Why didn’t I come to see you at Cambridge? Or write to you? I meant to.’

  ‘Why not indeed? … Because you forgot about me.’

  ‘I never forgot about you, Judy. You were always in the back of my mind. But life was very full … And I wanted to wait.’

  He gave her a quick glance, whose meaning she did not pause to interpret. She said hurriedly:

  ‘I am glad life was full. You have been happy, haven’t you? Tell me about these three years.’

  ‘They haven’t been – outwardly – dramatic,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s been ill-health, and again ill-health for me.’

  ‘Poor Julian!’ She took up his hand and pressed it for a moment; and her eyes started with tears. She had forgotten the asthma which had hollowed his always hollow cheeks, ploughed deeper the lines about the mouth, lifted and bowed the always high stooping shoulders.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said rather awkwardly. ‘It’s given me a good excuse for never doing anything I didn’t want to do. These years since the war have been an uninterrupted succession of self-indulgences­. I was happy in a way at Oxford. But I only stayed a year. It didn’t do really. The locust-eaten years behind me were too strong. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t play. I was too old altogether. But the gentleness of people, the peace, the beauty! – all that was very comforting. I took to my musk again, a little – But, as I say, it wasn’t any good trying to recapture what I had once found there. And then of course the climate did me in. So I came down, – a physical wreck, but more or less sane again. Since then I have been in France, Switzerland, Austria – all over Europe. I have composed a ballet which will never be performed. I have written three songs. I have contributed pseudo-highbrow criticism of modern music to several periodicals. I have listened – oh listened very happily to a great deal of music in a great many countries. I have had a Russian mistress, and a French and an Austrian. I think that was all.’ He gave her a quick look as if to see what effect this announcement had upon her; but her face remained unmoved. Julian’s passions had always been an uninteresting if not distasteful subject for speculation. ‘And I got tired of them all and treated them monstrously and left them. They seemed to me quite insupportable after a bit – so stupid. I have tried in vain to be cured of asthma at the inept hands of countless doctors. I have read a lot – and talked more, as you may guess. I have spent and still spend much time looking for someone to whom I might attach myself permanently. But that of course is the most tiresome romantic folly. Nobody could love me for long: I know that well. And I dare say I myself am incapable of anything except a little passing lust. In short, Judy, you see in me what is known as a waster. It’s in the family, I’m afraid. Roddy’s another. Charlie was designed for one from birth … But he’d have been a happy one, poor boy … Whereas my conscience pricks.’ He rolled over on the grass to look at Judith, lazily, laughingly. ‘That’s all,’ he said. ‘Now it’s your turn.’

  ‘No, no. Go to sleep. I’ve nothing to tell you.’

  ‘The mosquitoes have all disappeared,’ he said. ‘Why? Perhaps I’d better take the opportunity – I shall be so charming when I wake up again. Thank you, Judith. You’ve done me good.’ He shut his eyes; and re-opened them to say: ‘I told you you were always in the back of my mind. It’s true. Always.’ He took her hand. ‘Judith, am I going to be allowed to know you at last?’

  ‘Oh yes Julian, of course.’

  ‘Hmm – I wonder.’

  He was staring at her with intense inquiry and concentration; but she turned her eyes away. She could not feel that the matter was of much importance.

  ‘We’re going to see each other a lot?’

  ‘As much as you like.’

  ‘What are your plans?’

  ‘I’m here till the end of July. Then I go abroad with Mamma. To France. To Vichy part of the time. She will believe the cure does her good.’

  ‘I shall come and find you in France. I shall come to Vichy and take you away from Mamma. I do better in France. You might find me quite a pleasant companion. There’s so much I should like to shew you, – do with you. Shall I come?’

  ‘Yes, Julian. Do.’

  ‘And you’d talk to me?’

  She nodded.

  ‘In the end,’ he said, watching her intently, ‘I believe you will … I told you I could wait.’

  He relinquished her hand, and shut his eyes.

  She got up and sprang away from him down the bank.

  The afternoon was breathless with a thundery heat. The fern-clad slopes were sculptured and glittering cascades. Monk’s Water hid between its shady banks. She followed its twisting course, looking ahead of her for the blue of Martin’s shirt, the white of Mariella’s linen frock.

  Roddy was a waster … It was in the family … Roddy was no good, he was a waster. Perhaps, like Julian, he had mistresses: a French, an Austrian, a Russian – countless mistresses. Perhaps that was an integral part of being a waster …

  She came round a sharp co
rner, and saw, through the elder bushes, a whitish form in the water. It straightened itself swiftly, alert at the sound of her footsteps.

  ‘Judy?’ called a voice uncertainly – Mariella’s voice.

  Judith parted the elder bushes and looked through: and there was Mariella standing naked in midstream with clear brown water up to her knees.

  ‘Goodness, I’m glad it’s you!’ she cried happily. ‘I thought it might be someone else. Come on in, Judy. It’s to lovely.’

  She stood in the full sunlight, her arms lifted and laid across her forehead to shade her eyes, her lips laughing. Her tall body glowed in the glowing air, narrow of hip, breastless almost, with faint, long, young-looking curves; the whole outline smooth and very firm in spite of its slenderness. Her voice vibrated gaily, excitedly. She was happy.

  ‘We took off our shoes and stockings,’ she called, ‘and waded down till we found this pool. Martin said he thought he remembered a place where it got deeper, and he was right, wasn’t he? It’s not very deep, but still you can swim round. The water’s full of tiny trout. I’ve been watching them. Martin’s bathing a little further down in another pool. I’ve left my clothes under that bush. You leave yours there too and come on in.’

  Judith stripped and waded out to join her.

  This is the sort of bathing I love,’ she went on. ‘Nothing on and not very much water. You know, it’s funny, I never could learn to swim properly; I don’t know why. The boys used to laugh at me so because I always sank and had to be rescued. I gave it up in the end.’

  It was the first time since childhood, thought Judith, that they two had been alone together. How deep was the difference in them? Mariella, naked, with her childish curly head and her unselfconscious body looked much the same now as she had looked that evening long ago when Judith had stayed the night with her, and they had had their evening bath together. And yet, a little while ago, it had seemed so certain that Mariella was profoundly changed: in the set of her face especially, – in the grown-up expression of reserve and sadness, – the whole look of a woman whose countenance has started to assume the cast it will wear in middle age. But now, alight and laughing in sun and water, it had once more the blank clearness and candour of her childhood.