Dusty Answer

by Rosamond Lehmann

  Darling, do you hate me now, you ought to. Oh, that last term and the night when I said good-bye to you. I try never to think about it, because it makes me feel so awful. I promised I’d explain everything, didn’t I, but it’s not much easier now than then because I suppose whatever’s been happening to you you’re still an innocent baby, while I feel like the most corrupt disreputable I don’t know what. Have you had a tremendous love-affair yet? I always used to think there was a man you were on the verge of loving. Perhaps he’s made you understand by now what it really means being in love. I loved you frightfully from the very first. I used to think about you night and day. I was in a fever about you. I began to be absolutely afraid of my feelings for you, they were so extremely strong. I couldn’t understand them. Then I met Geraldine, and I realized a lot of things. You know what I am – she swept me off my feet. I was too excited to think. She dazzled me. I simply let everybody and everything else go. And all the time I loved you more than ever. You may not believe it but it’s true. But I couldn’t explain to you how I felt – I didn’t care. You’d have hated it really, wouldn’t you? You are pure and ethereal and I am not. Nor was Geraldine. You used to look after me and kiss me as if you were my mother (not really mine of course, who is quite awful, one of those lipless women. I suppose Nature wanted to readjust the balance of mouth and that accounts for mine.) I got into such a ghastly muddle over it all, I thought the best thing I could do was to go away. Geraldine clung rather – I knew she’d always be coming up, and I didn’t want her and you to meet, I knew she’d be jealous (she’s the most jealous person I ever knew). And I saw things could never be happy between you and me again. Oh it was a hellish muddle. It doesn’t bear thinking of. I had to go away and try and forget. Just like me. I’m such a coward. I went abroad with her and she gave me a marvellous time, I must say. I was absolutely fascinated by her to start with, almost hypnotized, and we went all over Europe. You know I can’t help more or less enjoying life frightfully, especially when it’s being rather wild and queer – and it was. But then one or two people I met fell in love with me and I suppose I fell a bit in love with them, I always do, and she got jealous and more and more full of accusations and reproaches. I was so sick of her I could hardly bear to look at her. She never could see a joke. So in the end I left her and came home. She goes on writing me reproachful letters, but I don’t answer them.

  Oh dear, you seem to be very far away from me now. I shall never find anyone who understands like you again. Why did you ever waste your time over me? I’m rotten and I always shall be. As you see I’m at home now, but I shan’t stay long. There are far too many raised eyebrows and disapproving chins about. I’m only waiting till I can raise some money and then I expect I’ll go abroad again. I always prophesied I’d come to a bad end, didn’t I? I seem to like nearly all the vices.

  I suppose we shall never meet again. What’s the good? You’re probably full of new things and people by now, and I dare say I’m changed for the worse. Quite a Fallen Woman. And you wouldn’t like me any more. I simply couldn’t face it. But write to me once and tell me everything. Tell me if you understand. Tell me I was right to go away. Oh I’d like to be back with you in Cambridge – just for a day, even for an hour – just you and me. There’ll never be anything like that, again.

  Darling, have you cut off your hair I wonder. It was lovely too, parted in the middle, so smooth and thick and dark purple. You can’t have changed it. You will never change, will you, only get more and more deep and clear and yourself. I shall change, but you must always remember I love you.

  Jennifer.

  She sat down clasping the letter between her palms, feeling the familiar glow steal over her, rising from the very sheets close-written in that sensitive erratic hand. Now, while her heart still beat with relief, joy, surprise, now while Jennifer seemed to have drawn near once more of her own accord, to be inquiring, holding out hands, hinting that she needed her – now it seemed plain at last what was to come. Whatever Jennifer had done, would do, they two must be together again.

  She took up a pen and wrote.

  My darling,

  I knew your letter would come, because I wanted it so badly.

  There are no new things and people. There is nothing. I haven’t got on very well without you and being happy seems to belong to a far-back time when you wore a green straw hat with a wreath of pink clover.

  You have explained everything at last. Thank you darling. Perhaps if we had both explained things more to each other, there wouldn’t have been such blanks and failures.

  I am at home, alone, wondering, like you, what to do next. I am quite free. I want to be with you again. Let us meet and think of something to do together. I shall go to Cambridge for a day at the beginning of next term. Meet me there. I’d hate to find you again for the first time in a different setting. I promise not to remind you of the past or of things you want to forget. I too only want to see a future now.

  I am living in an utter solitude, which is thrilling but insidious. This time of year always reminds me of you. I wish you were here to bathe at midday, when the haze is warm and golden, to share my fruity meals, and drift on the cold white-misted moony river after dark.

  Tell me a date and I will come.

  To think of you without your hair! Mine is exactly as it used to be.

  Judith.

  6

  Some days later, the same post brought two letters. One was Jennifer’s answer, scribbled all but illegibly across a half-sheet of note-paper, dashed off, it seemed, in wild haste.

  Oh it would be too lovely to see you again, darling. I can’t seem to make plans, or think at all. You are alone and you sound as if you had been so terribly unhappy. Oh, poor darling. Yes, it would be marvellous to do something together, but what? You know you know you know what I’m like. Why do you want to be bothered with me again. Remember how miserable I made you. But I must see you again – just to set eyes on you again would be heavenly. October 24th. Will that suit you. I will come to our teashop where we always went. Sit in the front room in the corner under the window. I’ll come for you there about four o’clock. Don’t wait for me after five. I shall get there by car somehow. I thought if I didn’t come till the afternoon it would give you time to go out to College and see people if you want to. I don’t want to. Perhaps we could stay the night somewhere. What do you think. I can’t say anything more definite than this. I will try to get there punctually. But if I wasn’t there – (here several words were so thickly inked over as to be indecipherable – and the letter ended in a desperate-looking scrawl) – It will be too too lovely to be with you again.

  J.

  The other letter made a bulky package. She opened it and saw many sheets of round unformed handwriting. At the top of the first page some other hand had written something minutely in pencil: Julian’s hand. She read.

  You asked me for news of Mariella. Here it is. I think you guessed what I was neither perspicacious nor interested enough to suspect; or did even she fall into the common habit of ‘telling Judith’? There is something about this document which has made me feel far from flattered in my vanity or elevated in my self-esteem. What I send you is for you and no one else. After you have read it destroy it. You are discreet; and for some reason you care what becomes of us; and, last but not least, you have the artistic conscience, a sense of dramatic values. It seems to me this rounds us off nicely.

  Tchehov? Turgenev?

  J.F.

  And underneath she read in Mariella’s childlike hand:

  Dear Julian,

  I think this is the first letter I have ever written to you. I’ve often wanted to write to you when I couldn’t bear it any longer. I’ve often nearly started and then I haven’t dared. I don’t know why I do now except that Martin dying does make me feel rather desperate. I’ve nobody now and he was allways nice to me. I think he guessed a little but never said. I
could allways rely on him. I didn’t think un-happiness could ever last like this. I’ve had it for years and I’ve allways thought, well it must get better soon, something nice would happen, but it seems to get worse and worse and I must just get used to it now. Dont you think there must be a Devil to account for all the damned misery in the world, I do. What am I to do with myself, I haven’t got anybody. If I beleived in God ever listening to us and minding what happened to us Id say it was him telling me to write to you, because it came to me last night all in a flash I must do it, I should be sort of saved if I did. I was deciding to kill myself but once Ive written all this out I dont think Ill want to. Ill go away and never see any of you again but Ill go on living.

  What Im writing to you about is this. Will you take Peter and look after him – you will do it better than me, and you love him and you have always thought I didn’t know how to look after him. I expect its true. I feel very helpless and worried about him. I hated it when he was born, I didn’t want him. I never ought to have married Charlie, you told me so, and then to have the baby – it meant I could never forget the awfull mistake and poor Charlie, and I wanted to forget him. I thought I could never love Peter – I hated him at first – me to have a baby of all things, but after a bit I began to love him, he was so sweet, and instead of making me remember miserable things he seemed to be going to make up for everything and I thought perhaps I should be happy after all, bringing him up. And then that day you came back on leave and saw him when he was a baby I saw how you looked at him and I knew you were going to love him too. And I thought, if he cares for Peter prehaps he will like me better, but instead of that you seemed to dislike me more. I understand why of course. You couldn’t help loving him for himself and because he was Charlies, but because he was mine too you couldn’t help allways remembering the gastly quarrel whenever you saw him with me. That’s why you wanted to have him to yourself away from me and allways told everybody I couldn’t look after him and oughtnt to have had a baby. You did tell everybody didn’t you? Poor little Peter I suppose it was true because bit by bit I got jealous of him. Oh what a devil I felt being jealous of my own son. And I adored him too but I couldn’t bear to see you with him and you trying to take him away from me and him getting to love you better than me. I used to go away and as for crying, I’ve cried enough in the last few years to make up for all the years of my life when I never cried. I didn’t cry at all when poor Charlie was killed, I suppose I was numb and then there was this horror of the baby coming. I felt turned into stone.

  And then began the time I thought you would marry Judith. I know you were in love with her, I suppose you still are, she is so pretty and clever as well. I was allways very fond of Judith, she was sweet to me, and I used to think Id try hard not to mind if you married her because it was so suitable and shed make you happy if she loved you. But I dont think she will love you, it wasnt you she wanted. It is awfull to think she has your love and doesnt want it. The waste, I cant bear it! If only all the people with unwanted love could hand it on to the people whod die for it and there were none of these gastly gap – everybody loving someone who loves another person. It seems so funny it never struck you I was the one who could make you happy, that Id always love you and look after you, but of course its silly to talk like that. I know Im stupid. I never read books or had any education. I have always exasperated you but I think if youd loved me I might have been different. Id have learned from you, Id have done anything to please you. I know I could have. But it never seemed worth while making an effort. I was allways your but and you expected me to be a fool. Its terrible how I irritate you. Why did I marry Charlie. He begged me and begged me and I’d always been so used to giving way to him. Besides I was so young then he told you and the revelation of how contemtable you thought me. I thought if I went and anounced to you I was going to marry Charlie youd realise I wasn’t a baby any more, that I was grown up, and youd say no, I must marry you not Charlie. And then your fury when he told you and the revelation of how contemtable you thought me. I think you were jealous too, because Charlie had done a thing without telling you and of course youd got him out of so many scrapes you couldnt bear him turning to someone else, especially a person like me who I suppose you thought too stupid to mannage him at all. Poor Charlie I know you loved him and tried to be like a father to him but honestly I dont believe you managed him quite the right way. I suppose it was my damned pride that made me go through with marrying him. When he came and told me hed sworn never to speak to you again, his only brother, I felt it was all my fault and I couldnt desert him. I couldnt help loving him in a way, he was very lovable and he did depend on me so. I vowed to myself I’d stop him drinking etc, and then perhaps youd be grateful to me and thered be a reconciliation. Poor Charlie, prehaps it was best he died, he was so weak. It was funny how he fell in love with me when he grew up. Somebody in my life has loved me anyhow. He really did. He longed so to have a son before he died too. Poor Grannie, she thought it was so wrong cousins marrying, but Charlie said no, he knew wed have wonderful children.

  Prehaps Peter will be wonderful. Hes got his music, and he hasnt got Charlies wild historical temper. Hes a very good unselfish little boy, very afectionate. Will you please take him and bring him up. You will do it better than me. I couldnt write like this if I hadnt quite given up hope of you ever turning to me. When Martin died I thought perhaps it might bring us closer, you were the one person I wanted to see, it would have been such a comfort. But no, my last hope is gone. I must think only of Peter now. I dont see how I can do it, the one thing Ive got, but I know its best. Ill know hes getting the best chance, which will be a great weight off my mind. I know you dont want to send him to school till hes much older, Im glad because hes rather dellicate and not a bit like other little boys – you mannage all the money, so youll know how much there is for him. Quite enough I think. Prehaps you will let me have him now and then for little visits, and when he grows up prehaps’ Ill be able to explain to him – if I’m alive. I dont really think I shall be. I promise Ill never interfere or bother you, but please you must remember its not because I dont love Peter Im giving him to you, but because I love you and wish he was yours. It will be wonderful doing something for you. Itll make me almost happy. Dont let him quite forget me, but I know he really loves you better than anyone. Oh before he was born I used to think if this was only Julians baby how happy Id be – I love you so much I would love to have your children and sufer pain for you – even though Ive never wanted children for myself. I know people all ways say I am so cold and dull and sexless, so I am to everyone else because ever since I was very young you have absorped me intirely. To you I would have been more like a flame, to burn you up. But you were allways so cold and uninterested, you never thought I was atractive to look at even.

  Oh I shiver when I think of having produced Peter perhaps only to be as unhappy as me or to die young like Charlie and Martin. But if you look after him hes more likely to be alright. Please if you marry get someone who will be nice to him. Oh this is awfull. What am I doing. Please take him soon. Dont write me an answer but just say if you will take him and when and I will send him with the governess, but you will sack her wont you and educate him yourself. I never did like her. Well I have written it all, I feel very exhausted but Im glad its written. I shant ever need to pretend again, the strain was awfull. I dont quite know what I shall do. I think I shall sell the house. I couldn’t bear to live in it ever again after all thats happened. It was an unlucky house so I dont want to keep it on for Peter. I dare say I shall go on with this vet business, or anyway looking after dogs somehow. Im not stupid with animals if I am with people.

  Oh darling Martin, it is terrible without him. Why wasnt I with him in the sailing boat, it would have saved so much trouble. Do you really think we never meet the people we love again. I know youll say never, so dont answer. Sometimes I feel it must be alright, I feel allmost a certainty this isnt the end.

  I sha
nt read this over. I’ve written in such a hurry I expect its full of spelling mistakes etc. and youll laugh when you read it. I cant help it.

  You mustnt dispise me for telling you I love you.

  Good-bye from

  Mariella.

  Beneath her signature came Julian’s pencil again: ‘I have sent for Peter.’

  7

  In the early afternoon, the taxi drew up beneath the archway of College, and she saw once more the red-tiled floor, the cold polished walls, the official bleakness and decorous ugliness of the entrance hall.

  The portress had been her special friend. She opened the door of the lodge, expecting a joyful smile: but the elderly woman sitting at the table was unfamiliar.

  ‘Is the portress out?’

  ‘I’m the portress, Miss.’

  ‘I don’t think I remember you.’

  ‘No, Miss. I only came this term.’

  ‘Ah yes. How do you like it?’

  ‘Well it’s all a bit difficult to get into, Miss. Hard like.’

  ‘Yes. I found that. I used to be here.’

  ‘Oh yes Miss.’

  Her eyes looked bored behind her glasses. She was thinking there were any amount of girls always coming and going. You couldn’t be expected to take an interest …

  Judith looked around her and was seized with panic. The whole place was unfamiliar. Nothing recognized or greeted her.

  A menace of footsteps drew near, resounding harshly on the tiles. A group of girls in gym tunics passed and stared. They must be first-year students. She could not remember one of them. She shrank from their curious glances and went swiftly down the corridor to the foot of the stairs.

  A girl came running down, two steps at a time, saw her and paused, smiling shyly.