Apropos of James, we are all in such a way about him. Nothing very unusual in that, you’ll say; but wait till you hear! This is something quite new and too appallingly funny and unexpected. He has got the most extraordinary idea in the world into his head. I, for one, sympathize with him entirely. But, then, you know I often do. No time to tell you now, but I will tomorrow if I get the chance….
(Almost) your affectionate sister,
Lois.’
Agatha showed this letter to her mother, who was interested and perplexed.
‘I do hope he hasn’t had any kind of a fit,’ she said. ‘But anyway, it’s better today than tomorrow.’
‘Lois says an extraordinary idea. That doesn’t sound like an illness of any kind.’
‘Oh, dear!’ complained Mrs Cocks. ‘They have James on the brain. You mustn’t catch the habit when you are one of the family.’
‘He’s rather dreadful, but I think he’s much nicer when he isn’t trying to conform to their ideals of good manners. When he is on his best behaviour he is so painfully nervous and makes such dreadful faces that it’s almost unendurable. When he’s left to himself he isn’t at all bad. He has a wonderful smile, when he’s really smiling and not grinning. I must say I don’t think Lady Clewer does very well with him.’
‘You are the first person I’ve met who thought so. I remember when Sir John died everyone used to say: “Poor Lady Clewer! So good and kind, and so nice to that peculiar little stepson! She’s quite broken-hearted.” It was almost a catchword.’
‘But he isn’t little any more,’ argued Agatha. ‘That is where she is mistaken. I should like very much to know what Gerald would make of him.’
She said this with a splendid detachment. If she could not mention Gerald on the eve of her marriage with John, when could she? Mrs Cocks, not to be outdone, took this once dangerous name with the utmost calm. She replied easily:
‘I thought Gerald was studying nerves rather than mental cases. Hasn’t he gone to America especially to study nerves?’
‘Yes. But Aunt Hilda says that his next move will be to Paris to work in a clinic for mentally deficient children.’
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Cocks, ‘all this special study must be very interesting, and will get him a better position in the end, I suppose. But he seems to be taking a very long time about it. I never knew a young man so slow in getting started. It’s a pity, in a way, that he has independent means. What he has isn’t enough to be any good, though it’s enough for him just to live on. He might have done better if he’d had to support himself.’
Agatha, who knew that having ‘enough to be any good’ was a periphrasis for matrimonial eligibility, was moved to protest:
‘But specialists are badly needed. And it’s seldom possible for a man to specialize who hasn’t got private means.’
‘I know, dear. But I feel he might have done better for himself in another career. But perhaps America may do him good. He may acquire a more commercial spirit.’
Agatha tried to think of Gerald with a more commercial spirit. She was unable. Instead she stumbled dismayingly upon a vivid recollection of his old self—of the friend whose love she had once accepted. She thought of his quick, clever hands, the nervous composure of his gestures, and remembered how eagerly and brilliantly he had talked. She saw afresh his incongruities, his storms and indecisions, and recalled the tenderness which they had awakened in her.
And, remembering this, she was invaded by a tide of devastating, insupportable sorrow. To ease herself she rose and moved about the room, tormented by an anguish so sharp, so sudden, that she almost groaned aloud. Mrs Cocks, placid and handsome upon the sofa, continued her friendly conversation:
‘You don’t realize your luck, child, living in an age when girls are sensibly brought up.’
‘Don’t I?’ asked Agatha inattentively.
‘Oh, my dear! If you only knew what one used to have to put up with. I remember the night before I was married I had a most gruesome interview with my old step-aunt, my mother being dead. She came into my room, just when I was getting sleepy, and said the most upsetting things. It was done in her day. Fortunately she said nothing which I did not expect. Girls weren’t such fools as they were supposed to be, even in those days. And I wasn’t so very young, either. But it was all most disagreeable and you can’t think how I resented it. What’s the matter? Have you got toothache?’
‘No.’
Agatha had almost subdued her trouble and sat down by her mother, saying:
‘I can quite imagine how you resented it. You’d find me very chilly, Mother dear, if you tried any treatment of the kind on me.’
‘But you have got toothache! You are perfectly green!’
‘I had just one sharp stab, but it’s gone now.’
It had. But she was feeling strangely exhausted.
‘You’d better go to bed. If you look like this tomorrow I shall go distracted. As stony as a gorgon!’
‘The gorgons weren’t stony. It was the other people …’
‘They were very plain, and so are you at the moment. But, apropos of what I was saying of my step-aunt, there is nothing I ought to say to you, is there?’
‘Nothing, thank you!’ replied Agatha hastily. ‘You’ve given me solid good advice for the last six weeks. I couldn’t absorb any more,’
‘That is so,’ agreed Mrs Cocks placidly. ‘But I wouldn’t like to feel I hadn’t done my duty by you.’
To the bride the future yawned like a precipice almost at her feet. Light cast by her mother’s experience upon the abyss could but disincline her for the inevitable plunge. She clung rather to the reflection that, by every standard known in her world, she was marrying a man whom she loved. The plunge ought not, in these circumstances, to turn out so very bad.
Mrs Cocks kissed her tenderly and bade her good-night. ‘I shall let you sleep late tomorrow,’ she said, ‘and you shall have your breakfast before you get up. Come to me if you have any return of that toothache in the night, and I’ll give you something for it.’
Then, with a recollection of the sentiment due to such a moment:
‘Have you said good-night to your father?’
Agatha shook her head.
‘I don’t think I’d better. I never do. And it might disturb him.’
‘Perhaps it would look rather silly.’
‘After dinner I played that Scarlatti he likes. I thought it would be rather touching on my last night at home. But he went away in the middle.’
‘Did he? Oh, well….’
The underground trains, passing the end of the garden, punctuated the night with their intermittent rumbling. Agatha lay awake listening to them and awaiting repose. Her feverish fatigue held sleep away from her and she was still frightened and shaken by that violent, intolerable pang which had rent her when she thought of Gerald Blair.
It was terrible, to know that her heart still concealed such weapons, for she was almost certain, now, that she had never loved her cousin. His wooing, though it had moved her at the time, had been a boyish, inexperienced affair. It was John who had roused her to the possibilities of emotion; from him she had learnt the subtleties of guarded speech, the contagious fire which can lie hidden in a glance. For him her heart beat quicker.
She had never known any of these things before. Gerald had been no more than a friend; but a friend in whose company she had found, inexplicably, perfect happiness. It was not for him but for the memory of this contentment that regret assailed her. She believed that she yearned after a mental completeness, once captured and then lost for ever. There had been an intensity of sensation, a full current of life transcending the sorry measure of normal existence. For a little time she had perceived creation as a unity. It had been this abounding of the spirit, this marvellous clarity of mood, this apprehension of profound significance in everything, which had driven her to her career of folly at Canverley Fair. She had escaped, for a moment, from the isolation which binds us; she was
no longer a detached figure upon an unfocussed background, but part of a gay and simple pattern.
This exaltation had vanished soon enough, but the memory could still hurt her when she thought of it, or when she thought of Gerald who had shared it with her. She knew that she could never hope to find it again in the conscious, deliberate life upon which she was embarking.
For her consolation, in this endless oppressive night, she turned to the image of her lover. But he evaded her; he was blurred by the mists of romance. She wanted to see him sharply and clearly, as she had seen her cousin, but she could only recall, vaguely, the brief ecstasy of her interviews with him. She began, in despair, to catalogue his qualities; he was dark, he was prosperous, he was experienced and determined. Everything, in fact, that poor Gerald was not.
At last, when London sparrows chirped to the dawn in the plane trees and milk carts rattled in the street below, she fell asleep, to dream neither of John nor of Gerald, but of the frightening, mysterious James. He pursued her through countless, shifting scenes, led her to the altar, and climbed snowy mountains with her. They were lost in the endless glare of blinding glaciers. And when, still in her dream, she rose and leant from her window for air, his large face grinned up at her from a menacing street, all empty and heavy with a strange grey dawn. The vision so terrified her that she could not shake off the horror of it when she woke. The day took on the vague, poignant qualities of a nightmare in which nothing seemed real save the sense of impending doom. She did what she was told, listened to her mother’s rapid, authoritative voice, ate an intolerable number of small meals brought to her on trays, and submitted to an excited toilet. The silence in which she drove with her father to church was lovely and comforting.
John, handsome and competent as ever, waited for her at the chancel steps, and at the sight of his cheerful self-possession she became more collected. While the clergyman was haranguing them about those carnal lusts of which the bride is supposed to know nothing, she reflected composedly that John ought really to be married as often as possible, he did it so well. He was obviously enjoying himself. She was aware that he had deliberately removed his thoughts from her in order to be able to concentrate on his part. This was the right way to do it; being married was, after all, a duty to one’s neighbour and not a personal affair. Fired by his high standard of social exertion she threw herself into the business with energy and gave a very pleasing and stately performance. By the unusual stillness of the church behind them she divined that they were getting it across. As she returned down the aisle Mendelssohn’s triumph seemed to epitomize her own satisfaction in her beautiful behaviour. She had quitted the maiden state becomingly.
They were no sooner bestowed in the car than John burst out: ‘Have you heard about James?’
‘Not in any detail. Lois said there was trouble in a note last night. But she didn’t say what it was.’
‘It’s the most extraordinary affair. Desperately annoying, just when we are going away. They’ll have to settle it without us, that’s all. We can’t be bothered.’
‘But what’s the matter with him?’
‘It’s unheard of! The fellow wants to go to Paris. Says he is going, in fact.’
‘Paris! Paris!’
‘Yes. Paris, my child!’
‘But … oh … why?’
‘Heaven knows! To work at his painting, he says. He has quite an obsession for that kind of thing, you know. He always had, even when he was a kid.’
‘But does he want to be an artist?’
‘God knows what he wants! He seems to have got the idea from someone who’s been teaching him drawing. It would be funny if it wasn’t so idiotic. James going to Paris! Good lord!’
‘But does he draw well? How well does he draw?’
‘Not so badly. He caricatures rather well.’ There was an irritable reminiscence in John’s tone. ‘Mamma got him jolly good lessons, when she saw he was keen on it. I believe it’s not uncommon for that sort of chap to have a purely mechanical turn of the kind, don’t you know. But it’s not as if anyone was stopping him from doing it here. He can do it all day for all we care. We don’t interfere with him.’
‘Poor James!’
‘Poor James, does she say? Poor James be … well, perhaps I’d better not say it till I’ve been married a little longer. It would be rather shocking on one’s wedding journey. But, do you know, Agatha, we can’t really stop him going if he wants to. It sounds incredible, but there it is. He’s of age, and he has a small independent income, inherited from our mother. Of course, we’ve always taken it for granted that he’ll be guided by us. But now …’
‘Surely you can do something?’
‘Oh, if the worse comes to the worst, we could, I imagine, get a doctor’s certificate or something. But it would be very awkward. We ought to have done it before. You see he can behave so sensibly when he likes; and if, just to spite us, he showed up at his best with the doctor, we might have quite a job to get him certified. Still, he can’t be allowed to go.’
‘Would it really be impossible if he wants to very much?’
‘Why just think of it! James in Paris! A place like Paris!’
‘It isn’t so different from any other place.’
‘No, but he is different from any other person. There’s no knowing what mischief he mightn’t get up to. It all comes from taking this scrubbing and daubing too seriously. I was against it from the first. But Mamma had all these ideas about manual education. However! I’ve told him I won’t sanction it. As head of the family I’ve put my foot down. And he needn’t think I’ll help him if he gets into difficulties.’
‘What did he say to that?’
‘Nothing. He’s as obstinate as a mule…. Hullo! Here we are!’
They had drawn up before the Cocks’s door, triumphant with its gala awning and crimson carpet. It was flung wide by beaming maidservants and John handed Agatha and her lilies, her pearls, her satin train and lace veil, out of the car. In the hall the bride dispensed a little of her mild sweetness to her father’s servants. She was already rather tired of hearing her new name. She had been called Lady Clewer a hundred times in the vestry while she signed herself, for the last time, as Agatha Cocks. But she submitted smilingly and had pleased, happy glances for everyone.
John began to grow impatient. He liked watching his wife do the right thing, but he was unwilling that she should waste too much time among sooty cook-maids. She knew that he was fidgeting on the stairs behind her, and turned to join him. They had scarcely reached the drawing-room before other taxis were heard outside and there were voices in the hall. John twitched her train into becoming folds round her feet and assumed the posture of happy groom at her side. She felt that she quite hated James for spoiling the romance of her wedding drive. It was the first expedition she had ever made with John that had no flavour of adventure. They had been all absorbed in domestic discussion. It was very disappointing, for they could never be married again. This unique occasion was gone—lost!
‘I’ve not crushed your flowers,’ he murmured in her ear as a bevy of bridesmaids flocked into the room. ‘Isn’t that exemplary in a bridegroom?’
This interesting point was immediately marked by the youngest of the Clewers. There was only one quality which Cynthia found admirable in her sister-in-law, and that was her exquisite neatness. Mrs Cocks also recorded with pleasure the immaculate freshness of Agatha’s lilies, and added another mark to John’s credit. She might have known he would take care; there never was a man who knew better what was expected of him in a public position.
The outer world poured in, flooding the house of Cocks with a jubilant tide. Agatha gave herself to the embraces of countless women and heard them congratulating her mother upon getting rid of her. In the midst of all this clamour the sight of the troublesome James advancing to greet her had a calming effect. She decided that his new ambitions became him, however impossible they might be in themselves. He wore a look of sulky obstinacy which was a
great improvement upon his earlier manner. His very walk was more purposeful. He shook hands with her and scowled at John. Cynthia, however, who had followed him, was determined to exhibit him a little.
‘Why don’t you kiss her, James?’ she drawled. ‘You ought to. She’s your sister now, you know.’
He remained cool.
‘I’d better not,’ he said to Agatha. ‘You wouldn’t like it and I shouldn’t like it.’
‘Oh, what a gentleman!’ mocked Cynthia. ‘You’ll have to learn better manners before you go to France. Did you know James was going to France, Agatha?’
‘I had heard something of it.’
‘Did John tell you about it in the car coming back from church?’ demanded James with interest.
‘Er … yes.’
‘There, then!’ He nodded at Cynthia, and explained: ‘She wondered what you would talk about. I said it would be me.’
‘You do think a lot of yourself, don’t you?’ retorted she. ‘He’ll have to hurry up and learn French, won’t he?’
‘I know French,’ he asserted.
This was true, for he had shared several French governesses with Lois and Cynthia and had become quite as articulate in the tongue of these poor ladies as in his own.
‘It doesn’t make much difference,’ said Cynthia, tired of baiting him. ‘John says you aren’t to go, so you won’t be allowed to.’
They all looked at John, who was ably defending himself against the congratulations of an hysterical old lady.
‘I don’t mind what John says.’
‘He’ll have to mind, won’t he, Agatha?’
‘I really don’t know what will be settled,’ replied Agatha coldly.
She disliked Cynthia.
James turned away to one of the windows where he spent the remainder of the reception absorbed in the constant arrival and departure of taxis in the street below. Agatha noticed that the other window was occupied by another solitary watcher—her father. He was looking extremely small and shrunken and was making no attempt to fulfil his duties as a host. The isolated bleakness of these two figures, withdrawn amidst the babble, struck her strangely. They brooded in the background like skeletons at the feast.
Ladies of Lyndon Page 4