by Ann Bridge
‘You don’t see it so frightfully well from here, Lady K.,’ Nicholas observed, with his grin.
‘No, it’s not as good as I expected. But I really suggested it because I thought you wanted to talk,’ she said, without any embarrassment.
‘What a sensitive person you are!’ he said. ‘Of course I did – frightfully; only I didn’t see how it could be managed.’
‘Almost anything can really be managed,’ she said easily.
‘By you, it seems it can. You’ve managed enough today!’ he responded. Then they went on to talk about M. Breuil and the arrangements with him, and the future, and whether Nicholas should try to put in some time with Moru, or spend a year working by himself first, to ‘settle down into his own ideas,’ as she said. Nicholas was astounded, glad, and abundantly grateful; but rather to her surprise she found that a sort of nervous reaction had already set in – he doubted if he would really be able to do as much as Breuil wanted. ‘I realise that he’s only bought these things of mine as a spec,’ he ended up – ‘and suppose I prove a bad spec?’
‘That’s his lookout,’ she told him. ‘Breuil can look after himself very, very well, I assure you! But I’m not in the least afraid of your not coming up to his expectations.’
‘It’s the expectations that give me nerves. And if I get nerves I simply can’t work. What an unfortunate temperament to possess!’ he said gloomily. ‘I feel that I could have got on so much better for the next two years with nobody but you thinking I was any good at all.’
‘Yes, but then you’d have been architecting all the time and made very little headway. No, don’t fuss, Nicholas – just go quietly ahead doing your best in your own way.’ She paused, and then said – ‘Breuil believes that one of these days you’ll be far better than me.’
His answer surprised her. ‘I think that perhaps I shall be, one day, in painting,’ he said, with that odd honesty of his. ‘You see I shall be a whole-timer and a whole-hogger, and you can’t be ever either.’ He looked at her. ‘Is it loathsome of me to say that?’ She shook her head. ‘You needn’t grudge it me, though I know you could never grudge anyone anything,’ he continued, ‘because in everything else I shall never come near you.’
She found it hard to answer that, and before she could manage it he went on again.
‘You’ve done all this for me today,’ he said, ‘and it’s quite a bit; got round my Father, and fixed up with the old beaver – oh yes, I know quite well that you really worked that! You’ve changed my whole life in a few hours. But even that isn’t the main thing you’ve done for me – and nor is all you’ve done for my painting, though that’s enormous too, and I’m not near the end of it yet; what I shall get out of it, I mean.’
‘You know I’ve enjoyed whatever I did – but especially the painting; the rest really sort of happened,’ said Grace gently.
‘Yes, I believe you do really enjoy doing things for people,’ he said; ‘that’s just the point.’ He paused, and then went on in a sort of burst, as if he were afraid that unless he said it quickly he would never get it out at all – ‘You see you’ve made me realise that there’s a way of living that I didn’t know about – it’s like seeing a view one’s painted oneself over and over again, treated by someone else, in an entirely new way.’
‘Have I?’ she said. ‘What sort of way of living, dear child?’ She was honestly interested and surprised about this.
‘I can’t say those things – but generously, without fear; and with such perfect honesty.’
The tears came into her eyes then – it was so incredible of him to make the effort to get that out, to say these things that the young find it so impossible to say. This was a very rare offering that he was laying before her, who was so conscious of her own cowardices and failings.
‘It’s darling of you to say that, dear Nicholas,’ she said softly and steadily – ‘but really I’m not like what you think. And I’ve not done anything in particular for you that I can see, except nursing you, and a little coaching. All the rest has been such fun, and so happy.’ She paused. ‘Keeping it light’ wasn’t perfectly easy just now. And for once Nicholas was not to be put off – his hour was on him, and he would not be denied.
‘You’re like those people in the New Testament, who’d no idea they’d ever been in the least good,’ he said, with an indescribable inflection of amusement in his voice, even then. ‘Do you remember? ‘When did we ever feed the hungry or tend the sick or visit the prisoners? We’ve not done a thing.’ But they were called blessed, all the same.’
And to that really portentous compliment Grace Kilmichael found no answer at all. She sat in silence, her tears falling onto the white dress that she had put on to please Walter. This kind of devotion – what was there like it, and where would she ever find it again? What had she given, what had she to give, that this did not outweigh? She turned her head away, seawards, and felt in her bag for a handkerchief. The next moment he spoke again, in a different tone.
‘I want you to understand that I don’t want anything,’ he said. ‘I shall be perfectly content to go on all my life thinking you the most wonderful person in the world. You don’t mind that, do you?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I shall value it.’ There was so much she could have said, but better not – so much better not. She had withheld, withdrawn, kept herself in so long – it would be foolish to fail at the last. ‘You have made me very happy, my darling child,’ she said, ‘all the time, and now. And you’ve taught me a lot, too.’ (Here was a ladder to climb out on.)
‘I have?’
‘Yes – all about people of your age. You see I never was friends with anyone young before – only a parent or an Aunt or something. But you’ve let me in – into your mind – and I’m sure that’s going to help me no end with Linnet.’ (They were well up the ladder now.)
‘I’m very glad of that,’ he said. They were silent for some time. At last he said, in quite a matter-of-fact voice – ‘Linnet’s very pretty – you never told me she was as pretty as that.’
‘No – I think it’s so unfair to praise them too much – it makes people hate them,’ she answered. (Now they were right at the top of the ladder.)
‘She’s not really like you,’ he said, his eyes searching her shadowed face.
‘No, she isn’t – she’s Walter’s child.’ Then – ‘What do you make of her?’ she said. She did so much want Nicholas to appreciate Linnet.
‘She’s sweet,’ Nicholas said unhesitatingly. ‘But rather silly, don’t you think? I suppose it’s because she’s so young.’
‘Silly? Linnet? Nicholas, what can you mean?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But I do think she’s silly. She’s awfully unperceptive. I think it’s just her age – I daresay she’ll grow out of it.’
Grace smiled in the dark at the severe patronage extended by twenty-two to the shortcomings of nineteen. ‘You’re quite wrong about her being unperceptive,’ she said. ‘She’s appallingly sharp. Why do you say that?’
He ignored the question.
‘I hate all that make-up too,’ he pursued. ‘Why must she?’
‘Well, try and stop her if you can. I shall bless you if you succeed!’ she said gaily.
‘I’d like you to bless me,’ he said. He fell silent then – Grace thought he was thinking about Linnet’s nails, and his next words were utterly unexpected.
‘Lady K., shall I ever see you again?’
Something that was really near to desolation in his tone took her completely by surprise, shook her almost out of her self-control. She wanted, as she had hardly ever wanted anything in her life, to put her arms round him and say, ‘My darling! my darling! Yes, always – whenever you want to!’ She waited rather a long time before she said, ‘But of course, my dearest child! Whenever you’re in London I shall always expect you to stop with us, unless you want to be elsewhere. And I want you to come down to Netherstoke this very summer – we’re always there all July, till we go to S
cotland. There’s rather a lot to paint in the Cotswolds – and perhaps if you’re there I shall do more work.’ She rose – this really must come to an end. ‘Come on! We ought to go back. Aren’t you dead?’
‘Pretty well,’ he said. And as they walked back across the little promenade – ‘What a happy day!’ said Nicholas.
Walter was still on the terrace when they got back to the Imperial, smoking a cigar in a long chair. Nicholas went off to bed, but Grace sat down with her husband. ‘Well, did you have a nice talk?’ Walter asked.
‘Yes, very nice. I had to go, Walter – he needed it,’ she said, with her usual simplicity in the choice of words.
‘Of course he needed it,’ Walter said, ‘poor little beast!’ This was one of Walter’s terms of appreciation; his application of it to Nicholas made her turn and look at him curiously. So he had understood without being told. ‘I suppose it was his illness that did it?’ Walter went on.
‘No, it began before that,’ she said very simply. ‘I don’t think the illness had much to do with it, except that he couldn’t get away. I went away first; but he came after me, because he didn’t understand then – and then he meant to go away, and got ill that very night. So there we were, stuck.’
Walter burst out laughing. ‘I like your way of describing your romance,’ he said. His laughter was so reassuring that Grace laughed too.
‘It isn’t a romance, Walter – don’t be so silly. It isn’t anything very much.’
‘No, but it seems a whole heap while it’s going on, especially at his age,’ he said. ‘I like him, Grace – he’s very good class.’
This phrase of Walter’s had a purely moral and intellectual connotation, and was one of his highest terms of approbation. She was absurdly pleased. ‘Yes, he is,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you see the point of him, Walter.’ She got up. ‘I think I shall go to bed,’ she said. ‘I’m rather tired tonight.’
‘Yes, do go – I’m sure you’d better,’ said Walter equably. ‘Emotional crises are very exhausting.’
TWENTY-FIVE
Lady Kilmichael spent most of the next day finishing off her two pictures, while Linnet and Sir Walter saw sights, driving in the most powerful car which Ragusa afforded to Cavtat and Cannosa. If Walter wondered whether this haste betokened a decision to return with them, he kept his speculations to himself, and Grace said nothing. Once more she and Nicholas lunched together in the restaurant in the Via del Levante, on the little terrace close up under the green pattern of the walnut leaves. She was pleased to find Nicholas in a singularly easy and unembarrassed mood, chattering away as he had not done since his illness. It was as if his talk with her the night before had relieved him of some burden, freed him from some weight of repression; watching him and laughing back at him, she wondered if the Professor had after all been right, and if she had made a mistake not to afford him an opportunity of speaking much sooner. No, she thought, probably not; it might all have been different if it had come sooner. The fact of Walter and Linnet being there, the visible presence of a husband and a grown-up daughter, had almost certainly had its effect on him; modified the quality of his avowal, bringing it within the limits of the actual and, so to speak, the possible. He had given his feelings expression – and to her how more than adequately! – but he had said nothing that either of them need ever be embarrassed to remember. To her frugal and practical mind this was the great thing. Look how unembarrassed he was even now! Whereas if it had all been more like that night in the villa garden – well, for one thing she herself might not have managed to keep her own feelings out of it as much as she had done. It was very well as it was.
In the afternoon she finished her picture of the Duomo. Nicholas came to carry it back to the hotel for her just as she was fastening it up. ‘I say, let me look!’ he protested. In silence she did so. He peered at it curiously. On the steps of the Duomo there was now a figure, dwarfed by distance and by the heavy rococo architectural masses behind it; very solitary, very small; a tiny flake of yellow for its head. The young man gave her an odd look – ‘Is that me?’ he said, with the ghost of a grin.
‘It’s a vision I had of you!’ she said, blushing a little.
‘Oh well, I like being a vision – it’s not my usual idea of myself!’ he said, grinning broadly now. ‘Lady K., you are rather a duck!’
Next day after lunch Grace took Walter out to Komolac to see the Professor. Linnet and Nicholas were going to Lapad to bathe, and they dropped them at Gruz, where the roads fork at the end of the harbour. Walter had got the large car again – the quickest and simplest (and therefore usually also the most expensive) modes of locomotion were those which he preferred. As they bowled along the river road they overtook the Komolac bus; Walter watched its bouncings and lurchings ahead of them with a fixed and censorious eye, and when they were safely past observed – ‘That looks an incredibly dangerous concern.’
‘I sat on a monk’s lap in that once,’ Grace said cheerfully.
‘Oh? For how long?’ Walter asked, turning an eye now as sardonic as Halther’s on his wife. There was a little surprise in Walter’s eye too – Grace had lost a lot of her primness, shyness, whatever it was that used to make her so timid about what people thought of her, since she came on this trip. It really had made her a much more amusing companion.
‘For miles! All the way from Gruz to opposite Rožat – I’ll show you.’
‘Is this another boyfriend of yours? And am I to meet him too?’ Walter enquired.
Grace gave a gurgling laugh – he hadn’t heard her laugh like that for he didn’t know how long, except sometimes with the boys.
‘No – he was just a pick-up! One sits on everyone in the morning bus, because it’s so full, and I happened to sit on him. He held me round the waist to keep me from falling off,’ she added complacently, ‘and talked to me in French all the time. He was really very civil.’
‘Very!’ was Walter’s comment. ‘And did nothing more come of this promising opening?’
‘No. He did ask me to go to tea and see the cloister – look, that’s it, Walter, across the river – that hill with the pines and the campanile – but then Nicholas got ill, and I couldn’t.’
As they entered Komolac Grace made the driver slow down, so that she could show Walter the Restauracija Tete Mare, standing up square and white in the sunshine at the water’s edge. The Signor Antonio, coming back from his siesta to Pavlé Burié’s office, paused as usual to gaze with interest at the strange car, and recognised her – he came up with a flourish of his hat and loud exclamations of pleasure. There were introductions, enquiries for Nicholas; and Lady Kilmichael had to promise to go and call on the Signora presently. While this conversation was in progress the bus arrived, and pulled up at its usual halting-place; the conductor also recognised Lady Kilmichael, and hurried over to ask after the Signorino. When at last they moved on, the car had gathered very little speed before they came to the inn; the innkeeper, seated among the oleanders before his door, instantly recognised the Gospodja, and rose with loud cries. The car stopped again, and this time they were forced to get out and drink a glass of Grk. ‘Really, Grace, if these are your and your friends’ habits! Drinks at half-past three!’ said Walter, scandalised.
‘Nonsense!’ Grace replied, gurgling again – ‘this is a special occasion. We never came here before six as a rule.’
‘Who were ‘we’?’
‘Me and Nicholas – and generally the Signor Antonio too. You see this inn is practically a ‘tied house’ of Pavlé Burié,’ she explained, ‘and of course he never gave the Signor Antonio anything but the best – nor us either, after a bit. Sometimes we had something at the cellars up the road, but generally we came here. It was fun.’
‘So I should think!’ said Walter drily. But there was nothing desiccating in his dryness, and when the innkeeper brought out some special Grk, eight years old, and he heard his wife comparing its merits with that of the wonderful five-year-old vintage, now ‘coming on
,’ and telling him, Walter, to look out for the special aromatic quality of the wine in his glass – ‘rosemary is the nearest thing to compare it to, Walter – just a breath of rosemary’ – he could hardly have said if he was more astonished or pleased. If Grace was going to start taking an interest in wine! And she was right about the rosemary.
‘Well, have we got to call on any more of your boyfriends, or can we go to the Professor now?’ he asked as they got into the car again.
‘No – there aren’t any more. A destra!’ she called to the driver, and they turned into the lane and stopped at the villa gate.
Dr Halther, roused by Maria’s nasal and joyful screams of welcome and announcement, emerged onto the veranda. ‘Also endlich!’ (So at last!) he said, as he bowed over Lady Kilmichael’s hand and kissed it – ‘And this is your husband?’ And he bowed, heels together, to Sir Walter, who raised his hat and bowed in return.
‘Yes – but how did you know? You weren’t expecting us?’
‘Already yesterday I was hoping that you might remember how much I admire Sir Walter’s books, and bring him to see me,’ he said, smiling broadly at her mystification. ‘I am delighted to meet you,’ he said courteously to Walter.
‘But how could you know that he was here?’ said Grace, still bewildered, as he led them across the garden to the chairs under the ilex.
‘It was the old Breuil,’ he said, waving them into seats. ‘He has seen this very impertinent picture which young Humphries makes of me, abject before Maria’s tongue! – and finding thus that I am here, he has telephoned. I drove in and dined with him before he went back to the ship. He told me that your husband is here, and also the Herr General.’