Eustace and Hilda (52 page)

But he must get out and leave the bath-room ready for Antony, who had so little idea of time and would almost certainly be late for dinner—a prospect Eustace dreaded. He pulled the plug out, wrapped himself in the ample bath-towel, and was just examining the mat to see whether Antony's statement about the family tree being embroidered on it was correct, when the door opened and Antony burst in.

“I've got it!” he cried, waving a black tie. “But I'm sure there is something odd about it—it feels so peculiar. Do you imagine it could be a keepsake from a dying Arab? Perhaps it's poisoned, like the shirt of Nessus; perhaps it'll turn into a snake, a Black Mamba or the Speckled Band, and throttle me half-way through dinner. I'd better try it on.”

He pulled off his own tie and threw it down, narrowly missing the bath, then put Dick's on under his soft collar.

“What huge wings it has—like a vampire bat. Just the kind of tie Dick would have.”

With Eustace's sponge he wiped the perspiring looking-glass.

“It's much too long,” he lamented. “I shall look like Mr. Gladstone.”

“Tie a knot in the middle,” suggested Eustace. “It won't show under your coat.”

“What a good idea—how inventive you are. Do you suppose Dick'll mind?”

“I shouldn't think so,” said Eustace doubtfully.

“He might make it an excuse to hang me with it,” said Antony. “Would you have thought he had such a thick neck?”

“I suppose he's fairly big all round,” said Eustace.

“He is,” said Antony. “When I went into his room he was stark naked, and his skin fits him like armour-plating—it's almost disgusting. His body is like a lethal weapon. There's something repellent in sheer masculinity.”

“No doubt he didn't expect you to find him like that,” said Eustace, drawing his bath-towel round him.

“I don't know who he was expecting, but he didn't seem surprised. He just pointed at the chest of drawers with his long, hairy arm, and said, ‘At the top on the left.'” Antony began to tear his clothes off, flinging them on to whatever ledges the bath-room provided. “Don't go away,” he said, “or if you do, leave the door open so that we can talk.”

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the sound of swishing and splashing, then Eustace, who had begun to dress, heard Antony say:

“What do you think of Monica?”

“I hardly had time to take her in,” said Eustace.

“She's a nice girl, a good, useful girl. You won't have any difficulty with her. She's ready to talk about anything. She's not brilliant or even clever, but she bowls a good length.”

Eustace was surprised to hear this sporting metaphor from Antony's lips.

“She's an orphan, you know,” Antony went on, “and being rather well off she goes about a good deal. She's almost a bachelor-girl, I think you might say she was a bachelor-girl, but she's not at all hard-boiled. She plays golf and lawn tennis very well. She's not quite the Staveley's type.”

“Why not?”

“She's not old-fashioned enough. But I dare say they think she could stand up to Dick.”

Eustace digested this in silence. Then he said, “Do you think she could?”

“I doubt it,” said Antony. “She'd put up a good show, but I fancy he's looking for something more exotic, more like a butterfly on the wheel. He wouldn't get a kick out of breaking Monica. She'd stay on for a few revolutions, longer than anyone else has, and say, ‘What fun this is,' and then she'd get off in good order, only a little damaged.”

“But you think she might take him on?” said Eustace, pleased with himself for being able to keep up the worldly tone of the conversation.

“She might think it worth while,” said Antony.

Eustace felt his spirits go down. How little he knew about the rules of this world which he had crashed against so casually, like a moth bumping against a light! Monday morning would soon be here and the whole experience over, leaving at Anchorstone Hall not so much as a ripple on the moat or a faint displacement of the leaves of the water-lilies, to show he had been there.

“Tell me about the other man,” he said, “I scarcely spoke to him.”

“Victor Trumpington?” said Antony. There was a tremendous commotion and upheaval in the bath-room—a sound of tides in conflict such as might have accompanied Archimedes' famous experiment. “Victor Trumpington?” he repeated, appearing at the door in his bath-towel, his hair standing on end. “Oh, he's just a man in the Foreign Office whom everyone likes. No party is complete without him. He's a tame cat par excellence.”

Ignoring the rest of his body, Antony bent down and dried a little toe with extreme thoroughness. He could not, Eustace remembered, establish the smallest routine in anything he did, however mechanical. Now he was rubbing his left wrist—the delicate bone whitened under his assault.

“But there's another reason for his being here,” Antony went on. “He and Anne have been trying to marry each other for years. It seems so obvious—perhaps that's why they don't do it. Or perhaps they're both waiting in case they meet somebody they like better.”

“She seemed rather nice, I thought,” said Eustace.

“She
is
, but she's so dull, poor girl,” said Antony, gazing reflectively at his right knee, without, however, doing anything to it. “How could she be anything else? When they were in London, she was never allowed to take a step alone—someone always went with her, even for a walk. And I suppose Dick's being rather wild made them feel they must be all the more careful with her. She never saw the flash of a latch-key or any token of freedom. She was absolutely
immured
.”

“Couldn't Lady Nelly Staveley do anything to help her?” asked Eustace.

“Oh, but she only went to Lady Nelly's (when she came out, I mean) under the strictest guard, the most lynx-eyed supervision. Sir John and Cousin Edie never approved of Lady Nelly. They even blamed her for not having children. She longed for them; but with Freddie what could you expect? I mean, you couldn't expect.... In spite of his toping, he was much more agreeable and popular than they were, which I suppose was a grievance; and of course
she
was adored. Outside Anchorstone the name Staveley just means Lady Nelly.”

“I look forward to seeing her,” said Eustace.

“I envy you,” said Antony. He began to rub his hair with tremendous vigour, though there was no sign that it had ever been wet. “Someone once said, ‘Oh, that I could meet her again for the first time.' Double-edged, like most compliments.”

A clock on the chimney-piece struck the half-hour.

“Good heavens!” cried Eustace, “it's half-past eight. We really must hurry.”

Dread of a scolding was one of the few motives strong enough to make Eustace overcome his inveterate dislike of telling anyone to do anything. But Antony was unmoved.

“I believe that all the clocks in this house except the big one are kept ten minutes fast,” he said. “ ‘Always in time, but never in tune,' should be the motto of the Staveleys. They ought to write it up everywhere.”

When Eustace looked round from tying his tie, Antony was gone.

T
HE DRAWING-ROOM
proclaimed its Victorian origin. The ceiling was decorated with a pattern of diamond-shaped parterres, outlined in a light-coloured wood, each lozenge framing a representation of the arms of the Staveleys or of some allied family. By a discreet rolling of the eyes Antony had drawn Eustace's attention to this feature when they first arrived, but it was much more in evidence now, because the top lights—unshaded bulbs hanging at the intersections of the lozenges—had been turned on, directing a hard glare on the heads of those below. Hilda had her back to Eustace—an unfamiliar back because much of it was bare—but she turned round when he and Antony came in and her look said, ‘You've got me into this mess, now you must get me out.'

Victor Trumpington, a tall, rather willowy man of about thirty with a fair moustache, was standing a pace or two from her, with the air of having been beaten off, and wondering whether to re-new the attack. Everyone—it seemed to Eustace—looked as though they had tried conclusions with Hilda and been worsted, so separate from each other did they seem, so absorbed in chewing a private cud, so enclosed and islanded in themselves. Eustace's eyes dropped before Hilda's, he could think of nothing to say to her, so he sought out Lady Staveley, who was standing by the fireplace. In her black velvet dress and diamond necklace, she looked smaller and less approachable than she had in her rather thick, purplish tweeds.

“I hope your room is comfortable?” she asked, and Eustace said it was a lovely room.

Her eyes made him a slight acknowledgement of this politesse, then switched to Hilda, who was now in conversation with Antony—though conversation was not quite the word, for each was staring at the floor as though the other had made a remark too profound to be answered. Eustace did not remember having seen Antony nonplussed before. His tie was working round to one side, soon the bow would begin tickling his ear. Involuntarily Eustace turned to Dick. The charge of bull-neckedness did not seem to be justified, but Dick had such a good figure, and wore his clothes so well, that he seemed smaller than he really was. After what Antony had said, Eustace half expected to see him with horns and a tail, and was almost disappointed that he looked so ordinary, and, like the others, not quite at his ease.

“Your tie seems restless on Antony,” he said, and Dick smiled and said, “It's a wise tie and knows its own master,” but his eye, too, wandered to Hilda.

It was not that she was exactly overdressed in her stiff blue silk, which shimmered silvery white on top where the light caught it; her appearance was so striking that she hardly could be. And the dress, which Eustace had helped her to choose, only looked a little more expensive than a dress ought to look. But Hilda had not come to terms with it; it covered her, up to a point, but did not clothe her. Anne and Monica seemed to have grown into their simpler dresses; Hilda's stuck out from her in every sense. They had damped down their personalities to a discreet glow, whereas Hilda wore hers like a headlight. It shone from her eyes, her mouth, which he had prevailed on her to redden, her skin, which was a revelation to him, and her expression, which registered everything she thought. She proclaimed herself; she stood out from the others almost as much as if she had suddenly shouted.

In his imaginings of her début at Anchorstone, this was how Eustace had wanted her to look. He could see now that it was a mistake. But she wasn't a lamp that could be turned down, she had to blaze, and the more uneasy she felt, the more she clashed with her surroundings, imparting, as it seemed to Eustace, her discomfort to everyone else. When the butler offered her sherry she first refused, and then at Antony's instigation, awkwardly took a glass. The unaccustomed wine flew to her face and flamed there; it was a conflagration, and Eustace had no idea how to put it out.

Sir John Staveley looked at his watch.

“It's a quarter to nine,” he said, shattering the silence; “shall we wait for Nelly, or shall we go in?”

Almost as he spoke the door opened and Lady Nelly advanced into the room. You could not call it walking, for she seemed to get nearer without moving. She was a tall woman and upright, except that her head drooped slightly in perpetual acknowledgement (it seemed afterwards to Eustace) of the qualities she had which made people love her, and of the qualities she loved in them. Her smile seemed to have arrived at no special moment, it was there; and as she came towards them it moved from face to face, changing its nature in a way that was perceptible to each recipient, but perhaps to no one else. She paused beside Hilda, half turning her head, and then went on.

“Am I late?” she said. “I'm so sorry.”

She sounded surprised at herself, as if she had never been late before, as if it was slightly comic, and an opportunity for everyone to be indulgent to her.

“No, you're not late, Nelly,” said Sir John; “you're just in time for some sherry.”

She took a glass from the butler's tray with a half-wondering air, as if it was too much to believe that such a rarity could be offered; and letting her glance stray round the company, until it touched, without quite resting, on Hilda, she said, “What nectar!”

The tension in the room relaxed, and Sir John, coming forward, said, “I don't think you've met Miss Cherrington.”

Almost before he spoke Lady Nelly had turned to Hilda and taken her hand.

“What a lovely dress,” she said. “I adore that colour.”

Conversations sprang up like a wind.

Eustace could hardly believe he was in the same room, so homely did it look. Even the coats of arms ceased to press down threateningly and melted into the ceiling, symbols of battles that had long ago been fought. He was content to be lost sight of in the general relief, the more so that Hilda's face, level with Lady Nelly's, had lost its look of strain and was actually smiling.

Sir John said something and there was a collective movement away from the fireplace. Eustace was preparing to let them pass him and to fall in at the rear, when he heard Lady Staveley say, “How remiss of me. I'd quite forgotten. Nelly, I must introduce another guest—Mr. Eustace Cherrington.”

Eustace stopped, stemming the advance, which halted round him; and Lady Nelly, imperceptibly disengaging herself from Hilda, bent upon him a look of recognition apparently tinged with surprise that this meeting had been so long delayed.

“Miss Cherrington's brother?” she said. “How delightful. I never had a brother.” She spoke as though a brother was the most desirable and the rarest thing in the world; and as she brought her slow look of comic wonder to rest on him, Eustace felt valuable and valued as never before.