She wore a very plain black dress and her longest pearl necklace and carried an ivory cigarette-holder, and hoped that she struck no jarring note with her surroundings.
Claudia, when she arrived, was also in black. She looked pale, but greeted Anna with great cheerfulness.
“Darling, this is lovely. I had a sudden idea—I can’t think why—that I was going to find Mother here. I can’t help being glad I haven’t. You know what I mean.”
“Oh dear yes, I know what you mean exactly. Poor darling Mummy. She’s coming to lunch tomorrow. Have a drink.”
“I’d love one.”
They drank their cocktails, and talked quietly and without constraint.
“I’ve got a marvellous dinner for you,” said Anna frankly. “Quite a little tiny one, but lovely. I saw the chef myself. They do things beautifully here.”
“Yes, don’t they?” Claudia agreed happily.
The years slipped away from them, and they were once again two young girls—sisters dwelling beneath one roof, sharing one environment, and understanding one another with the profound, complete, and effortless intimacy of childhood.
(6)
Never, afterwards, could Anna remember at exactly what stage she found herself saying heatedly to Claudia all those things that she had so definitely resolved not to say. The remains of the tiny, but lovely, little dinner had been quietly taken away. They had had coffee and smoked cigarettes.
Claudia leant back on the divan that was so much more comfortable than it looked, and Anna extended her graceful length on one of the stainless-steel armchairs.
Quite suddenly they were in the midst of it.
It wasn’t about Copper, at first.
It was about Taffy.
They had not discussed the matter again since Claudia’s promise, given at Arling in August, of thinking it over.
“We’ve settled to stay here till after Christmas, and go back to America early in January. What about Taffy?”
“You mean, about taking her with you?”
“Of course. What else could I mean?”
Claudia laughed a little.
“I’m sorry. It was a silly way of putting it. I suppose I wasn’t really thinking about the words, but the actual question of her going or not. Don’t think me ungrateful, Anna, because heaven knows I’m not, it’s most wonderful of you—and Adolf, of course—even to have thought of it. But I’m afraid it’s no.”
“Why?” said Anna, her voice and her colour both rising—to her own vexation.
“Two or three reasons, my dear. I’ve thought about this very, very carefully, and tried to view it just as impartially as I possibly could, for Taffy’s sake. And I’m pretty sure that I should say exactly the same if she was somebody else’s daughter, not mine at all.
“Taffy’s not altogether an easy child to understand. You’ll agree with me about that, I know. I’m not even sure if, well as you know her, you really thoroughly understand her. Wait a minute, please, Anna—I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that it’s I who don’t understand Taffy. For the sake of the argument, my dear, I’ll concede at once that I don’t. I don’t want to be like poor Mother, heaven knows, always saying that she could read us both like little books. (Do you remember how frantic it used to make us?)
“But seriously: like most intelligent girls, Taffy is going through a stage of dramatizing herself. She’ll outgrow it, of course. But I do feel that the right atmosphere is rather specially important for her. At present she’s just one of a number of other school-girls of more or less her own age and standing—not specially important, in any way. That’s exactly what she needs. I may add that her headmistress, to whom I’ve talked, entirely agrees with me.”
“So I should imagine,” Anna angrily interpolated. “She isn’t going to be such a fool as to suggest that you’d better send one of her most promising girls somewhere else.”
“Anna dear, what nonsense! As if one pupil could possibly make any difference in a school of nearly three hundred. Besides, Taffy isn’t as brilliant as all that. Nor is Miss Corry that kind of woman. Any advice she gave me was disinterested. And quite apart from her advice, I’ve made up my own mind.”
“I thought your children were always to be allowed to take their own decisions.”
“That’s not quite a fair argument, is it? You can bring anything to the reductio ad absurdum, I suppose, but it doesn’t really mean anything very much. There’s no decision for Taffy to take in this case, for the simple reason that she can’t possibly know what she’s deciding. I can take into account—as she can’t—the probable effect upon her, psychologically, of going to America, to an American College, and spending the most important years of her development out there.”
“And what,” Anna ironically demanded, “would the effect be?”
“Anna—Anna darling,” said her sister piteously, “please don’t sound so dreadfully vexed. If only you’d believe that I’m trying hard to be perfectly honest over this—perfectly fair to Taffy, and to you, and to myself as well. After all, you’ll admit it would be easier for me to accept your extraordinarily generous offer, and let her go. Selfishly speaking, it would lessen my responsibilities very considerably.”
“Then for heaven’s sake show a little common sense and let her go.”
“But, Anna, there’s so much more to it than that,” Claudia said, still with the same unvarying gentleness. “Can’t you understand? Taffy doesn’t need a spectacular departure for America, or an American background against which she’s going to stand out, simply because she’s English. She needs to be one of the herd—to learn that she’s quite an ordinary person at present—whatever she may eventually become—and isn’t a bit entitled to preferential treatment. Why should she be? Oh, if you knew how difficult it is for me to have to say these things.”
“And supposing you’re completely mistaken about what Taffy needs?”
“My dear,” said Claudia with some dignity, “I think I must take the risk of being completely mistaken. Heaven knows I don’t think myself infallible. All I can do is try and judge the question as fairly as I can, to the best of my ability. I’ve given you my reasons. Will you tell me why you think I’m so wrong?”
“It isn’t any use.”
“Indeed, I’ll try and understand,” Claudia urged. “I do realize that mothers are usually the very worst judges of their own children. I’ve always been inclined to distrust my own judgment on that account. But that isn’t quite the same thing as knowing what’s likely to do them good or harm, is it? So please tell me your point of view quite frankly.”
“I think you’re deceiving yourself from start to finish.”
Claudia inclined her head, wearing her most characteristic air of intelligent attention.
“Yes. Why do you think so?”
“Because I do!” cried Anna childishly and furiously. “For God’s sake, Claudia, come off this frightful pose and be a human being.”
The whole room seemed for an instant to be shocked into a frozen silence at Anna’s uncivilized outbreak. At last Claudia spoke again.
“How difficult you make it to discuss anything at all, when you let yourself get so completely irrational and worked-up,” she observed meditatively. “You know, Anna—we’ve got to face it—you’re still utterly incapable of using your judgment dispassionately where I’m concerned, because you’re still under the influence of that old, childish resentment. You still think of me—perhaps without even realizing that you do—as the domineering elder sister who bullied you in the nursery. I suppose I’ve brought it on myself. In fact, I know I have.”
“Brought what on yourself?” sullenly demanded Anna.
“Your hostility,” said Claudia sadly. “Your distrust of me, and the fact—I’ve had to face it and accept it—that I—get on your nerves, as people say. But oh, Anna! I’d do anything in the world to put things right again between us. Can’t you forget what’s long past and over? I’ve admitted everyt
hing—that I domineered, and interfered, and tried to run your life for you. But it’s all over now. I couldn’t run your life now, if I wanted to—and God knows I don’t. Why should there always be this awful barrier between us now?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Anna resolutely. “If I tell you what’s really in my mind, will you let me speak without interrupting me?”
“But of course,” Claudia answered, smiling wanly.
“What you think is my resentment at the past, doesn’t exist. You distress me beyond words as a human being—nothing to do with our relation to one another. You did your very best to spoil my life for me—yes, Claudia, you did—but you didn’t succeed, and that’s an end of it. As you’ve just said, you’ve admitted all that, and it’s past and over—forgotten, so far as I’m concerned. (It was partly Mother’s fault, anyway, for spoiling you—and partly mine for being a weak-minded little fool.) And now you’re doing exactly the same thing, and—just as you did when you were a little girl—you’re making yourself believe that all your motives are wise and rational and sound. They’re not.
“Shall I tell you why you don’t want Copper to take this chance—the only chance he’s had in years? Or why you bought Arling, and insist on staying there when you can’t afford it? Or why you won’t let Taffy come to America with us? You’ve got a splendid set of reasons for all of it, I know—but they’re not the true reasons. The true reason is that you like seeing yourself as Atlas supporting the world. You don’t, in your heart, want Copper to get a job at all. I know you say you do, but actually you’re doing every single thing in your power to prevent it—and if he does get it, you’ll never rest content until you’ve wrecked it. You bought Arling because you wanted to see yourself again in your children—you wanted home to be associated in their minds with you primarily, and your personality. I don’t know what you’re like in your office, but I can guess. Dramatizing yourself as the world’s worker. You talk about Taffy’s posing—but what about yours? Aren’t you, all day and every day, acting as the perfect, selfless mother, the sole support of them all, the woman who’s gallantly working herself to death? I’ll grant you that you’ve taken yourself in pretty completely—I don’t suppose you ever do see anything now, except just what you want to see. And you talk about facing facts and being honest with yourself! My God, Claudia.”
Anna stopped abruptly.
She was shaking.
“Have you finished?” Claudia said icily.
Anna shook her head.
“Say anything you like, now,” she muttered hoarsely.
“Thank you,” Claudia answered ironically. “I’m not going to defend myself, Anna, from your extraordinary charges. I imagine that the facts of my life can speak for themselves, to anybody who is unprejudiced. But it may interest you to know that you’ve settled the question of Taffy once and for ever. If that’s your view of me, you’re not the person to have charge of my child. I think even you will admit that.”
“Poor Taffy! But you never meant to let her go anyway. She’s beginning to see through you, isn’t she, and to criticize, and if she gets right away your influence is pretty well bound to snap altogether. No wonder you won’t let her have her freedom.”
Claudia, pale and wrathful, gave a twisted smile.
“And yet I let Sylvia go.”
“I don’t know why you sent Sylvia away. But you knew very well that it was safe to let her go. She’s not critical, she’s not nearly as clever as you or Taffy. She takes you—she’ll always take you—at your own valuation.”
“And Maurice. Haven’t you anything to say about him? What have I done to Maurice—wicked and unnatural mother that I am?”
“Maurice thinks of nobody but you. He scarcely knows that he’s got a father. You’ve impressed your personality on him, the legend of your self-sacrifice, the way you work for them all—I’ve seen his poor little face quite pale from worry at the idea of all you do for them.”
“Whereas in reality, according to you, I’m wrecking the lives of my husband and children. May I ask what you think would have happened to them if I hadn’t worked as I have done? Or do you think my work has all been pretence too?”
“It hasn’t—it hasn’t!” cried Anna despairingly. “I know you work—far, far too hard. That’s just it. You drive yourself to death—but it’s because you like doing it. All the time you’re visualizing yourself as you want to appear. You’re pretending, Claudia. You’re not honest with yourself, ever.”
Anna suddenly began to cry wildly.
Claudia, white and rigid, sat motionless and without speaking.
V
(1)
In her tiny room in Sal Oliver’s flat Claudia lay in bed in the darkness and kept on repeating to herself:
“I must look at this calmly and quite dispassionately. I must—I must.”
She found it impossible. Anna’s words had hurt her too deeply. That Anna should have spoken them!
She doesn’t understand, Claudia repeated to herself. It isn’t possible for Anna to judge of me, or of my motives, without prejudice. She doesn’t know it, but all the time she’s influenced by the old feeling that I bullied her when we were little. (And if I did, it was only because I did so adore her and thought I knew what was best for her.)
Anna’s got no children. Neither has Frances, nor Sal. Yet they all presume to judge of my relations with my children. … And Copper. They don’t know Copper as I know him. What security have I that he’ll ever keep this job even if he does get it? Supposing we do give up Arling—my home, that was paid for with my money, and that I’ve kept together by my own hard work—and move somewhere else and then he loses his job, as he very well may? What happens to me, to my work, to my children?
Writhing on her pillow, Claudia felt the thoughts tearing round and round in her mind like mice in a cage.
Automatically the familiar phrases sprang to life within her.
“I must be fair. Copper wants this job frightfully, and it’s the first real chance of one he’s had for years. His salary would help. If I sold Arling there wouldn’t be the mortgage to pay off any more—we’d move to a much smaller house. The children won’t be at home so much now—the house and garden are not going to mean much longer what they have meant, in their lives. I could still do my work—still go on at the office.”
Suddenly a fierce indignation seized upon her.
How dared Anna speak like that! It would never be possible now to let Taffy go to her. It would be utterly unfair to the child, to expose her to the strain of a divided allegiance.
Anna wouldn’t be able to hide what she thinks about me, Claudia told herself bitterly.
It was a long while before she went to sleep, and her dreams were miserable affairs of drowning in deep waters and seeing shadowy forms in which she vaguely recognized Anna and her husband and children trying unavailingly to throw life-lines that she was never able to grasp.
She continually woke up, often with a violent start, and then dozed again.
When she met Sal at breakfast Claudia’s eyes were dark-ringed and her face pale. She looked every year of her age. Her very hair seemed to have lost its lustre over-night and to fall limp and colourless.
(2)
Would it be any good, Sal wondered, to ask if Claudia wouldn’t take the morning off? She didn’t look fit to go to the office.
Better wait, perhaps, and find out her mood. She looked far too tired to offer lucid explanations about the inability of the office to get on without her for the day.
“How was Anna?” Sal enquired.
“Very well, I think. She and Adolf are going back to America after Christmas.”
“Will Taffy go with them?”
“No,” said Claudia, speaking carefully. “Taffy isn’t going with them. I quite realize that you think I’m wrong about that, but I’ve gone over the ground very, very thoroughly, and I’m pretty certain that it wouldn’t answer. It’s Taffy I’m thinking of. Naturally it would be a great help to
me financially, to accept. They’ve made the most generous offers, and one needn’t hesitate about that side of it because Adolf is apparently getting richer every day, and after all, they haven’t anybody to come after them. But Taffy’s not like Sylvia. She could very easily lose her head completely and get into some silly muddle over there, that Anna might not be able to cope with at all.”
A familiar wave of irritation rushed over Sal.
She forgot all about her compassion for Claudia’s exhausted appearance.
“What a very odd reason!” she remarked coldly. “If you call it a reason at all, that is.”
Claudia looked at her without resentment.
“You’re quite right,” she admitted, “it isn’t really a reason, is it?”
She smiled wanly.
“I might have known I shouldn’t get that past you, Sal. No. The real fact is that Anna, poor darling, let loose the repressions of years last night, and told me a good many things that I’m sure she really felt. The fact that they hurt me terribly hasn’t got anything to do with it. I’m trying not to let that influence me in any way. But they did prove to me that, holding the opinion she does of me, Anna couldn’t be the right person to have charge of my child.”
Sal felt slightly disconcerted.
“I’m sorry,” she said mechanically—and indeed she did feel sorry, for the pain and fatigue evident in Claudia’s whole bearing.
It was a relief to be able to exclaim, “There’s the postman!” and go down the stairs to get the letters.
There were several for Claudia, sent on from Arling, and one from Copper directed to her at the flat. Sal had learnt the day before of his journey to the Midlands, and its object.
She went upstairs again and poured out coffee whilst they looked at their letters.
Would Claudia say anything?
Sal found it impossible not to glance across at her.
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