by MARY HOCKING
Her eyes flickered away from me as though my little burst of exuberance had tired her. I was going to make the most awful mess of this. I felt a great emptiness inside me and reached for more toast. Mrs. Routh was still discussing bulbs with Constance. In any other family, I thought, the mother would have taken me aside and given me a full résumé of events together with a lot of advice as to what to do and what not to do. This, of course, would be quite alien to Mrs. Routh who believed that one should never interfere with another person’s freedom of action or attempt to influence them in any way. In one of his published sermons, Oliver Routh had said, ‘We cripple our children with the weight of our hopes, we tie our inhibitions round their necks and in their hearts we plant the seeds of our prejudices. And then we maintain that we are making them a gift of our experience and wisdom, when what we are really doing is denying them their inheritance.’ Needless to say, these mistakes had not been made by the Rouths themselves. The freedom of the individual to be an individual had been the guiding principle in the upbringing of the Routh children and was practised in matters great and small. Even now, although I could tell that Mrs. Routh thought Constance was going to make a great botch of the order for bulbs, she dismissed the matter with an amused, ‘Well, it’s you that’s the gardening expert, my lamb.’
She was collecting our cups as she spoke. I watched, feeling myself gradually coming under her spell again. She was a small woman, barely five foot. Her hair, pepper and salt now, was cropped short to discipline the strong curl. She had the high forehead which so often denotes intelligence, unwavering hazel eyes and a small, crisp mouth. The whole face looked as though her maker had been very sure of his purpose on the day that she was conceived. Her figure had been firm and athletic, but now there was a slight thickening round the waist; even so, there could not have been many women in their late forties who would have looked so trim in that most exacting of outfits, a close-fitting jersey and a tight tweed skirt. As she moved about the room, I was very conscious of her physical presence, there was a sense of controlled energy in every movement she made; it was as though the pace of life was not quite fast enough for her and she had to make a conscious effort to adapt to its rhythm. Her mental processes were very quick, too. It occurred to me that she would have made a superb racing driver, her co-ordination was remarkable and although I had never known it brought to the test, I was sure that her nerve would respond magnificently to danger. All of which was, I suppose, rather pretentious, since at the moment she was merely dealing with cups, milk jug, tea-pot, with brisk dexterity.
Margaret spoke suddenly. ‘What’s the time?’
Mrs. Routh finished pouring milk before glancing at her watch. ‘Half-past five.’ She began to pour tea.
Margaret said, ‘I’ll walk down to the surgery.’
Mrs. Routh lifted the lid of the tea-pot with one finger and poured hot water. ‘If it’s only the prescription, I expect Constance would go.’
Constance raised her eyebrows and gave her mother an amused look which Mrs. Routh avoided by turning to hand me my cup. Constance came to the trolley and took her cup. Margaret said, ‘I’ll go.’
There was a slight pause while Mrs. Routh took a bite of toast. She wiped her hands carefully on a paper serviette and said, ‘Will you go now? Or are you having another cup of tea?’
Her tone was casual. Margaret turned back to the fire and gazed at it, her mouth drooping with self-pity. Mrs. Routh said to me: ‘We liked your father’s latest book. Flora.’
Constance said, ‘We’d get him to autograph it, only I was so enthralled that I couldn’t be parted from it, and I dropped it in the bath.’
‘He’d be delighted to hear that!’ I said. Although there was very little money in this house, they bought each one of my father’s historical novels. It upset me that my father did not buy Oliver Routh’s books.
Somewhere at the back of the house a door slammed. Constance exclaimed, ‘Loaves and fishes! Leave it to me.’ She picked up the hot-water jug and the toast plate and went out of the room. In the hall, we heard her say, ‘Oh, my poor Rasim! Don’t tell me father made you walk here!’ A soft voice assured her in very correct English that it had been a beautiful walk. ‘It’s quite fatal to be polite,’ Constance laughed. ‘You just have to tell Daddy very firmly that your idea of a walk is a brisk trot down to the car park, otherwise …’ The sitting-room door swung back and Oliver Routh entered the room. Immediately one ceased to be aware of the dialogue between the two in the hall; this enormous man at once commanded attention. He was six foot four at least and broad with it; his entry into any room would make him the focus of attention and his pale, moon-shaped face, oddly in contrast with the rugged body, showed clearly that this was an agony to him.
His manner was self-consciously abrupt, his expression abstracted as though his mind dissociated itself from his surroundings, and yet in spite of his preoccupation one was aware that he was very conscious of an audience. Now he came forward pushing his black curly hair back from his face, lifting both arms high and revealing the frayed armpits of his jersey. The gesture would have been familiar to all those who had seen him at the open air youth rallies which he organized during the summer months; it was a bit overpowering in a small room. He wore corduroys which were patched and muddy and thigh boots which were muddy, too. He expelled his breath in loud, ecstatic sighs as though he had just emerged from an invigorating, but icy bathe. As if to acknowledge his forceful presence, the fire belched smoke into the room.
‘We walked over from the university,’ his voice blared with enthusiasm as his wife handed him a cup of tea. He focused his attention on her, coming to rest in the one place where he was really secure.
‘That must have been nice,’ she said, quietly smiling. ‘Nice’ was a word which she tended to use when she wanted to lower the temperature: one could see him steadying under her influence.
‘The country is absolutely magnificent! We must all get out tomorrow, we really must. I do wish Timothy were here, we could get him at work with his paintbrush again.’
‘The only thing Timothy will paint is the side of a boat, I’m afraid, darling!’
Margaret said, ‘Pug is here, Daddy.’
‘Yes, I was thinking how splendid it was to see you again!’ He dragged up a chair and sat beside me, spreading his legs wide and making a business of bending down to place his cup and saucer on the floor. ‘How long is it since you were here last? I’ve been trying all day to remember.’ We both knew that this was not true. He was marvellous with young people, so interested in their world, so forward-looking, a formidable ally against the forces of reaction; but in spite of this, he was often tentative and rather gauche with the individual and this was particularly true of his encounters with me. No doubt I was largely to blame. Although the Rouths had generously opened their arms to admit me to the family circle, I had never been able to take my place there but had remained on the periphery. Not only was I unable to relax with them, but there was a strain of ungracious obstinacy in me that prevented me taking that final step which would mean complete acceptance. Probably Mr. Routh was aware of this and no doubt it troubled him; his was such a sensitive nature that a failure in personal relationships, however insignificant and partial, would be something to which he could not reconcile himself.
While I told him how long it was since I was last at Stanford, Constance came in with a fresh supply of toast, followed by a small, olive-skinned man carrying the hot-water jug. This new arrival was very conscious of the mud on his shoes, he walked like a fastidious cat; apart from his shoes, the rigours of his recent experience appeared to have left no sign on his neat person.
‘Ah, Rasim!’ Oliver Routh beckoned the man forward. ‘You must meet Flora Brett, a very dear friend. Flora, this is Dr. Rasim Ahmed. Rasim is Lebanese. He is doing research work at Sussex and they are very lucky to have him. He’s quite brilliant and he’s doing some fascinating experiments in psychology.’ Mr. Routh, a fervent advocate of raci
al equality, was always noticeably lavish with his praise when referring to the achievements of aliens.
Dr. Ahmed was not entirely grateful. He bowed and gave me an apologetic smile; he had beautiful dark eyes fringed with very long lashes, the eyes were most expressive and at this moment they were conveying a message, ‘Please, please, do not believe that I am brilliant.’ He seemed to me like a small, velvet animal, the shy kind that peers from forests and darts away when humans approach. I sensed that he would like to dart away now. But whatever his emotions, he had them well under control and his manners were excellent. He addressed himself to me as though I was a person of considerable consequence. ‘You have just now come down from London University, so Margaret has been telling me. Have you decided what you will be doing?’ It was the most interested inquiry which had been addressed to me so far, and I was not ready for it.
‘I’ve got some rather impractical notions,’ I said, anxious to forestall the obvious comment. ‘I’ve been thinking about archaeology and one or two things like that… . But, of course, it wouldn’t be easy to get anything worthwhile in that line. I suppose I could always teach if the worst came to the worst.’
The room exploded. Mr. Routh clapped his hands and flung his head back in an agony of enjoyment. Mrs. Routh said, in her clear, amused voice, ‘This is it! This is absolutely what we were talking about after that wretched governors’ meeting, isn’t it? People teach if the worst comes to the worst. No wonder we have trouble with students!’
Dr. Ahmed raised his cup to his lips, over the rim his eyes met mine and somewhere in their sombre depths a little light twinkled. When all the clamour had subsided, Margaret said:
‘I think I shall go now.’ She chose the first quiet moment to make this announcement and then seemed irritated that it had been noticed.
‘Where are you going, my love?’ Her father’s voice had changed, it was flat and carefully ironed of interest; it revealed to me, more than anything that had yet happened, the tension in the house.
‘She’s going to get her prescription,’ Mrs. Routh said.
‘I could have gone if I’d known. Shall I …?’ He half-rose, looking uncertainly at Margaret. Mrs. Routh’s fingers beat an impatient tattoo on the trolley.
‘No, thank you,’ Margaret said. ‘I’d like the walk.’
He sat down at once and gazed between his knees into his cup. Mrs. Routh flashed him a glance of weary compassion. Margaret emerged from the rug to reveal a leather skirt and long boots; for some reason I was reassured by the skirt and boots which made me feel that she was equipped to face life.
‘Shall I walk down with you?’ I asked on an impulse. ‘I’d love to have an evening stroll round the village.’
She said, ‘Yes, all right,’ as though it was of not the slightest consequence whether I came or not. The rest of the family appeared not to notice this exchange, but as I went out of the room Mrs. Routh said to me, ‘I should put on a coat, Pug dear. It gets chilly round here at this time of the year.’ She managed to convey more than a passing concern for my comfort. Although she seldom commented on behaviour, she had her own way of letting you know when you had done the right thing.
Chapter Two
The last log had burnt through, there was only a glow in the centre and the rest was falling to ash. The room darkened. All the human noises had long since ceased, but the house made its own noises as it settled for the night and its aged timbers adjusted to the change in temperature. I tucked my feet under my dressing-gown and sipped my Ovaltine. Early to bed and early to rise, was the motto at Baileys, but it was never imposed on guests. ‘Ovaltine and biscuits in the kitchen. Pug,’ had been Mrs. Routh’s words to me as she crossed the hall on her way to bed. No one would come to wake me in the morning, although if I got up late I might have to get my own breakfast and there was a risk that I would not connect with the family for the remainder of the day. The room was growing chill; through the half-open door I could see a shaft of moonlight falling across the hall floor and catching the first steps of the stairs, like a spotlight anticipating the entrance of an actor on a stage. This little flight of fancy was not pleasing; it momentarily destroyed the illusion that this was a familiar place. I stirred myself to switch on the standard lamp. The sitting-room had altered very little since I was last here; it seemed smaller and the timbered ceiling lower, but this was a predictable reaction. The room had always been plainly furnished, and I now noticed that it was also rather shabby, the blue covers on the chairs were faded and the curtains, drawn across the window, had darker strips indicating where the folds of material were never exposed to sunlight. For the first time, I wondered whether the Rouths had inherited the furnishings from the previous owners. In spite of the fact that Baileys was so old, I had never before thought of it as having a previous owner in the recent past, although I had enjoyed peopling it with Tudor and Stuart inhabitants. But now I was aware of the fact that the Rouths and the house were separate from each other; however much the Rouths might regard Baileys as their home, whatever fantasies the children might have woven about it, there was no emotional involvement on the part of the house. It was quite detached from the Routh family and their goings-on. Almost, I envied it.
Although the family had obviously approved of my accompanying Margaret to the surgery, the result had not been a success. I got up and went into the kitchen to fill my hot-water bottle and to try to stop myself descanting on mine own inadequacy. But once I was in bed, free of all distraction, there was no escape.
We had not spoken much on our way down to the surgery and this had not troubled me because I soon become weary of people who must fill every moment with small talk. As far as I was concerned we were walking in companionable silence. There was a rawness in the air and this was welcome to me after the long journey and the heat of the sitting-room. When we got to the old, square house, I remembered the man in the red car. It was too dark to see the name on the plate.
‘Have you got a good doctor?’ I asked Margaret.
‘Yes.’ She turned to face me in the doorway. ‘I didn’t come for a prescription. I’ll probably be quite a time.’
‘Oh? Well, I’ll wait, shall I?’
‘Suit yourself.’
She turned away and pushed the door marked ‘Surgery Entrance’. It was at the side of the house and led straight into a rectangular room which might once have been the morning-room. There were chairs round three of the walls and under the window there was a table with the usual stack of magazines and a vase containing honesty and some withered red berries; it was all very businesslike, no temptation to linger here and suffer pleasurably. The only other person in the room was a broad, middle-aged woman who was certainly not suffering pleasurably. She looked as though she had rushed out in the middle of preparing supper, her clothes had the appearance of being slung about her as she went out of the house; an old black coat was wrapped round her, and where it gaped across her lap one could see a pinafore liberally encrusted with dried flour. There was flour on her hands, too, and on the red chiffon scarf tied round her head. She watched us take our seats and then said, with evident satisfaction in sharing bad news:
‘Nurse isn’t here this evening. And I only wanted a prescription.’
‘I’ll get it and drop it in if you like,’ Margaret offered.
I was surprised to realize that they knew each other this well; their greeting had not been cordial and the woman, although she seemed fascinated by Margaret, did not regard her as though she liked her.
‘He wouldn’t give it to you, would he? Not him.’ The woman looked at the inner door, her black brows making a straight line across her face, a kind of horizontal exclamation mark. ‘Must satisfy himself you still need it, even though you’ve been coming for years. It’s all right when nurse is here, she can handle him. But . . .’
‘It’s better that he takes an interest,’ Margaret said.
‘Interest! He’s hard put to it to remember my name!’
Margaret
went across to the table and picked up a copy of The Field. The woman said to me, ‘Filthy temper, too!’ Margaret opened The Field and became engrossed in a report on bloodstock which she read with the same intensity with which she had devoured Villette as a schoolgirl; she must have read the report through at least three times when an old man shuffled out and the woman responded to a peremptory summons on the buzzer. I expected that once we were alone, Margaret would put down the magazine and comment on the woman’s attitude; but she went on reading fervently and I could only assume that she wanted to keep me at bay as well. The buzzer went again very soon; one way or another the battle of the prescription had been quickly fought and won. Margaret put down the magazine and I noticed that her hands were trembling. She and the woman passed each other in the doorway; the woman stayed to talk to me.
‘Sad.’ There was no pity in the beady eyes; but there was something else, which could have been anger or even fear. ‘Very sad, isn’t it?’
‘Sad?’
‘About her.’
‘She seems all right to me. In fact, I was quite surprised to see how well she looked.’
‘She looks all right. Yes, I suppose you might say that. A bit disagreeable, but then she never put herself out, did she? But she’s not well in her mind, you see. Going off and saying all those strange things about idols, like she was possessed with evil spirits.’ Again the hint of fear: in another age she would have been all for having Margaret burnt as a witch. ‘A terrible shock for her mother and father, it must have been.’
‘They seem to be bearing up very well.’ I found myself with The Field open on my lap.
‘I wonder where she got all that talk about idols from. He does all that work for the coloureds, of course.’ Mr. Routh was chairman of the Inter-Church Race Relations Committee. ‘Very good, I’m sure. But they’re not like us, are they? You can’t help wondering.’ I turned a page of The Field. ‘Not that I’ve got anything against them, mind you. But their ways aren’t our ways. You have to be careful.’