by Denton Welch
I looked at his body again. I could smell it now in the warm hay. I had a hard, quite callous feeling that the blankets were too clean to be put over him.
‘Are you warm enough?’ I asked. He did not answer. The next moment I heard his deep rich intakes of breath. Wrapping myself in the blankets, to stop the hay from pricking, I lowered myself gently beside him. Deep, deep, into the hay I sank, until we were in one nest. He did not wake again, but stirred a little in his sleep, turning towards me. I drew as close as I dared to him and lay, my head close to his chest, so that I could feel the rhythm of its rising and falling.
All night we lay together there. Towards dawn I woke up to find that he now lay face downwards and that he had thrown an arm over me. I waited, not being able to sleep any more, hoping that he too would wake up.
When he did, he looked straight into my eyes from a few inches away and smiled. He was not teasing me any more; he had accepted me.
Slowly he raised himself in the hay and jerked his clothes this way and that, readjusting them. This was his morning toilet. He ran his hand over his face, rubbing his eyes roughly, and crackling the stubble on his chin.
‘Well, I must be getting along,’ he said.
‘I’m coming too,’ I announced.
‘Don’t be bloody daft,’ was his answer. I took no notice, but began to roll up the blankets. I wondered whether to take them with me, but decided that they would be too heavy. I hoped that he would unpack some of the food Cook had given him, but he didn’t; he just went on hitching his knapsack up and ignoring me.
We went out into the weak sunlight in the slippery cobbled yard. He took no notice of me, but trudged on out of the yard into the lane, past the twinkling brook through the village, and out on to the heath-like stretch beyond. There he sat down and I sat too. In perfect silence he offered me a piece of cake and cheese. We munched together and he drank cold tea from his tin.
At last he stood up, and looking at me harshly, compellingly, he said, ‘Now go back, you silly little sod.’
THE TROUT STREAM
I
How well I remember that first visit to Mr Mellon! My mother and I had been asked to spend the weekend at his great villa near Tunbridge Wells. He was an old friend of my father’s, and since my father was abroad at this time, I think he imagined that we were lonely, sitting in our Kensington hotel, looking out at the fossilised trees in the gardens of the Natural History Museum.
We set out on a dark rather foggy afternoon in early autumn. The light under the dirty glass dome of the station was thick and yellow. The train was just about to start and we had to run down the platform to reach a coach. As I skipped along by my mother, I suspected nothing. I was excited by the hurry, rather pleased that we had to scramble in this way; but when the door of the first coach had been wrenched open and my mother’s suitcase tossed on to the rack, I saw that there was something strange about her. She stood, swaying a little, a sort of smile on her face, her bag still open, although the porter had been tipped. I thought that she was about to move her hands and head in rhythm, perhaps even to hum a song. Then the middle-aged man opposite had jumped to his feet, had taken hold of her, was touching my mother! Between the little white tufts of hair above each ear, his chunky lips were working up and down in agitation. He was saying, ‘Oh, is there anything I can do, madam? Lean on me. Shall I get a doctor?’
He seemed impossibly fussy and protective. He was turning my mother into one of those fainting, delicate women I had heard about in stories, when really she was the strongest, most capable mother anyone could want. Why, running was nothing to her; she could dance and swim and ride and play all sorts of games. No one in the carriage would know this now, because of the man. They would all think her a weak woman who had to be held up, fanned with newspapers and given smelling-salts.
I looked up in amazement and said, ‘What is happening, Mummy?’ Then I pulled at her to make her sit down, for she was still standing, with her head almost against the man’s shoulder. Slowly the train began to move out of the station. My glance darted up to the vast glass roof, so far away and threatening; it returned to my mother fearfully. But she was recovering. Her smile lost its sleep-walking quality before my eyes. She looked up at the man and thanked him charmingly for his attention, explaining that she had only felt faint for a moment; then she sat down beside me and took my arm.
We said nothing at first, each, I suppose, feeling relieved and yet shy. I was impatient with her too, for giving the wrong impression to the people in the carriage; I had always been proud of her youthfulness and vigour. I was not to know that this was one of the first signs of the illness that was to separate us soon.
When we were near the end of our journey, my mother told me not to say anything to Mr Mellon or his housekeeper about her faintness, since she wanted no sort of to-do now that she was well again. So it was in a rather strained and careful mood that I left the train and went towards the long black car that was waiting for us. Already we were coming within the influence of Mr Mellon and I must let no word slip. The car itself, with its high old-fashioned body and glittering carriage lamps, already lighted, was a disappointment. I had expected a man of Mr Mellon’s wealth to have a Rolls-Royce, and here was something that I could not even give a name to. Still, it was good to have darkness outside, but to be in the warm padded box with my mother, to be smelling the slightly aromatic dried-up air and playing with the scent bottles, matchboxes and engagement tablets of old cracked ivory—the cracks were black, like my nails when I was sent to scrub them.
On the outskirts of the town we left the wide avenue and turned in between large clumsy gates. The car lamps glistened on the fresh paint, showing the branches of monkey-puzzles and rhododendrons beyond. There was a little lodge of grey and red rubbed-brick. Everything was hard and ugly and beautifully kept. It reminded me of public parks or cemeteries; and this effect, together with the shock of my mother’s passing illness, and her wish that nothing should be mentioned, all helped to oppress me, so that I dreaded coming to the end of the long curling drive, where Mr Mellon and his housekeeper would be waiting for us.
I suppose it was this wish to shut the world away from me that has made me forget almost all the details of our arrival. Just the sight of three huge plate-glass windows, curtained and lighted from within, remains. We were approaching them quickly; then there was the crunch as the wheels braked on the gravel under the granite porch.
It is the next morning that is still so clear. It must have been the hour before lunch. I know that my mother took me into the room where Mr Mellon always sat, the one with the three long windows.
It overlooked the gravel, the starfish flower-beds and the whole stretch of lawn in front of the house. The sun was pouring in, draining the fire of colour, making the invisible flames seem rather overpowering. I had been told that Mr Mellon was an invalid, so his wheelchair did not surprise me. Only the plaid rug across his knees made me wonder fearfully what the legs could be like underneath. Were they all withered away? Were they like drumsticks when the chicken has been eaten? The face beamed at me. I thought it looked like a very large, scrubbed, kind potato. There were only little mounds and valleys, all colourless and smooth with no wrinkles. Mr Mellon held out his hand and I went up to his chair. He held me against his side. He seemed extraordinarily fond of children, I thought; too fond to be quite comfortable, for I was conscious of his big body so close, the hardness of the wheelchair and the heat of the fire. Then the door opened and Mrs Slade the housekeeper came in.
Mrs Slade was the smiling, confident hostess, and yet somehow it was clear that she was no unpaid wife, friend or relation; perhaps her very competence set her apart. My mother had explained to me that she was half-Javanese, but I could not quite accept her appearance and kept gazing at her whenever I thought that it would not be rude. I did not like her very soft, creamy skin, or the almost freckled duskiness round her long eyes, but their strangeness held me. I thought the grey seemed out of p
lace in her black hair, for her body was flat and supple, like a young person’s, and she was very small.
She began to ask my mother how she had slept, whether she had been brought exactly what she liked for breakfast; then she went over to the fire and wheeled Mr Mellon back a little, as if she knew, better than he did himself, what was comfortable for him.
‘It’s nearly time for drinks,’ she said brightly and, turning to me so that I too should be included in her attention, she added, ‘My daughter Phyllis will be down in a moment; she is just washing her hands. It is so nice for her to have someone of her own age to play with.’
I was a little alarmed by Mrs Slade’s efficiency, afraid of that smiling hardness. She seemed not to be aware of my nature or my mother’s. Her mind was always occupied with the arrangements of the day; and the comforts and pleasures she planned for us were made to sound like duties. She was like the harsh little lodge, the monkey-puzzles and the sharp-edged drive.
The drinks were brought in by one of the tall Indian servants in his red turban and long white coat. As soon as he had left, Mrs Slade turned to my mother and said, ‘The Indians are new since you were here last, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, where did you get them?’ asked my mother.
They were indeed remarkable; all tall and silent in their red and white uniform. Ever since we had arrived I had been wanting to know why they were in this English villa. I knew that Mr Mellon had made his fortune in the East, but it had been the Far East, not India.
Mrs Slade was explaining.
‘We had so much trouble with English servants that at last we thought we would try these Indians; they work as a team. A friend of Mr Mellon’s told us of them.’
‘They seem very good,’ my mother said.
‘Yes, I think they do their work well on the whole, and the cook makes excellent curries. You will see; we are to have one today.’
This was delightful news to me, since curry was almost my favourite dish.
All this time Mr Mellon had been beaming at me, at my mother and at Mrs Slade, sometimes saying a word, but usually leaving the conversation to Mrs Slade. Now he took from his pocket a little gold box and I was suddenly excited to see the lid blaze with large initials in diamonds. The initials were too big for the box, making it seem crusted and clumsy. I was still more excited when he opened the box and took snuff. Noticing my fascination he held out the box to me. I went up to him again and took it, but did not dare to smell the snuff, imagining that I would sneeze or choke at once. I just held the box and drank in its great value and the beauty of the diamonds.
‘I thought only old people, people in history, took snuff,’ I said uncertainly, thinking of wigs and swords and other things my mother had told me of.
‘I take it because I mustn’t smoke, you see,’ Mr Mellon said, then added, ‘You like my box?’
For one intoxicating moment I thought he was going to give it to me. What would it feel like to possess a diamond-studded snuffbox? But he was only amused by my reverent interest. I felt he was almost laughing at me.
‘I’ve another one here,’ he said. ‘I wonder if you’ll like it better.’ He fished in his other pocket and brought out a box with a little urn of flowers on it. The urn, the flowers and ribbons were in every colour of precious stone. I tried to name them: ruby, sapphire, emerald, pearl—I knew no more.
‘Oh, yes!’ I said with a sigh of wonder and amazement. Could I be really holding such boxes? What would happen to them when Mr Mellon died? They seemed more desirable to me than anything else I had known.
Suddenly Mr Mellon took the boxes back from me, slipped them carelessly in his pockets and said with complete irrelevance, ‘One day when my legs are better, you and I will go out in the woods behind the house and climb up to where the white elephant lives. I’d like to show him to you.’
I was nonplussed. I knew that Mr Mellon was paralysed and could never walk again. I knew that there were no white elephants—certainly not in England. Was this a game of make-believe? I was painfully embarrassed.
Mr Mellon saw it and laughed. I turned to my mother for help and guidance.
‘Ah! Here is Phyllis at last,’ broke in Mrs Slade. ‘How long you’ve been!’
I guessed that Phyllis had been keeping away on purpose, for she was a dark heavy girl with nothing at all to say. Her eyebrows met in the middle and already she had black hairs on her arms. She stood against the wall; utterly impassive and confident. I could not help thinking her very ugly, and it was a shock to my self-satisfaction when Mr Mellon showed even more delight in her arrival than he had shown in mine. He asked her to bring him one of the little cocktail titbits, then when she stood by him, he put his arm round her shoulders and said, ‘Phyllis is a good old sort, isn’t she! I’ve been talking about our white elephant, saying we must visit him when I’m up and about again.’
Phyllis’s response to this was a sort of grunt that seemed both sullen and lazily good natured. It was as if she knew his nonsense of old, but was ready to put up with more of it, since he was good to her.
At lunch I was surprised to see so many Indians; there seemed to be one for each of us, and they came and went with such silent smoothness. Sometimes there was the lowest murmur behind a screen, sometimes Mrs Slade made a sign with her hand; and her eyes followed them constantly. I felt the strain of her watchfulness and saw that she ate in quick abstracted snatches, hardly looking at her plate.
But the curry was what really occupied my attention. There was rice bright gold with saffron, chicken in its glistening brown sauce; then came innumerable little dishes of condiments. I suppose we had chutneys, Bombay duck, chopped coconut, egg, parsley, peanuts and many other stranger things I still cannot name. I know that I piled them up until I had a little mound, then dug into it joyfully with my spoon.
As soon as I had satisfied my greediness a little, I began to look about the room; at the walls covered with a heavily embossed gilt paper in imitation of Spanish leather, at the sticky landscapes and still-lifes in plaster frames almost a foot deep. Out of the windows I could only see lawns, laurel hedges and the corner of a white conservatory all cast-iron spikes, silvered poppy-heads and Gothic tracery. A sense of the deadness of things began to oppress me. I thought that all Mr Mellon’s possessions looked as if no one had ever wanted to use them or enjoy them. I wondered why he had them and kept them in such perfect condition.
Mr Mellon’s long head now seemed to me to be like a peeled satiny log. Phyllis next to him was like some coarse little fair Negress, unaware of anything but food. Her mother’s much more delicate Eurasian face with its smile and its strain filled me with uneasiness. I looked at my mother with relief, kept my eyes on what always pleased me. Here was the only object that did not seem strange or ugly or inauspicious to me.
Mrs Slade must have planned that our first lunch should have an Eastern flavour throughout, for we finished with tinned mangoes. The long spoon-shaped slices swimming in syrup disappointed me, because the preserving had made them taste more like peaches than anything else; but I had a second helping, since Mrs Slade seemed to expect it.
Afterwards Phyllis took me into the paddock to show me her pony. A groom brought it out, but then left us alone together. I was feeling at a disadvantage, because Phyllis had changed into riding-breeches and looked even tougher and more self-sufficient than before. I thought too that I would probably be expected to ride as I was, in shorts, which would mean two raw patches on the insides of my legs. And what if I should fall off, or show any sort of fear? Phyllis would just look away, hardly even bothering to be scornful. The visit to the paddock was an ordeal.
Phyllis stood for some time with her arm on her pony’s saddle, doing nothing. The running together of her thick eyebrows gave an effect of frowning, but I think she was really looking at me with no expression at all. At last she said, ‘Are you fond of riding?’ She might have been asking if I liked cleaning my teeth or performing some other irksome duty.
; ‘Yes, last year I rode every week,’ I explained. ‘But now we are living in London.’
At this Phyllis gave my bare knees a glance and remarked, ‘But you haven’t got any breeches’; then she swung herself on to the pony and trotted briskly to the other end of the field. I watched her go, wondering how soon I could leave without seeming rude. I wanted to explore the grounds by myself.
As she returned, I tried to show some interest, but Phyllis passed without a word. Her face was set; she might have been all alone. I felt that my welcoming smile must look silly indeed.
Several times she rode round the field, solemnly, without taking any notice of me; I was only saved from the growing awkwardness of my position by the sudden appearance of Mr Mellon and Mrs Slade. My eyes had wandered towards the house rather longingly; and then I had seen what looked to me like the strangest of little horseless carriages. It was approaching down one of the winding yellow paths, threading in and out of the trees very rapidly and smoothly.
Soon I could see that it held Mr Mellon with Mrs Slade sitting at his feet. Mr Mellon waved his hand, as if beckoning, so I ran to the gate of the paddock and let myself out.
They had stopped in the protection of a bank of shrubs with mottled leaves, and against this bright yellow and green background their faces looked very pale. I saw that the little carriage was an elaborate motor or electric bathchair. Mr Mellon’s head was framed in the folds of the calash hood, while Mrs Slade squatted cross-legged on the tiny space left on the platform in front of his feet. Seen thus, sitting before him like a little Buddha, she was stranger than ever to me; but I also thought her smile seemed happier and more spontaneous, as if she really enjoyed fitting herself so ingeniously into the bathchair and racing down the garden paths with Mr Mellon. She suggested that I might like to try riding in her position and rose from the platform like a dancer, hardly using her hands, and with her legs still crossed. Mr Mellon said, ‘Yes, you just see if you can fit in as neatly as Mrs Slade, and then we’ll go for a fine ride.’