by Jane Gardam
He wasn’t the least bit interested in me either. Whatever was I doing walking along the fields with him, hungry and wet before breakfast? He just liked being watched. That was it. He liked a girl looking at him and feeling, ‘I am walking in the meadows with a poet.’
He was nothing.
Just then though as I crossed the bridge he took my hand.
He didn’t stop talking—he talked all the time and about everything he saw—‘Look—the wheat. Look at the lines of it. Look at the hedges. D’you see how the May is dark red? D’you see how red the hedges are—a different red? Bright. There’s so much red in a hedge—right from the start. The new shoots in January—well it’s January in Cambridge—later here no doubt—what about your part of the world? Are there hedges? The sap is never green you know, rising. It’s red. Like blood. That’s a fact. And a poetic concept—’ That’s how he went on and in the middle of it, had taken my hand.
The talk was sure enough but the hand-holding wasn’t very expert and I knew he hadn’t done a lot of it before. His fingers were very nice and his hands thin but somehow it was all very disappointing. I had expected that holding a man’s hand would be rather better.
‘I’d like to go back now, please. We could go back along the path and get home this way, I think.’
We had come to a field end.
‘Yes, all right.’
He turned obediently. He was endlessly amiable.
‘You seem a very happy person,’ I said.
‘Happy? Well, yes. Very happy. I don’t, as a matter of fact, think—I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy—Cambridge and Lady Celia and—I’m very lucky. Oh dear—’
‘What?’
‘Is this the right way? The right way home?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘You can’t see Thwaite from here can you? We seem to be in a valley bottom. Do you read Meredith?’
‘No. I haven’t heard of Meredith. Look I think—’
‘Or Yeats. Do you read Yeats?’
He did a sort of dance. ‘To think of it!’ he said. ‘To think of it. You are so innocent and yet aware. You have everything to come. Yeats and Meredith!’
I thought, he’s so beautiful and joyful and I am alone with him in the early morning. I’m talking to him about all the things I most care about, like poets and wonderful books. Why can I only think of breakfast and that Lady Celia must be right—I am not in any way promising?
‘Shall we try this way?’
After a time to my great relief we saw a man coming along through the fields in working clothes—black trousers tied at the knee with whitish, hairy string and a shirt without a collar, just a brass stud. Paul Treece was going on very loud, quoting from the writer Yeats but I said, ‘Could we just ask do you think?’
‘Ask?’
‘Where we are. That man. How to get back.’
‘Get back? Do you want to get back? Do you want this to be over?’ All the time he had still held my hand and his big brilliant eyes looked at me very excitedly. I had a sudden comprehension of Fanny Brawne. I wanted to kick him.
‘Please will you ask this man?’
‘Good morning,’ said Paul Treece. ‘We’re slightly lost. Early morning walk. We’re trying to find Thwaite again.’
The man put down on the grass a bucket of milk he was carrying. It slopped about, pink at the edges. ‘Thwaite?’
‘The Hall.’
‘What Hall?’
‘Thwaite. Thwaite Hall. Lady Celia—’
‘You’re nearer Roundstone Hall. It’s next village. Past Thoralby.’
‘But we are staying at Thwaite.’
‘Then you’re away off your course. You’re five miles off. Now Roundstone Hall—’
‘That would be no good, I’m afraid. We have to be at Thwaite for breakfast.’
‘Then it’s a fair step. It’s way beyond the river. The bridge is two mile back or two mile forward. Good day to you.’
‘Five miles,’ I said. ‘Five miles! It can’t be. We can’t have walked five miles. We’re absolutely lost.’
Something in me wanted him to say that how could we be lost and together, that I needn’t worry, that we were so happy.
‘Roundstone,’ he said, ‘Roundstone Hall. Well good heavens, did he say Roundstone Hall?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Well I know it! I know Roundstone Hall. I know the people.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘I’m at Cambridge with a chap from Roundstone Hall. He said it was in Yorkshire somewhere. Theo Zeit. Come on, young child. We’ll find a breakfast.’
The boy and girl of the pony and trap stood on the stairs, the girl not much taller than she had been then—rather short-legged, but the same glorious hair. Theo stood on the step above and so seemed very tall indeed. He looked quietly at us as his sister covered her mouth with a shriek at the sight of Paul Treece.
‘Oh good heavens!’ Out shot her arms. ‘The Poultice, The Poultice! It is—how can it be—The Poultice?’
There was the most tremendous smell of polish and newness everywhere. Every surface was soaked in it. Fine mahogany chests and cabinets and chairs like thrones swam with it. A rosewood pedestal glowed with it and the sabreleafed plant that stood on it seemed polished, too. In the dining-room sideboards like streets, a vast table and twenty chairs were rich with the hours people had spent rubbing at them with wax and soft cloths. The table-legs had flown from some Indian temple and there was a good deal of brass and copper about. At the end of the table a woman sat very upright and amused by us. She had papers beside her and a pen in her hand.
‘Well, good morning.’
‘Mother. This is extraordinary! Paul Treece from Queen’s. And—Miss Polly Flint. Walking before breakfast and lost. They’re staying at Thwaite.’
‘Lost—oh dear. How do you do? And before breakfast.’
‘They set off very early. About dawn. They’ve walked in circles.’
‘The Poultice is a poet, Mamma.’
‘Poultice? Ah, yes. A poet—they have a good many of them at Thwaite I hear. Good morning Miss Flint. You must be a poet, too?’
‘No, I’m just—’
‘You are just. Well done. Come at once and sit down. No—go with Rebecca and wash. You must be longing to wash. Then come back again—at once—for food.’
‘Thank you. I’m just slightly—’
‘Worried? There is no need. We shall telephone.’
‘They aren’t on the telephone. It’s not what Lady Celia—’
‘Then I shall send a message. Wash. Return and eat. Theo will see to Mr Poultice.’
She was quite little but with a large head, black hair in ropes in a nest on top and a face most dreadfully plain with a floppy undefined sort of mouth that strayed over it. But she had a smiling look about her and gave the general impression that everything in her world was remarkably pleasant. Her hands were very certain of themselves as she tidied the papers and letters beside her. When we came back from a wonderful bathroom white tiled to the ceiling with taps like something in the Works—she was gone.
Paul Treece sat at the table instead in front of a plate mountains high with kidneys, bacon, sausages, eggs. He was talking hard, waving his fork, and his eyes quite wild with excitement. The delicious but not robust food at Thwaite was meant to pass unnoticed, incidental to the spirit, and it came in very small quantities.
Rebecca sat near him watching the mountain diminish and Theo stood by the window, his red head against a velvet curtain which had bobbles all the way down it like thistle heads. He had the same look of general happiness being the order of things as his mother and smiled and said, ‘Come and have kippers.’
‘Oh—no thank you.’
My heart thumped too desperately for eating.
‘Coffee? Tea?’
‘Oh, coffee please.’
‘It’s a bit of a wash, the coffee today. Difficult to get round here.’
‘We get ours from
London.’
‘Do you indeed! On that marsh? Do you still live on that marsh of yester-year? Does the coffee come in on the tide?’
‘No it comes from Mrs Woods. She has connections with Africa.’ Rebecca spluttered. She said, ‘Oh God—I’m sorry. Africa!’ Theo gave an elderly smile (but not unkind). ‘That marsh and Africa,’ she said.
So I knew I must defend it.
I looked round at the money—the plush, the carpet, all turkish red and blue, gold-framed pictures on brass chains on brass railings supported by fat gold brackets in the shape of fat gold flowers. A gold-tubed clock set between marble supports under a glass bell, on the chimney piece struck nine. ‘Oh the marsh is a really rich place,’ I said.
They were quiet.
‘We’re going to have our house ready soon,’ said Theo. ‘It’s on the way to being finished now. It’s for us all to get lots of healthy sea-breezes in the summer.’
‘Yes, I know. It doesn’t seem to be getting on very fast.’
‘It’s been Mamma’s plaything for years. She keeps changing all the plans. She thinks Father ought to have somewhere healthy to go to not so far from the Works as Germany—which is where he is now, and very often. At the Spa. The Works are only across the estuary.’
‘The Works are getting nearer all the time,’ I said, ‘and the smoke’s nearer too.’
‘We shall be neighbours,’ he said. ‘Next year the plan is that we shall be there for ages—all the summer.’
‘It’s all astonishing,’ said Paul Treece, stretching for fresh toast. He took a great many small bites at it, examining the shape of each and then took a great many quick little sips of coffee. ‘I know nothing about any of all this. Nothing.’
The brother and sister collapsed again.
‘The dear old Poultice,’ said Theo. ‘You know he’s a genius, Polly Flint? Writes the most amazing stuff. So I’m told. Publishes it in the greenery-yallery magazines. He’s supposed to be like whatsisname, the famous one.’
‘What famous one?’ Rebecca was wiping her eyes. She seemed very close to her brother, catching his thoughts. ‘Oh, we’re being beastly, Theo. Sorry Poult. I’m terribly sorry Polly Flint. You see The Poult knows and puts up with us. You don’t. We’re utterly hopeless you see, Theo and I. All the Zeits are. At arty things. Even though we’re Jewish and German—we can’t sing a note or play a thing and we never read a book. And behold the pictures! Dying stags. Mamma bought them from a baronial mansion in Scotland because of the frames. We’re terrible philistines. Aren’t we, Paul?’
‘They’re fairly hopeless,’ he said, dolloping on the butter.
‘I thought—philistines are a particular Jewish sect?’
‘We are philistines and we are atheists.’
‘I’ve never agreed about that,’ said Paul Treece. ‘You love mankind. You’re not atheists. Your family gives away goodness knows what. Millions.’
‘Well, we are atheists, aren’t we, Theo?’
‘You are,’ said Theo, ‘and Mamma, and so, I suppose, is father, but he will never discuss it. He thinks things out by himself. In Baden-Baden. In the mud. And he’d give you his last pair of trousers.’
‘Whyever should Polly Flint want father’s last pair of trousers?’
‘I mean he is the best, not just the good Samaritan. And he is probably very sad that he can’t believe in God. How about you, Miss Flint? I shouldn’t think God comes into things down on the marsh very much.’
I felt cold and the furniture glowed in vain.
‘More coffee? Is something wrong?’ Theo came and sat beside me and looked at me. Rebecca had been looking at me too, noticing that I was looking awful—elderly, quaint and not pretty. And not a pretty shape. Theo looked as if he was concerned for me, though.
‘She’s probably not met many atheists,’ said Rebecca.
‘I never—I don’t really ask—’
‘I don’t suppose there are many people to ask on that marsh.’
‘Ask in the Iron-Works slums and you’ll find atheists,’ said Rebecca.
‘Some aren’t,’ I said. ‘Well they say “God bless you” some of them when we go round with soup. Some don’t speak for hate of us, but I don’t think they’re all atheists. Actually at Oversands we—my aunts—are very religious. My Aunt Frances has just married a priest. They’ve gone to be missionaries in India. They sail—tomorrow.’
Rebecca groaned and put her hands through her great fizz of wild hair. ‘I can’t bear it.’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t do with all that.’
‘All what?’
‘Tosh and missionaries. I’m sorry. I have to speak out. I’m not like Theo. He’s nice. I’m very bold and crude. Nobody likes me much at Cambridge. I can’t keep my mouth shut.’
‘You mean’, I said, ‘you honestly don’t believe in God?’
‘No. Not a bit. I can’t. It just all sounds like fairy stories. There seems absolutely no sense in it. Old men in the sky looking down and watching over us. I haven’t the beginnings of an idea how an intelligent human being can believe that. It’s why I didn’t read Philosophy. History is mystifying enough.’
I saw the queer procession of my aunts, Mrs Woods and me, pacing towards the bell every Sunday, rain or shine to worship an old man in the sky.
‘Shut up, Bec. Live and let live,’ said Theo. ‘I go to church at Cambridge every Sunday, don’t I, Poult? My God, He lives in King’s College Chapel.’
‘He lives in toast,’ said Paul Treece, ‘peach jam, in Polly Flint and Zeits.’
Theo said, ‘Polly—we have upset you.’
‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘I’m not Confirmed.’
‘Oh I am. I was done en bloc at Eton.’
I felt sick and shy again and said, ‘Paul, I think we ought to go now. It’s so late. We never said we were going out.’
‘All is perfectly dealt with,’ said Mrs Zeit sailing back among us. ‘I’m just sending someone over to Thwaite with a note. I’ve said you’ll be staying here for the day. It’s a perfect day for the garden and we’ve tennis and croquet and some more interesting people from Sunderland coming to luncheon.’
‘More interesting than what—or who?’
‘—m’ said Rebecca.
‘I’m afraid’, I got up, ‘I really should like to go. Don’t you think so, Paul?’
‘Oh well—’
‘If you want to stay, do stay. I want to go.’
‘But you can’t,’ said Rebecca. ‘It’s nice here. Come on. They’re all old things at Thwaite. Creepy crawlies. Pianists.’
‘They’ll mind,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Zeit,’ and surprised myself by folding my napkin, getting up and walking over to her. ‘It’s been so kind of you.’
She was wearing yellow silk with ruching and diamond brooches. In the morning. Her eyes were very displeased. Then, instead or taking my hand she held out both hers and took both mine and her eyes smiled again. She held tight. ‘My dear little girl,’ she said, ‘have some fun here with us.’
But I said, ‘No. I must go home.’
When I reached the drive, Paul Treece followed me and walked beside me and near the gate a great quiet car crept up behind us with a chauffeur in it. It passed and stopped and the chauffeur got out and held the door for us.
‘To Thwaite, sir?’
‘Oh—well, yes.’
‘I’d like to walk,’ I said, but felt that this was overdoing things and got in, Paul Treece beside me. He was silent and only said once, ‘Look Polly, look at the corn.’
I looked but did not really see the miles of silvery stalks and the blobs of poppies and the sky above them. ‘See them wriggle,’ he said, ‘in the breeze. What a lovely summer. There can’t have been a more lovely summer since the beginning of the world.’
At length the crumbly walls of Thwaite appeared and we got out.
I knew perfectly well that nobody had noticed that we had been away.
The ch
auffeur, as he opened the motor-car door for us, handed me a letter addressed to Lady Celia and said that he had been told to wait for an answer. I said, ‘Oh no—that’s all been changed. That letter was to tell Lady Celia we were not coming home—’
He said, ‘No miss, that was the first note. This one’s been written since. It’s why you had to set off without me and I had to catch you up. Mrs Z is a right fast writer. There’s new plans afoot now.’
The Poultice was standing waiting at Thwaite’s door so I took the envelope. ‘It might be a while to wait for the answer,’ I said. ‘Shall I tell Maitland you’re here? You can go round to the kitchen and have tea.’
He said, ‘No thank you, miss,’ and gave me a look.
In the hall Mr Barker was putting out the post, keeping aside on a salver a pile of very personal-looking letters, some faintly coloured with ripply edges to the flaps. ‘Put that one on the top of these,’ he said. ‘They’re all for Lady Celia. They’re just going up to her.’
‘Oh!’ I pounced and knocked his Pharoic arm. I had seen Aunt Frances’s writing on a letter laid out on the chest.
‘Hold hard,’ said Mr Barker. ‘That there’s not for you, it’s for Mr Thwaite. Here’s yours.’
I grabbed—but it was not from Aunt Frances. How could it be when I came to think about it. She didn’t even know I was here. Her letters to me would be waiting at the yellow house. And this letter was in a cheap envelope, very thin, the hand-writing round and wobbly like a child’s and it spelled my name wrong.
‘Dear Miss Polly,’ it said. ‘Sorry to trouble you on your holidays but would appreciate advice about matters here which are not good she is worse even in my opinion not right at all and Miss Mary gone. Have called the doctor and think you should come back yours truly Alice Bates.’
‘Lady Celia wants you to go up,’ said Mr Barker. He had come down again from the bedroom and stood with his head bowed a little towards me as a butler should, but he said, ‘Something wrong, Miss Polly? You’re gone to a statue. Mr Treece is away for some coffee. Shall I—?’
‘No thanks. Oh—’
‘You’re to go up there, she says. If you don’t want coffee, go now and get it over.’