A Wreath Of Roses (15 page)

And there was the great dog she had described. It was all as
she had said, except that only one woman awaited him and not two. He had walked very slowly up the platform behind all the other people, towards this woman, who sat very still, very straight, in the evening sunlight.

And now, pacing beside him across the cobbled square, she said: ‘You were foolish to come, I think. I love her myself, but she is not like that. She is …’ She hesitated, for she could think of no way of describing Frances, and there, out of the porch of the Griffin, Richard Elton came with a girl on his arm, a palely-clad girl, with silk net gloves and long swinging hair. They paused on the pavement. Which way should they go? They argued, laughing, and finally set off, smiling at one another. Sickened and rebuffed, Camilla forgot what she was saying about Frances, forgot Morland Beddoes, too, and walked beside him in a sudden pained silence as if she had bitten her tongue.

He walked humbly beside her, his raincoat over his arm, swinging his little case.

‘It is here,’ she said, and then – because he was after all so different from what she had expected – added: ‘It is rather awful, I am afraid.’

‘No.’ He stood still on the pavement and looked up at the shuttered façade. ‘No. I had thought of it being like this.’

‘You shall see. How fusty it smells!’

In the hall a pen scratched, a clock ticked. They were coffined-in from the bright evening. The proprietor sat at the desk, writing, and the Siamese cat watched him; he guarded the wet ink from its fur with his hand, as it curved its paw out to catch the pen. He watched Mr Beddoes signing the book as if he had enticed him into doing it, smiling neatly. The cat suddenly narrowed its eyes, seeing Hotchkiss blundering about on the drugget, delighting only in what was at floor-level.

‘I will show you your room.’ The old man came slyly out of
his little kiosk, as if it were a corner of a web, and led Mr Beddoes towards the stairs.

‘In a minute we will have a drink,’ Mr Beddoes promised, looking up at the clock which still ticked away, but marked some impossible afternoon hour.

As soon as they had gone Camilla dragged Hotchkiss with her towards the desk and began to turn back the pages of the visitors’-book.

Suddenly, she saw the name; a child’s hand, ornamented with little curls and weakly leaning first one way, then the other. Group-Captain Richard Elton. British. An address in London, S.W. She looked disdainfully at the page, and frowned; but her heart was thudding very fast.

Hearing voices, she snapped the book together, and put out her hand to the cat, taking its paw and smoothing it. Steadily, it beat its tail backwards and forwards, and dribble ran out of Hotchkiss’s mouth as he watched.

‘Good!’ said Mr Beddoes, clapping his hands together, standing at the bottom of the stairs. ‘A drink,’ he suggested.

‘It is a funny room up there,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I went to see it, but I could do no better.’

‘It was more than kind of you. And the view …’

‘Yes, the view …’

The cat withdrew its paw from her fingers, as if it desired her whole attention, or none.

‘Where could we drink?’

‘I must warn you that … that Frances is expecting you … she will be tart with me if we are late. There will also be dandelion wine and you will have to drink it.’

She did think he looked a little dismayed, but guessed it was not on account of the home-made wine. Perhaps some picture of Frances was emerging from her conversation, and a picture he was unwilling to see.

She led him into the bar and sat down at a tiled table in a corner. He fetched some gin and sat opposite her and said: ‘Perhaps it would be better for me to wait until tomorrow.’

‘She expects you tonight. She has a reason, I believe. I think she wants to see you first, and show you the pictures later. She will delay it and then say it is dark. You see, there is perhaps nervousness on her side, too.’

Although she thought him mistaken, this strange relationship touched her, and was a vindication of something she had always liked to believe. A strand of invisible web had flown out from the elderly woman, had brushed by chance upon this middle-aged man, had enmeshed them both, netting them together in a curious intimacy. In a world of misunderstandings, of lights struck and sputtering out unseen, of one word spoken and a different heard, of clumsiness, of disappointment, this relationship seemed to her a miraculous thing. Coincidence works sometimes for good, she realised, and the light may fall on a friendly face before it flickers out, the voice that calls out may be answered. ‘Yes, it is very wonderful,’ she decided, ‘but chancy, too. So much depending, for instance, on whether he turned that evening into the side street …’ – for he was trying to describe the picture of the girl on the sofa.

‘Liz. It was Liz,’ Camilla interrupted.

When he was talking, he slid forward to the edge of the chair, sitting sideways, one hand inside his jacket, patting, stroking the shirt over his chest, his eyes never off her face.

‘Frances was her governess when she was a child. She is there now, with her baby. You’ll see her.’

He looked at her without speaking, and then suddenly sat back in his chair.

‘You are right. It was a mistake to come.’

‘What difference does Liz make?’

Presently, he leaned forward again, pushing his glass out of
his way impatiently. ‘Think of a picture you know very well, perhaps you have been familiar with it for years. It is static, unchanging. The world lies frozen inside the frame. As if a hand pulled a lever and all the traffic stood still. The smile never fades, the tear never falls, the girl never ties her ballet-shoe: Madame Vuillard is just going to water her hyacinths, and in a moment Renoir’s man will lower his opera-glasses and his face will change. That Bar at the Folies-Bergère! Suppose the barmaid awoke from that frozen moment – the moment which we are so accustomed to, which has lasted so many years – took up the rose and smelt it, lifted her hands from the marble and poured out a glass of Bass! All the mirrors would splinter, the world disintegrate, the moment fly away into thin air. And I feel that … Liz, did you say? … I feel that Liz will break all the glass for me in the same way.’

‘But it isn’t a famous picture like Manet’s.’

‘It is far, far more important to me.’

‘Which will be better – for her to be different, or the same?’

He smiled, but didn’t answer.

‘You are too romantic about your pictures,’ she said.

‘I went back the next day, and the next. And the day after that, I sold my watch and borrowed from my friends and bought it. Now it’s worth six times what I paid. It hangs over the fireplace and I stare at it for hours. You have to
live
with pictures. Like taking a wife.’ He smiled. ‘Casual visits don’t amount to the same thing.’

‘I remember that picture being painted. Our first holiday with Frances after we left school in Switzerland. I had forgotten, but now I remember it again. It must be strange being a painter and sending one’s children away for ever. I had never thought of that before. I think we must go.’

He stood up at once. ‘I am very nervous,’ he said, looking down at her.

‘It will be all right.’ She lifted her eyes to his and smiled. ‘I will help you,’ she said.

Frances sat at her dressing-table. The evening sunshine flowed over the crystal and silver, over the two pink zinnias in a glass whose lovely matt petals were alone still in the flashing, restless, quivering light.

Along the landing, the baby let out a little wail at intervals. Just as she thought he had fallen into a sound sleep he would give another cry.

Footsteps crunched along the gravelly road on the other side of the privet hedge, people coming from chapel or going towards the pub, or townsfolk on a country walk. It was a beautiful evening. The valley was swathed in ripening corn, gardens clotted with blossom. Gnats rose in a golden haze under the elm trees.

Frances stretched her hand out into a shaft of light. She was wearing her mother’s engagement-ring of pearls and garnets. She had never before put it on, nor done more than take it from its box and let it lie in the palm of her hand under the light. Now she turned it nervously, changing it from one finger to another, then from her left hand to her right.

She had been trying for a long time to raise her arm enough to comb her hair. She tried again, but the pain gripped her as hard as ever. In a sudden panic, unlike her, she tiptoed to the banisters and leaned over, calling Liz, very softly, that she should not awaken the baby. When she heard her answer, she went back to her room and sat down and then, just as Liz reached the landing, she wrenched the ring off her hand and dropped it on to the dressing-table.

‘What is it?’ Liz looked round the door.

‘Why are you crying?’ Frances asked, and their eyes met in the mirror.

‘I’m not.’

‘Come here, Elizabeth. I asked why are you crying?’

Liz put the back of her hand across her eyes and turned aside, her mouth stiffening. ‘Harry … he seems so …’

‘He’s teething.’

‘Well, I … Frances, dear … I don’t care for anything as long as Harry’s well. Nothing else matters … Arthur, or … or anything.’

‘Arthur is part of Harry.’

‘I suppose so. What did you want me for?’

‘I wondered if you would mind tidying my hair for me?’

‘Of course.’

Without thinking, she took the comb and drew the pins out of the thin, silvery hair which was like spun silk over the pink scalp.

‘Take it up and roll it under – so!’ Frances made sketchy movements with her left hand.

‘What is wrong?’ Liz asked.

‘My arm. Rheumatism.’

‘I didn’t know. How long has it been?’

‘Some time. Getting rather worse lately.’

‘It shouldn’t, in this lovely weather.’

‘I’m an old woman.’

‘Oh, nonsense.’

‘The times I’ve done your hair! Ringlets for parties – but they always fell out. It was better smooth, but you wanted curls.’

‘There!’

‘Yes, that’s good. Thank you.’

Liz went to the window, the comb still in her hand, and looked out listlessly at the passing people. Frances picked up the ring and held it out to her. ‘Give me your hand!’ she said. ‘I will enjoy giving it to you now. When I’m dead I shan’t be able to see you wearing it.’

A little put out, incredulous and embarrassed, Liz took the ring.

‘But, Frances!’

‘Don’t say anything. Yes, it looks nice. And, my dear, don’t fret about Harry. Don’t be like that about him all his life. Anguished. And everything staked on him.’

Liz turned the ring on her finger. ‘The anxiety bangs about inside me like a great box. My stomach aches with it.’

She put her cheek against Frances’s and closed her eyes. Her throat hurt intolerably and she tried to breathe slowly, to steady herself.

‘I’m sorry about your arm …’ Then suddenly she straightened and drew away. ‘Your
right
arm?’

Frances nodded.

‘You mean you can’t paint?’

‘Only for the time being. It will be all right,’ Frances said calmly, walking about the room, touching one thing after another, as if to steady herself. ‘It will get better. In any case, I’m old …’ (‘But I wouldn’t have wished to stop here,’ she thought. ‘Not on
this
note. Not with those paintings.’)

In the silence the gate banged and Liz, drying her eyes on the lace curtains, said: ‘Here they are! The train must have been very punctual. Why, he’s …’

‘He’s what?’ Frances said sharply, standing far back in the room.

‘He’s … well … rather fat and … They’ve disappeared now.’

Camilla and Mr Beddoes had stepped out of sight into the flower-covered porch.

Frances was very white. She stood still by the empty grate.

Then: ‘Run and open the door,’ she snapped, and closed her eyes as if she were praying.

‘Every word we said was wrong.’

‘I tried until my head ached, but the ice creaked all the time. It was so thin, I could see the weeds lying under it.’

Camilla ran her hand through one of the stockings she had taken off, stretching it against the candlelight.

‘Near the heel,’ Liz said, peering too. ‘You’ve kicked your ankles.’

‘Oh, damn.’

‘Mend it now while I feed Harry.’

‘I felt so dreadfully sorry for them both. And that whale-boned act of Frances’s. Misery from beginning to end.’

‘She’s ill, you know.’

‘And he had woven fantasies about her for so many years and never stopped himself to ask what he anticipated.’

‘It must be hard – to expect some sweet romantic understanding and to get only polite conversation.’

‘About the fruit crop …’

‘… and the habits of bees.’

‘I liked especially holidays in Bournemouth.’

‘No talk about paintings. Each time he began she tacked away from him and grew rather vague …’