Susanna looked at the little man to see how he had taken this blow, but he was gazing away from her, pretending he hadn’t heard.
“Nearly through now,” he observed. “I don’t mind admittin’ I’ll be glad to see me bed.”
As soon as they were dismissed, Susanna found Beatrice and her friends, and with them joined on to the end of a long, weary queue of actors waiting to be paid. As they stepped out of the station the sun was rising. Beatrice put her money into her purse.
“Well, that was easily earned,” she said.
The dress parade season was finished, but both Beatrice and Susanna had endless engagements being photographed. Susanna, in fact, had for a time a weekly appointment for a whole series of photographs for a firm of Universal Providers called Edgars. First, she and a young man were seen looking yearningly at an engagement ring, the young man observing, “I got it at Edgars’,” and then they appeared actually in Edgars’, choosing furniture, and the third week they were seen in their wedding garments, apparently at the altar rails; but, undeterred by this, the bridegroom was stating, as he put the ring on Susanna’s finger: “You can guess I got it from Edgars’.” There were many more pictures of them both, and of their painfully suburban-looking home. The last of the series showed Susanna in bed with a property baby, and the young man kneeling by her side, and written under it was: “See wifey gets everything for herself and the little stranger at Edgars’.” Neither this series nor any of her other photographic engagements made much demand on Susanna’s time, and she was free to see far more of Bill. He kissed her a great deal now as a matter of course. Sometimes like a pin-prick the thought came to her: “When’s he going to ask me to marry him?” But, as a rule, she was too happy to worry about anything. “Things are so lovely as they are,” she told herself. “He doesn’t want to make them all formal by fixing our wedding.”
One night they were dining at their usual corner table. Susanna was feeling radiant, Bill was being even nicer than usual, she had on a new frock, and she knew it was becoming, and Jean had given her a spray of roses. She felt so rich wearing roses in December. She grinned across at Bill.
“Dear little Sukey,” he said. “What fun we’ve had; you’ve absolutely made my leave.”
She felt as though a cloud had blown across the sky, dimming the sun; it made her feel cold. She fumbled nervously with her bag. Bill looked across at her, and ordered himself a brandy. Usually she liked watching him drinking it—such a ritual he made of it, such fun using so big a glass—but tonight she was afraid to look at him.
“Sukey,” he said. “Do you remember the night we first met, and how I confessed to you that I was always running away from things?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m going to run away again now.”
“What from?”
“You, Sukey. I’m getting much too fond of you.”
“How too fond?” she whispered.
“When one is my sort of person, one mustn’t get too fond of anybody. I’m not the marrying sort, and, anyway, I don’t suppose you’d marry me.” He hurried on before she could have even shaped an answer. “I must be free; ties terrify me. You do understand, Sukey, don’t you?”
She looked up then, but not directly at him.
“I hadn’t thought of marriage as a tie.”
He shook himself, resentfully refusing to accept how crushed she looked.
“Well, there it is, I’m running away. I booked my passage this morning. I leave the day after tomorrow.”
That shook her; she stared at him wildly and repeated stupidly:
“The day after tomorrow.”
He took another brandy. Susanna steadied her voice:
“Bill, that day we first met, and you told me about running away, was this what you meant? From people? From girls like me?”
“I told you then you shouldn’t wrest my innermost secrets from me.”
“Was it?”
“Well, usually.”
“Oh! And I thought—” She broke off, remembering all that she had thought, in silence.
He looked puzzled.
“What on earth did you think I meant?”
“What’s it matter? I’m tired. Do you mind if we go home?”
She went into the lounge, and waited while Bill got his coat. Jean came up to her.
“Was it a nice dinner, Madame?”
She nodded; she couldn’t trust her voice.
“Shall we see you tomorrow, Madame?”
“No,” she whispered. “Mr. Tolman’s leave is over and he is going back to India; you won’t see us any more.” Bill joined them, and she swept out through the revolving doors with her head high, but Jean had seen that her eyes were full of tears.
In a mood of apparent gaiety Susanna got through the next two days. She helped Bill pack and shop, and ate with him in various noisy restaurants, and finally saw him off to Marseilles. Then she got into a taxi and allowed herself to relax; she felt suddenly too tired to sit upright, and she fell across the seat. She didn’t cry, she felt past that; all the accumulated gloom and despair of the last years overwhelmed her, and the name she whispered over and over again, as though there were help in its bare reiteration, was not “Bill,” but “Baruch.”
She arrived home to find Mrs. Cary had gone down to the country, and Beatrice waiting for her sprawled on the sofa. Beatrice knew where Susanna had been, and looked at her from under her lowered lids. “Down and out,” she said to herself. Out loud she remarked casually:
“I’m going to a bit of a party tonight: those people we filmed with will all be there. Care to come?”
Susanna looked ungracious.
“I don’t care a damn what I do.”
“And that,” observed Beatrice, swinging her legs off the sofa, “is exactly the mood in which to go to a party.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
One day in the following April Mrs. Cary was writing letters when Beatrice came in. She wandered in a restless way round the room, fidgeting with all the ornaments. Her aunt looked at her reproachfully once or twice, but it had no effect, so at last she threw down her pen in despair.
“What is it, Beaty?”
Beatrice raised hurt and surprised eyebrows.
“Nothing, I’ve come in to see you.”
“Good. Then just sit down and read the paper for a bit while I finish my letter.”
For a short time there was silence, only broken by the ticking of the clock, the rustling of the paper, and the scratching of the pen; then Beatrice began to fidget again, spinning a little silver tray round and round on the small table beside her. Her aunt looked at her, gave a resigned sigh, covered her letter with the blotting-paper, and lighting a cigarette sat down by her niece.
“Out with it.”
“There’s nothing to out with.”
“Oh, rubbish! You never honoured my poor flat in the middle of a wet morning just to sit and look at me.”
Beatrice giggled.
“Aunt Anne, if I ask you something, you won’t go jumping to the conclusion I mean something by it?”
“No.”
“Well then, are you sort of responsible for Susanna?”
“Yes, in a way. Why?”
“Because I think it would be a good thing if she went home.”
“Why?”
“Well, that’s the part I don’t want to explain, and I don’t want you jumping to conclusions about.”
Mrs. Cary puffed thoughtfully at her cigarette, then she patted Beatrice’s arm.
“How long have you been worrying about Susanna, old lady?”
“I never said I was worried.”
“Nobody who was at all fond of Susanna could help being.”
“Are you?”
“Terribly.”
Beatrice sighed with relie
f, lit herself a cigarette, and curled up comfortably on the sofa.
“I thought you hadn’t noticed anything.”
“How could I help it, ever since that wretch Bill went away.”
“That’s it, that’s the night it started.”
“I only see results; tell me what’s happening.”
“It seems sort of mean to tell tales of her; you swear you’ll not tell anybody else?”
“I can’t quite, but tell me everything, and I swear I’ll be trustworthy in the real meaning of the word.”
“You remember you were away the day Bill went? Well, I knew Susanna would come back from seeing him off feeling sick as muck, so I asked her to come along with me to a bit of a party a friend of mine was giving in her studio—sort of distract her, I thought, quite a harmless sort of party, but not your sort.”
“I can imagine.”
“Well, either that damned Bill was very mean or else Susanna had been on the water-wagon, for no sooner had she got a couple of whiskies into her than she was quite shot away, not that that mattered, because it was that sort of party.” Mrs. Cary nodded understandingly, and Beatrice, encouraged, went on. “You know how it is, Aunt Anne, lots of things happen at parties, and you just don’t do them if you don’t want to. Well, in our bunch there’s sort of two halves, one does everything and the other nothing much.”
“And you belong to the ‘nothing muches.’ ”
“That’s it,” Beatrice agreed, relieved to find such quick understanding. “But Susanna, as soon as she got her drink into her, went all mad; you couldn’t see her for dust, and there she was, stuck to the other half of the bunch like a postage stamp, and she’s been there ever since, sort of leads them now.”
“What sort of things does she do?”
“I don’t know exactly, I’ve never looked. She’s usually in the bedrooms and they’re dark.”
“Good heavens! Do you mean—?”
“I don’t mean anything. If something was meant every time anybody messed about with anybody in a bedroom, it would be a funny world.”
Mrs. Cary deliberately turned her face away, as she didn’t want Beatrice to see how her story had shocked her. That ever since Bill had gone back to India Susanna had been one of the most lost of lost souls, she knew. That she’d picked up a crowd of noisy friends who probably drank too much, and who certainly kept far too late hours, she was aware. That her feverishly gay manner and quite mirthless loud laughter were pitiable, she had realised. But bedrooms! She had never thought of that.
“It’s all so foreign to Susanna,” she said at last.
“I know.” Beatrice wriggled towards her. “That’s what we were saying last night. Lucia—she’s a friend of mine and likes Susanna—asked me if I couldn’t stop her making such a cheap fool of herself. I was saying I didn’t see what I could do, and the others said she wasn’t worth bothering about—degenerate and all that sort of thing—and Lucia and I were standing up for her, saying it was just an unusually large crop of wild oats that she was sowing, when Alexander Pulos (he’s a Greek artist who’s been about lately) said that we were all blind, and that Susanna was the saddest sight he had seen since he came to England. ‘She won’t try to mend her heart,’ he said, ‘but instead fills up the crack with rubbish.’ I don’t know what he meant, but somehow the old fool’s words have stuck in my mind, so I thought I’d come to you.”
“Thank you, darling. I must get her away.”
Susanna had never been to her home since she had left it to go to Mrs. Denvel. Catherine had hoped, when she settled in London, that she would come down for weekends, but she always made excuses, turning from the idea with revulsion: the thought of once more lacerating her feelings with the familiar sights and the memories they engendered horrified her. But this feeling left her entirely when Bill came into her life. She would chatter to him by the hour of her home and childhood, though she never actually mentioned Baruch. At that time she would have enjoyed a week-end at the Vicarage, but, owing to Bill, never managed to spare one. With his departure from her life, her horror at the thought of going home returned in treble intensity.
A good deal of this point of view Mrs. Cary grasped; she knew therefore it was no good talking directly to Susanna, so instead she took herself down to her cottage and called on Catherine.
Catherine was in her garden, vaguely prodding at weeds with a fork.
“Do you know weeds when you see them, Anne? I’m always afraid to dig them up; dandelions have such a way of turning out to be lilies-of-the-valley.”
“I know, I never risk it myself.”
They wandered along in silence for a moment, then Catherine asked:
“How’s Susanna?”
“I want her to come home.”
“Your cure had failed?”
“Not altogether. She’s made a life for herself just as I thought she would, only the life is not quite what I’d expected.”
“How d’you mean?”
“Too many late nights, a noisy undesirable set of friends.”
Catherine planted her basket on the path, and looked startled.
“Susanna! Good heavens! You do surprise me, how she must have changed. Whatever happens, don’t mention this to my husband. You’ve got me into a lot of trouble taking Susanna away like you did. At first he wanted to fetch her back, couldn’t see why she wanted to pay visits when she had duties at home, and when in desperation I said she wanted to be independent and was earning her own living, the house was quite unbearable, and no sooner were things calming down than some fool in the village showed him a picture of her in bed with a baby; that was an awful time. He said she was making a mockery of motherhood. I quieted him in the end, but this would be the final blow.”
Mrs. Cary laughed, then quickly was serious again. “As a matter of fact it’s not very funny.”
“You’re not really worried about her?”
“Yes, I am.”
“It’s almost impossible to believe. Susanna’s always been the soul of respectability. I can’t picture her liking noisy friends or late hours.”
“She’s changed.”
“She must have. Will it be easy to get her home?”
“No.”
“Well, luckily, I’ve an excuse next month. They’re putting up a War Memorial in the village. Esdras’s and Sirach’s names are on it; all the children are coming to see it dedicated. I was going to write to Susanna about it, anyway.”
“Well, send me a line at the same time when you do, and I’ll add my persuasions to yours.”
Catherine wrote the next day:
“DARLING SUSANNA,
They have put up a War Memorial on the green; the Bishop is unveiling it on the eighteenth of next month. The two boys’ names are on it, of course, as well as the names of those many others that you knew in the village, who were killed. Judith, Esther, and Tobit are coming to stay for the night, and Manasses and Maccabeus are motoring down from Oxford for the day. You will of course come for the unveiling, but I do hope you will manage to stay for a bit as well. Do you realise it’s nearly eighteen months since you went away? and we are longing for a glimpse of you.
Your very loving
MOTHER.”
To Mrs. Cary she sent a half-sheet.
“DEAR ANNE,
I have written to Susanna by this post. I have told her about the Memorial, and said how much we are wanting to see her, but left the persuading to you.
Yours,
C.C.”
Susanna read her letter and felt trapped. The manner of her upbringing had so stamped the importance of domestic doings on to her mind that the possibility of her non-appearance at the unveiling never even suggested itself. Esdras’s and Sirach’s names were on the Memorial; then of course she must be there, but she was determined that she would appear for the ceremony and noth
ing else—down by one train and back by the next, and even the thought of that sickened her. She hated having to see the familiar landmarks again, all cluttered with memories, memories which she was succeeding in almost killing in the rowdy, restless life she had made for herself. “It is sickening,” she thought. “One thing I know, I’ll take a flask with me. I’ll never get through a dismal affair like that without a drink.”
Mrs. Cary called her into her room.
“I’ve heard from your mother; she tells me they are putting up a War Memorial on the green.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll go down for whatever ceremony they have, I suppose?”
“Yes, on the eighteenth.”
“Well, I suppose you’ll be staying on for a bit when you are there, so I think I’ll go to the cottage at the same time; give the maids a chance to spring clean here.”
“Oh, I only meant to go for the day.”
“You’d better stop on a bit. I’ve been thinking you looking awfully white lately; it will do you good.”
“But I’ve got some dress shows.”
“Beatrice must do them for you, or find a substitute.”
“I don’t want to stay.”
“But I expect your mother wants to have you. She’ll feel this Memorial business; people become so particularly dead when their names are carved in stone.”
“Oh, it’s too bloody,” Susanna told herself, but she offered no further resistance. She knew she was beaten.
Tobit met her train; his leg had been giving him trouble and he was back on crutches; he carried a wreath of pansies.
“Hullo,” he said. “You’ve run it a bit fine. We’ll have to go straight to the green.”
“No point in getting here too soon,” Susanna observed crossly.
“No, none.”
The weather had been dry, and they kicked up a fine white dust as they walked along. They took the field path across a meadow to the village; the grass rose on each side of them piercingly green, and waist-high with buttercups and cow-parsley. At the corner by the stile stood four chestnut trees flaunting pink and white candles; overhead the sky was almost ludicrously blue, and full of the songs of larks. Tobit paused, leaning on his crutches, and sniffed rapturously.
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