Now that she had the reassurance of Melissa’s company she felt better. She introduced her modish friend and settled down to enjoy her tea, while the Rawlings family stared at Melissa and Melissa nibbled cress sandwiches. Their silence was gauche. Melissa’s was not; she was practised in the art of saying nothing without discourtesy.
“Live in London?” barked Mr. Rawlings at last.
Melissa admitted that she did and said that it was nice to get into the country.
“Hmph! D’you call this country? I don’t. Now we live in the depths of the country.”
“Nicest of all,” sighed Melissa.
“We think so.”
Melissa turned courteously to her fellow bridesmaid and asked if she was not enchanted with the earrings which Patrick had sent them.
“They will be just right with our little hats,” she suggested.
“If you ask me,” said Joan with a scowl, “nothing can stop those hats from looking ridiculous. I think they’re awful. I’m sorry, but I do.”
“Haven’t spent a night in London for twenty years,” ruminated Mr. Rawlings. “Can’t stick the place.”
“I can’t say I’m keen on earrings myself,” put in Mrs. Rawlings. “I can’t think why ever he chose them.”
Lucy had chosen them, as everybody knew, but the shaft was lost on her, as she had started up and was bounding into the house. She had heard the telephone ringing.
“Let’s hope,” tittered Mrs. Rawlings, “that he’s vouchsafed at last. She’s been like a cat on hot bricks, waiting for him to ring all day. Not at all the devoted bridegroom! I always say …”
But Mr. Rawlings, who had been noisily absorbing tea, interrupted her to demand whether Melissa knew this fellow Reilly.
“He sounds a rum sort of customer to me. How did she meet him? That’s what we’ve never been able to discover.”
“At Oxford,” said Melissa. “He was staying with the President of St. Stephen’s and met Lucy at a party.”
“Now that,” said Mrs. Rawlings, “is what I don’t like about letting a girl go to one of these colleges. You never know what sort of men she may meet.”
“His books are very well known,” suggested Melissa.
“Never read ’em,” stated Mr. Rawlings. “I don’t read much. I like a good yarn now and then, but I haven’t time to read much.”
“I’ve read them,” put in Joan. “And so has Mummy.”
“Oh yes,” agreed Mummy. “We aren’t such country cousins as all that, Miss Hallam. We got them from the library, before the engagement or anything, just to read, you know.”
“And didn’t you think them very good?”
There was a pause. The Rawlings women did not like to praise anything belonging to Lucy. But neither did they wish to dispraise a famous writer. Their lord took up the cudgels for them. A good writer, he said, might be a shocking bounder. Was Reilly a gentleman? That was all he wanted to know.
“Oh yes,” said Melissa, who would have called Caliban a gentleman rather than let Lucy down.
Stephen appeared in the living-room window. He was tall for fifteen, taller than Lucy, and very like her, especially when his hair needed cutting. He brightened when he saw Melissa, whom he greatly admired, and called out a greeting to her. She returned it and asked if he wanted some tea. For a moment he did not reply, for he was torn between hunger and distaste for Rawlings company.
“Not just now,” he said at last, and vanished into the house.
Mr. Rawlings asked if that boy was all there and if Melissa knew what Reilly’s income might be. Mrs. Rawlings said, with a sigh, that authors make a great deal of money. Joan remarked that it was killingly funny to think of Lucy marrying one.
“Why?” asked Melissa, permitting herself a fleeting glance of astonishment at Joan’s ankles.
“Well … I mean …” giggled Joan. “Lucy marrying a famous man … Lucy!”
Joan was genuinely astonished. She had never expected Lucy to marry anybody; she had always believed that her cousin was a freak. She had heard a bad end predicted for Lucy as long as she could remember.
The telephone call had been the wrong one. Lucy appeared dejectedly in the window, and Melissa, to save her friend from spiteful enquiries, jumped up, exclaiming that she must unpack. She ran across the lawn to Lucy and asked to be taken to her room.
“Hide me,” she whispered. “Shelter me! I must recover my strength.”
Stephen, who was never wanting in proper attention to Melissa, had carried her luggage up to his attic at the top of the house. Melissa had not seen it before and exclaimed at the view. Rank upon rank of hills stretched away, to a great distance, in the blue and golden evening.
“Très Claude,” she said, leaning out of the window. “A light that never was on sea or land.”
“What do you think of my relations?” asked Lucy.
“Museum pieces. You should cherish them, for nowadays people like that are getting quite rare. Especially Joan.”
Lucy flung herself on the bed and picked some more plaster out of the wall while Melissa unpacked.
“I can’t show you my trousseau,” she said, “because it’s all packed. I wouldn’t anyway. It’s a mess, except my tribute silk dress which you’ve seen. To begin with, I hadn’t enough money and didn’t like to ask Mother for more. To go on with, I’ve been so flustered lately I’ve done everything wrong. To end up with, however rich and calm I was, I have no taste.”
“You’ve avoided frills, I hope.”
“I’ve avoided everything. That’s the trouble. I’ve avoided large patterns and niggly patterns and bright colours and a cut that will date. Everything is so perfectly inconspicuous you can’t see it at all, except for a scarf somebody sent me with: Lucy! Lucy! Lucy! written all over it. Such luck my name isn’t Maud. I mean: Birds in the High Hall garden … oh! one thing I have nice is an ankle-length moiré, raisin coloured. How exquisitely you do pack! All those shoe-bags! How is Hump?”
Melissa gave the latest news of Hump as she took her shoes out of their neat bags. It was, as usual, lively. He was trying to make up a match between Kolo and a young coloured American called Mary Lou, who had suddenly turned up in the Dandawa.
“She isn’t exactly black,” explained Melissa. “She’s high yellow. And she was sent to Paris to be educated and got a bee in her bonnet about going to Africa and working for her own people. She’d heard about Kolo — what a splendid person he is, so she came to look him up. She’s got pots of money, but is rather fussy about bathrooms, Hump says. He likes her tremendously, though, and it would be such a thing for poor Kolo to get a really educated, idealistic wife; he’s so lonely, poor man. The only snag is that she’s a violent Christian Scientist and may not approve of Hump. I don’t know if they think cattle disease is error. Do you?”
Lucy had not been listening. She was wondering if the raisin-coloured moiré would be right for her first dinner, tomorrow night, with Patrick.
“Fancy Hump marrying a Christian Scientist!” was her comment when Melissa paused. “Is she pretty?”
“He isn’t,” said Melissa crossly, “and she’s black.”
“Oh? I didn’t know they ever were.”
“Who were what?”
“Christian Scientists. Black.”
“She’s American.”
“Oh, I see. Of course they are.”
“Black, or Christian Scientists?”
“Both. I mean a lot of them. But who is Hump marrying? I didn’t gather.”
“Nobody. You didn’t listen.”
“I’m sorry.”
Melissa took off her dress, hung it up, and began to work on her face. After a while Lucy asked, a little anxiously, if it was better for the man or the woman to be most in love. What did Melissa think?
“A woman who is rather selfish and bossy oughtn’t to marry a man who adores her,” suggested Lucy, “or she might get spoilt. She might have a lovely time at first, but at thirty-five she might start thinking her
life had been wasted. I think a woman like that should marry a man she adores, and devote herself to his career. Don’t you agree? An adoring man, who is always making a fuss of a woman and ringing her up, is very bad for a certain type of girl.”
Melissa, perceiving the drift of these remarks, agreed that a man who rings up too often can be a bore.
Feet thundered up the stairs. Stephen, forgetting that Melissa now occupied his room, burst in upon them and stood staring in helpless dismay until sent about his business by Lucy.
“Go away,” she stormed. “You horrible child! How dare you come in here? Get out!”
Apologising incoherently, he thundered off.
“He ought to be certified,” wailed Lucy. “Rushing in here when you’re naked.”
“I didn’t mind. I’m not naked. Do calm down.”
“I can’t calm down. I’ve tried. I can’t.”
“This time tomorrow it will be all over.”
Lucy became very still, glowing with happiness until she looked almost incandescent. Then, without a word, she darted out of the room.
Melissa continued to unpack. She was still a little ruffled over Lucy’s lack of interest in Hump. No doubt Patrick Reilly would think Humptopia small beer. He would take no interest in the Dandawa unless they were cannibals who had so nearly eaten him that he could write a book about it.
Her next visitor was Mrs. Carmichael, who came to ask, with her usual brisk efficiency, if Melissa had all she wanted.
“Supper,” she said, “is at half-past seven. I’ve sent Lucy to bed. She’s doing herself no good rushing about like this.”
“My sister Cressida,” said Melissa, “was just the same.”
“I wish Patrick would ring her up,” said Mrs. Carmichael. “He promised he would and she’s upset that he hasn’t.”
She paused and looked at Melissa, who feared that yet another person was going to ask what she thought of Patrick Reilly. But she was spared this embarrassment. Mrs. Carmichael had formed her own opinion of her future son-in-law. It was no higher than Melissa’s, but she was less anxious, because life had taught her that nothing turns out quite as we expect. Guessing Melissa’s concern, she felt an impulse to reassure the girl. She crossed the room and picked up some books which had fallen off a shelf.
“I don’t let myself worry about Lucy,” she said. “I think that, whatever happens to her, she’ll come through it all right. She’s very … very true to herself, if you know what I mean.”
Melissa nodded.
“She doesn’t deceive herself. She is the more in love of the two. I think she knows it. I am not sure that she is going to be happy. But she will never deceive herself. And in the truth,” declared Mrs. Carmichael, “there is always something … something that upholds us, however bitter it is, if we can only face it. At least … I’ve found that to be so. She may be sorry she married him, but she will never be sorry that she loved.”
4
THE telephone rang at intervals all the evening, and Lucy kept peeping out of her room, expecting a summons. But no call came for her. At ten o’clock Melissa looked in to say good-night.
“Has it been ghastly downstairs?” asked Lucy. “I’m a beast to have deserted you.”
“Not a bit. I’ve been having fun. I’ve been subduing your uncle.”
“You couldn’t. Nobody could.”
“Nothing easier, I assure you. Easy as robbing a blind baby. I’ve been listening with breathless wonder to his exploits.”
“He never had any.”
“Don’t you believe it. He’s got a clock in his house that has never lost a minute in fifty years. He’s had ptomaine poisoning from eating anchovy paste.”
“Have they all gone to bed?”
“They’re just going. I hope you’re as sleepy as I am.”
“I’m horribly wide awake.”
“Read a nice book. Read Emma.”
“My books are all packed.”
Everything that Lucy possessed had been packed for transference to her new home. Her room looked forlorn and bare. The bookshelves were empty and her treasured collection of Worcester china was gone from the chimney-piece. Bright squares marked the walls where pictures had hung. The chests and cupboards were empty too, save for the wedding dress and the going-away suit and all the finery that was to accompany them.
Melissa went to the wardrobe and looked into it. The wedding dress hung there, solitary and ghostlike.
“Dull, isn’t it?” commented Lucy. “But one that tries not to be is worse. I’m going to dye it deep red at once, and turn it into a stately dinner dress. Brides at dances, whisking about in obvious wedding dresses, look so tatty.”
“Deep red? “questioned Melissa.
“Patrick has given me some flat garnets. Haven’t you seen them? They’re on the dressing-table.”
“Oh, lovely!” said Melissa, inspecting them. “He has got taste!”
“Not naturally,” said Lucy. “But he can do anything well if he wants to, you know.”
Which exactly echoed Melissa’s thought at the moment. She snapped the garnet-case shut and waited for Lucy to speak again, aware that something important might be said.
“He’s never fully given his mind to things,” said Lucy finally. “He’s just played about, and been such a success he’s never really got down to anything. The one thing he’s in earnest about is flowers.”
“Flowers?”
Melissa turned in astonishment.
“Rare flowers, that take a lot of finding. He knew a man who was paid by a millionaire to climb tropical mountains, looking for orchids. He’d rather do that than anything else. But there aren’t many jobs like that going, so he started in to make money, meaning to go and hunt for flowers when he had some. Now he’s got quite a lot, enough to live on for a long time. So we’re going off to look for flowers. If we get poor he’ll have to write some more books, but he needn’t for some time.”
“I never knew that!”
“Nobody knows, and you’re not to tell anybody. He doesn’t want all the newspapers saying that now he’s going to hunt for flowers. There’s always too much hullabaloo about what he does. He’s getting sick of it and wants to cut it out. He says he’s never had a real life. We’re going up the Amazon, and we’re not going to tell a soul.”
“Oh, Lucy! What fun!”
“Won’t it be?” said Lucy, bouncing on her bed till the springs creaked. “I’m learning botany like a horse.”
Melissa’s spirits rose, and for the first time she was able to hope that the marriage might be a success. She ran upstairs to her attic with a lightened heart.
Lucy immediately regretted her indiscretion. Patrick would be angry if he knew of it. But Melissa could be trusted, and all this unspoken criticism of him was becoming intolerable. Nobody really knew him; they only saw what was wrong with him — the exhibitionism which had made his fortune and from which he was trying to extricate himself. Melissa had stiffened when she heard of his intention to burlesque his bridegroom’s speech. She was outraged at the implied carelessness towards Lucy. But if I don’t mind, thought Lucy furiously, what the hell has it got to do with anybody else?
She checked herself, remembering that she did mind — not for herself, but for him. For his own sake she hoped that he would resist the temptation to pose and clown, but, if he could not, she meant to look as if she liked it.
She waited until the last creaking footsteps had shuffled off to bed, the last bath-water had gurgled away, the last plug pulled, the last door shut. Then she slipped downstairs and dialled TOLL. She could not sleep until she had heard his voice. He had forgotten his promise to call her, but he did not know, probably, how much she needed reassurance, in this household which mistrusted him. He would be at his flat in London, correcting a late batch of proofs. He had said that he would have his work cut out to get them sent off before the wedding.
TOLL took the number, she heard a distant click, and then the ringing of the buzzer, a
way there in London.
Brrr, Brrr … Brrr, Brrr … Brrr, Brrr….
When he answered she would say: Is this Wembley? It was a catchword of theirs, and the reply was: No. It’s Thursday.
Brrr, Brrr … Brrr, Brrr … Brrr, Brrr….
He could not be at his desk or he would have answered.
Brrr, Brrr … Brrr, Brrr … Brrr, Brrr….
Could he be out? He might have gone down to the lobby to post his proofs.
“Have they answered?” asked TOLL.
“No,” said Lucy.
“Hold on. We are trying to connect you.”
Brrr, Brrr … Brrr, Brrr … Brrr, Brrr….
The summons pulsed on through the empty flat. Lucy was sure by now that it must be empty, but she held on, in the hope that he had merely gone down to the lobby and would return before the ringing stopped. He was not in the flat. But this noise was there, going on among all his things, his books, his clothes, his letters, so that she liked to hear it, even if it was not answered. She tried hard to remember every detail of the room and saw it suddenly very distinctly in a clear, bluish light which was neither night nor day — saw it in a detail which memory could never have achieved. She noticed, for the first time, the checked pattern of a tweed cushion in the chair where she had usually sat when she was there. She saw a long envelope on the mantelpiece, leaning against the clock; she was sure that it had never been there before, and knew that it must contain the finished proofs. She saw the desk and everything on it and the telephone ringing and ringing, while the people in the room waited in tense silence for it to cease. People? She saw no people. She saw only the desk, the fireplace, the chair and the cushion.
The ringing stopped, and the vision vanished as if a light had been turned off.
“We have rung them” said TOLL, “but there is no reply.”
Lucy Carmichael Page 3