Oscar and Lucinda (55 page)

Oscar and Lucinda

nervous. This tone was no help. She drew away from him.

"I cannot speak," she managed. She took off her bonnet and, in her agitation, wrapped it around her prayer book while they were still in sight of the church.

"It was a most unchristian sermon," said Oscar to whom had come, in the midst of all this turbulence and upset, the following very simple thought: It is my
duty
to save her name; there is no question but that I must propose marriage to her. This thought was both respectable and gentlemanly, but because it so neatly coincided with his own desires, he could not believe it uncorrupted.
"Most
unchristian," he repeated.

"Oh, do not be so
hurt,"
she snapped.

"It is on your behalf I hurt."

"I thank you, but on my behalf it would be best if we did not discuss the matter." Lucinda did not like herself like this. She knew herself wrong and also in the wrong. She was poisoned by that hateful sermon, by its crudeness, its intolerance, its certainty of its own whiskyand-tobaccosmelling strength. And now she snapped and slapped at the one soul whose goodness and kindness she would not question. She was acting like a spoiled child, like her mother had acted on the days when her daughter hated her, and although she knew all this, she could not stop herself. She was tearing Christmas Day to shreds.

She had put such store in this day, and not merely in the care with which she chose a turkey and a pair of pale blue poplin shirts for her dear friend. In her imagination she had seen all the unspoken things between them come, at last, to be spoken of directly. She had imagined the shirts laid across the faded damask of the parlour armchair, seen crumpled paper and golden ribbon discarded on the blood-red Turkish rug. And other things, like kissing, but not quite so sharp and clear, with furry unfocused edges like a water-colour.

But now she could not bear the way she sounded. She was not a person anyone could love. She drew herself into herself, and when they let themselves into the cottage she could not even look at the table she had set with so many feverish thoughts. She told herself: It does not matter what bigots think of me.

But it did matter. She could not bear to be so hated.

She took down the chipped brown-glaze tea-pot. She put the kettle on the stove and riddled the grate and then, feeling her tears well up inside her, she hurried upstairs to her room. Oscar saw the tumescent top lip and understood her intention. She was going to her room to cry.

Christmas Day

But he was to propose to her.

If he delayed the matter further all courage would depart him. And this is why he went chasing after her, up the clattery uncarpeted stairs, two strides at a time. He caught her on the landing and he dare not ask her to accompany him downstairs to some prettier place-he saw she would almost certainly refuse this for, not understanding his intention, she had a cornered, wild-eyed look. So it was here, in the gloomiest corner of the cottage, the sticky place were Prucilla Twopenny had once spilled a pot of honey from her mistress's breakfast tray, that Oscar put his proposal to Lucinda Leplastrier.

Some peeling wallpaper tickled against Lucinda's neck. She hit at it, imagining a spider. Oscar put his hand in his pocket and jiggled his pennies and threepences together. He wished to be principled. He did not wish to take advantage of a situation where a Christian and gentlemanly act would so benefit his personal desires. He therefore excluded from his breathless speech everything good and noble in his heart. He jiggled his change. He tapped his foot. He offered to marry her to "save your reputation in Balmain."

"Oh, no," she said, "you are too kind to me."

And thus fled to her room. There she wept, bitterly, an ugly sound punctuated by great gulps. She could not stop herself. She could hear his footsteps in the passage outside. He walked up and down, up and down.

"Come in," she prayed. "Oh, dearest, do come in." But he did not come in. He would not come in. This was the man she had practically contracted to give away her fortune to. He offered to marry her as a favour and then he would not even come into her room.

Later, she could smell him make himself a sweet pancake for his lunch. She thought this a childish thing to eat, and selfish, too. If he were a gentleman he would now come to her room and save her from the prison her foolishness had made for her. He did not come. She heard him pacing in his room.

It was into this environment that Mr Jeffris came with his hock bottle and his meticulously wrapped little gifts. He brought a packet of Eleme raisins for Lucinda and a brass compass for Oscar. And although he was not exactly a jolly man, and was, indeed, for the most part angry and when not angry rather doleful, he was capable of charm when there was sufficient reason for it. He was compact and good-looking with a great deal of lustrous black hair and very white even teeth beneath his big moustache and when he engaged you in conversation

Oscar and Lucinda

he had the trick of holding your eyes-no matter where his obsessive mind was really dwelling-as if what you had to say was of great importance to him. He was, as Mr d'Abbs would later claim, an actor, although not such a good one that he would, in normal circumstances, have deceived Lucinda.

But the circumstances were not normal and it was Mr Jeffris who rescued them from the embarrassment and estrangement of their ruined Christmas Day. His hock was warm and more than a little acid, but they drank it thirstily and ate his raisins and shared their shortbread and laughed gratefully at his jokes and talked about the journey to Boat Harbour in such a shy and tentative way that Mr Jeffris, not understanding the personal aspect of the matter, began to think that his own speech had "put them off."

"You should not pay much heed to my little speech in Sussex Street," he said. He smiled and tugged at his moustache and seemed to be debating as to whether he would continue to take them into his confidence. "I will tell you," he said. "My situation is that I am employed, eh? For the present at any rate. And while I am employed it is a case of he-who-pays-the-ftddler-calls-thetune, isn't that so, Miss Leplastrier?"

"Mr d'Abbs required you to answer in this way?" Lucinda asked. Mr Jeffris could see he did not have her full attention. He could not know that her mind was much occupied with the question of the lamp and whether she had turned it down low enough to hide the evidence of her red-rimmed eyes. Mr Jeffris thought the expedition in grave danger of being stillborn.

"He did not specifically tell me to answer as I did, Miss Leplastrier, but I understand my employer well enough. You must have noted how happy the little chap was with the answer I gave." (He said "little chap" on purpose. It was calculated to communicate the complications of their relationship.) "It has been on my conscience ever since. I mean, that I deceived you. I thought I might write you a note, and then there was too much delay involved in such a plan. I never like delay. There is so much of it that can be avoided. It is true in business and in journeys. So I said to myself, this is unnecessary delay, and besides," Mr Jeffris smiled at them, first at Oscar, then at Lucinda, "it was Christmas, so I called in person."

"It is very kind of you," said Oscar, squirming in his seat and hazarding a smile towards Lucinda whose moods and motives were of far more importance to him than Mr Jeffris's; so although he was, indeed, puzzled by the pleasant transformation of the head clerk's character,

Christinas Day

his interest in the man was of a much lower order than his interest in Lucinda Leplastrier who now, in the lamplight, bestowed such a sweet smile on him that he knew his rude assumption about marriage now to be forgiven. He might not be loved, not yet, but neither was he to be hated as he had feared all through the dreadful afternoon. He would not propose again until he had made the journey which Mr Jeffris was, at this very moment, so enthusiastically discussing. Oscar heard him say that there was, contrary to what he had said in Mr d'Abbs's office, a safe way to Boat Harbour.

"Provided," Mr Jeffris said, spreading butter on his shortbread and thereby causing Lucinda's eyebrow to raise itself, "provided you will gently-gently catchee monkey." It did not occur to Oscar that this philosophy did not mesh with one that could not tolerate delay. He was more interested in the butter on the shortbread and raised an eyebrow of his own and thereby-ah!-caused Miss Leplastrier to smile.

"You have probably heard about the butchering habits of the northern blacks," said Mr Jeffris. They had. They did not raise any more eyebrows. Mr Jeffris had their complete attention.

"This is the direct result," said Mr Jeffris, "of rushing. They are incompetents. They go straight through the centre of the niggers' kingdoms. It is like thrusting your bare hand into a beehive and it gets them hopping mad, ma'am, whereas if you took your time, as I should, and went around the boundaries," his whole demeanour changed; you could see his shoulders loosen; his hands soften, "why, as you can imagine, Jacky-Jacky would be pleased to let you be." The woman was alert and thoughtful. She asked: "Who knows these boundaries?" He answered: "I do."

He liked that. An answer like a pistol shot.

It was a lie. He had read some thoughts on the matter in the journals of Mrs Burrows's late husband (not a clever man) who had spent his last months like a chap rolling amongst beehives with a blazing torch. Mr Jeffris took these musings (you could not call them theories) and developed them as he spoke. He did not think that he was lying. Neither, had he paused to see what he was doing, would he have denied it to himself. He would now say
anything
which would result in him being put in charge of this expedition. He would write such journals as the colony had never seen. Every peak and saddle surveyed to its precise altitude. Each saw-tooth range exquisitely rendered. His

349

Oscar and Lucinda

prose would have a spine of steel and descriptions as delicate as violet petals, Mr Jeffris was a coster's son and although he now despised salesmen he had a salesman's skills and he spoke to Lucinda directly and often, not because he valued the opinions of women (he did not) but because he saw that this one was at least as important as Mr Smudge in deciding whether or not his lovely journals should e'er be born. He did not flirt because he saw this would not be welcome, but if it had been welcome, then he would have flirted without Oscar being aware of it.

Lucinda opened the bottle of claret she had intended for their lunch. And when Mr Jeffris finally departed, sometime in the early hours of Boxing Day, she and Oscar sat at the table in the garden and-midst the heavy perfume of the citronella which they rubbed on their faces and arms to keep away mosquitoes-ate cold dry turkey and drank strong black tea.

They said nothing to each other about the incident on the landing. Yet they thought of little else and all their tender feelings, their shyness, embarrassment, hurt, their edgy, anxious, sometimes angry love, were like loose flecks of precious thread caught in the warp of a sturdy carpet, incorporated in that conversation which concluded with them wondering if it might be (a) possible and (b) ethical to persuade Mr Jeffris to take a leave of absence from Mr d'Abbs so he might lead the expedition to Boat Harbour.

87

Gratitude

Long, scythed sweeps of sunshine ran across the carpet, cutting through dull olive and leaving it a mown and brilliant green. Mr d'Abbs sat with his mustard-checked knees in sunshine, his face in shadow. It was difficult to see his expression, but his voice, no matter what

•«n

Gratitude

private outrage he might feel about the theft of his head clerk, revealed only his own great satisfaction with himself, and if he was put out by these uninvited visitors, he did not show it. Lucinda sat on the edge of what was normally "Mrs Burrows's chair" facing Mr d'Abbs. She rolled open the plans, but they were not inclined to stay open and so Oscar held one edge for her. The plans were beautiful. Oscar was surprised that anything so light and fanciful had come from the gold-ringed hand of Mr d'Abbs. Fine graphite lines, soft crinkly yellow tissue paper-it was as though he held the map of a thought between thumb and forefinger.

"Mr d'Abbs," said Lucinda, "this plan has taken you eight weeks." Oscar thought: She is already doing that which, not half an hour before, she has sworn she will not do. She has not even complimented him.

Mr d'Abbs stiffened slightly. He crossed his legs. He had dainty feet and slender ankles. "Rome," he said, "was not built in a day."

Oscar crossed his legs too, in sympathy. His right knee clicked. He worried about his knees. Soon he would have to walk beside the wagons Mr Jeffris was commissioning. He would have to walk day after day, week after week. It was for this reason that he soaked his feet in methylated spirits every night and why, by day, he wore these extraordinary boots which caused his feet such pain.

"And what size sheet have you planned for?" asked Lucinda. She smiled, but she was not an actress and her cheeks-as they always did when she was unhappy-seemed to disappear; the smile was as bleak as a cipher scratched on the wall of a house.

"Oh," Mr d'Abbs's rings fluttered through the sunshine, retreated into shadow) "oh, 111 leave that to your discretion."

"But, Mr d'Abbs," she pronounced it Mis-ter, "I specified a particular sheet size." Oscar watched with alarm as Lucinda tried to hold her anger in its place. Her sinuses seemed to swell visibly. Her nostrils flared. Her hands were leaving damp stains on the crinkly yellow paper. She said: "That is the whole point."

"Your point." Mr d'Abbs uncrossed his legs and then crossed them the other way.

"My point, yes."

"But not my point."

"It is my life that is involved here, and yours only to the most limited extent. Your point, with respect, Mr d'Abbs, does not matter."

"There is no respect in that at all, Miss Leplastrier, and simply

«I

Oscar and Lucinda

saying 'with respect' does not put it there."