Sunflower (41 page)

When one came to think of it, all the people one liked fell into that attitude sooner or later. Mum had done it all the time, working about the house. She’d never had enough fun, and she did so love a good laugh. (Oh, if only Mum had been alive to know how happy she was going to be!) Maxine had sat like that every night at Ciro’s and the Embassy in the dreadful time after Jerry, her face emptied of all blood, her eyes emptied of all meaning, but her body bravely braced in her lovely, carefully worn clothes, offering her beauty silently and passively to the love of men as a target offers itself to the arrow. It was funny to think that if she had given up and taken to going home early there would never have been that baby. (She must tell Maxine all about it the minute all the arrangements were made.) And years ago, at Tyndrum Road when Aunt Clara was so bad with pneumonia, Aunt Emma, who drank, begged so hard to be allowed to sit up with her one night that they let her; and when they took a cup of tea to her in the early morning they found her sitting in the basket-chair by the bed in just that pose. Her face, bruised with drunkenness, though she had not touched a drop since her sister got ill, had fallen forward so that her pointed chin dug into her bosom; but her eyes blinked vigilantly among the rheum and turkeyish red ruffles of flesh, and her shrivelled little body was held like a ramrod as if she were a little girl who wanted to show that though she was naughty sometimes she could be good when it was necessary. Poor Aunt Emma, dear Aunt Emma. It was a sign she was really nice that whenever she had one of her bad times one of the first things she did was to go off and buy people presents. And that was the way the nice old stage-door keeper at the Palladium used to sit. The one who was so kind to all the girls, who interpreted everything that happened in a lovely well-bred way, and with such silvery definiteness and precision that his interpretation became the truth, since everybody acted on it; and who went home one day to die quietly of a cancer that must have torn him for years. Oh, human beings were splendid things! And this pose was a symbol of their splendour, of their mad bravery when the odds were against them. The head, which was clever, which knew too well what was happening to it, hung down; but the spine, which was stupid, which only knew it had to go on living, bent only for a moment, and then stiffened straighter than it was before its bending. It was as if a link in a chain should be struck again and again by a vast hammer and doubly resolved, ‘I will not break, the chain’s the thing, the chain must hold, I will not break!’ It was lovely that at the party last night there had been only that kind of person, nobody like Billie Murphy or Lord Canterton, only people who did good work without being News: Farquharson, the little Australian cartoonist, who held his mousy head on one side all the time to make sure he was seeing things all right, because one must tell the truth, and Mackinnon, who went humbly, with an air of raising his hand and coughing behind it, into the furthest and most perilous places of the earth, their nice dowdy wives who smiled at one irrelevantly just to show they liked one, and a lot of young people who worked in Francis Pitt’s office. (But he did not seem to have made it up with poor young Mr Harrop and Miss Wycherley. There was not a sign of them.) They were having all sorts of nice feelings about the occasion that made a lovely atmosphere in which to be happy. For they were clever enough to see how funny the musty mid-Victorian house and furnishings were, to look up and laugh at the preposterous mouldings and copings and cosy corners of soap-cornered timber carved into a confused richness like that of pickles seen through the glass jar; and they were simple enough to enjoy the champagne and the very good dance music, and to be a little impressed because they had been asked out by the little man about whom there hung this heavy scent of greatness; and they were so good, with such gestures, as of those who checked themselves perpetually lest they should make some promise they could not perform, lest they should break any growing thing. It was marvellous to feel that though one was about to enjoy the most extravagant delights of love, that though henceforth one’s life was going to be saturated with pleasure, one was not going out into any desert of dissipation but would therefore range oneself forever with these sober people. For it was with their rhythm that he had moved when he laid his hand on her arm as they were watching the dear clumsy dancers, and had looked into her eyes so steadily, and spoken so solemnly, irrevocably committing himself to his question, and her to her answer.

‘Will you come with me and see the statue at the end of my chestnut alley? I told you, it is a statue of love.’

Remembering the words made her feel exactly as hearing them had done: as if a little silver hammer had struck her nerves and shattered them into a thousand splinters of ecstasy. She wanted to hear his voice now, and be disintegrated by the shock of her love for him, and come together again so that she might again be disintegrated, and so on forever. She wondered how soon he would telephone her. It occurred to her, and her breath stopped with panic, that he might call her up when she was speaking to Mr Isaacson. She must make that call at once. Picking up the receiver, she said, ‘Gerrard 773612.’ Her eyes moved about the room. That slit of sea-coloured bathroom visible through the open door. She had a nice house. Below was the Chinese room, that cube of perfection. Above were the servants’ rooms, which were really quite pretty; that unpolished oak furniture looked so clean, and the sheets were linen though she had bought them unbleached and lavender-scented. Outside the house was London; outside London was England. The fine setting for the fine play. All the colours in the world seemed to have grown much brighter. It was as if someone had passed a silk handkerchief over the surface of the globe.

Parkyns said, ‘Please madam, there’s something in the garden that Cook thought you might like to see.’

She dropped the pen with which she had been writing a letter to her sister Lily. She had felt like writing to her this morning, though for some years there hadn’t been much between them except at Christmas and the children’s birthdays, all that about Essington making it so difficult; and now she had fixed it up with Mr Isaacson that she need not play tonight there wasn’t anything to do but wait.

She put her face against the window-pane. ‘I don’t see nothing, anything.’

‘It’s ever so small,’ said Parkyns, smiling.

‘Oh, it isn’t a kitten, is it?’

‘It isn’t a kitten’ said Parkyns. ‘I don’t remember ever having seen one of what it is before.’

Sunflower opened the French window and ran down the iron steps into the garden. It wasn’t such a bad place. She had done what she could with it by paving a good deal of it, and having just four big flower-beds, with all sorts of old-fashioned sweet-smelling herbs round the edge of them, because people always liked to touch the green stuff if you took them out there after dinner, and they seemed specially pleased when they found lavender and rosemary and southernwood on their hands.

Cook and Martyn were leaning out of the kitchen window, resting their busts on their folded arms, smiling at the thought of the surprise they had found for her. But she could not see anything. The beds were full of dwarf snapdragon, that flower which always looks furry and red-blooded, like a plump, bustling, high-coloured little woman, the sort who wears plain dresses that button tightly down the front but has her warm, romantic moments; the widow who inherits the public house and runs it herself, and is liked by all the men and suspected by all their wives, with much reason. But otherwise there was nothing.

‘It’s here, Madam!’ said Cook. ‘Just in front of us.’

There, on the paving-stones, lay a loosely assembled collection of knitting needles, making feeble gestures of rejection, like an old man who has no longer the strength to be as disagreeable as he once was refusing to be introduced to somebody.

‘Oh!’ cried Sunflower. ‘It’s a hedgehog! Isn’t London a funny country sort of place!’

‘We thought you’d like to have a look at it,’ said Cook importantly.

‘Of course I do! Oh, thank you ever so much for telling me! Oh, what a funny little thing. Who found it?’

‘Martyn did,’ said Cook.

‘Yes, madam, I found it when I was putting out the white brocade bag to air after I’d washed it with petrol.’ She giggled. ‘Thought of keeping it to myself and slipping it into Cook’s bed for a surprise.’

Cook’s elbow nudged her in the ribs. ‘You’d have found something in your soup that would have surprised you!’

There were more giggles. Those two were good friends; but Parkyns always seemed a bit out of it. That was the worst of keeping three. It was apt to happen that way, not that any of them meant to be unkind. She beckoned Parkyns to come closer to her.

‘How do you suppose it ever got here? From one of the parks? Oh, look, look, you can see little winking eyes!’

The door between the front and the back garden slammed. It was Harrowby. He took off his coat and grunted some salutation and propped himself against the wall by the acacia tree. As always now, he looked terribly ill.

She called out to him, ‘Good morning, Harrowby! Look, we’ve got a visitor!’

His eyes went to it, but disregarding it and what she said he asked gruffly, ‘When will you be wanting me?’

That was surly, but you couldn’t blame him when he felt as bad as he evidently did. ‘Oh, Harrowby, not till tonight. I want to be up at Mr Pitt’s at eight.’ She was a little confused. Surely her happiness must be written all over her, they were all looking at her with a certain interested fixity, Parkyns, the two at the window, Harrowby with his cap half across his face. She bent over the hedgehog and cried out, in animation that was not feigned, because now the whole of life was so lovely to her that she had only to bend her attention to any part of it to become immediately enchanted. ‘Isn’t it silly to stick out its quills like that, when we don’t mean it any harm? Oh, I wish it was more like a kitten or puppy, and one could pick it up and make a fuss of it! Aren’t you silly to have a lot of quills instead of nice soft fur or a nice short coat! Oh, Parkyns, aren’t its little eyes funny?’

Parkyns, at her elbow, murmured benignantly, ‘They are indeed, madam.’

She appealed to Cook and Martyn. ‘Can’t we give it something to eat? Perhaps it’ll stay then. What does a hedgehog like to eat?’

They looked doubtful, indisposed to make suggestions. The initial discovery of the animal had put them in a strong position, they did not want to weaken it by any confession of ignorance about its diet.

‘There’s always lettuce leaves,’ said Parkyns, timidly.

‘It doesn’t look very vegetarian to me,’ said Cook coldly.

Harrowby spoke suddenly. ‘We had a lot of them at home, down at Warleigh, where my father is head keeper. We don’t think anything of them there.’ He said it sourly and desperately, and added contemptuously, ‘But them that take any notice of them give them milk.’

Illness took people such different ways. ‘Milk? Oh, thank you, Harrowby,’ said Sunflower. ‘Cook, give me some milk, please.’

Cook turned away. The white ‘X’ drawn on her broad flowered back by her apron straps showed for a minute in the interior dusk. Sunflower went to the window and laid her fingers on the ledge, doing a dance step to pass the time and singing over her shoulder to the knitting needles, ‘Oh, Mr Hereward, don’t run away!’ Parkyns and Martyn laughed slowly, happily, fondly.

‘Mind you don’t mess your dress, Madam,’ said Cook indulgently. ‘I’ve filled the saucer rather full.’

Sunflower set it down on the stones. ‘No, that isn’t what he wants. He isn’t taking a bit of notice. Oh, yes, he is. Harrowby, you were quite right. What lots of things you must know, being brought up in the country. Oh, look how he’s drinking it up. The poor thing must have been hungry. Now he’s put down all his quills. You’d hardly know he had any. I wonder whether you could ever make him fond of you if you gave him milk regularly, and if he would ever let you pick him up. Oh, look at the funny, funny way his nose works when he drinks.’

It was queer to be living life in two parallel columns, to be bending over the hedgehog and seeing that like anybody else it was divided and distraught, acting far more grown-up and self-possessed than it felt inside itself. For though in what it did with its quills it was like a testy old man, its winking eyes showed it piteous and playful as little animals are; and at the same time remembering with all one’s mind and one’s flesh what had happened beside the statue at the end of the chestnut alley.

When they had gone out of the house the night had seemed like a great, stirring snake, because of a young moon behind quick clouds, which perpetually cast on the earth faint, gleaming, changing patterns of black and white. All, all was movement, though it was very still. They did not speak a word, yet they were travelling fast as falling stars into a new relationship. When they came to the place where the path rose in steep steps between high walls of shrubs he put his hand on her arm to guide her, pressing his fingers into her flesh, not violently but gently, generously, dependently, to fuse the warmth that was in both their bodies, to share with her what he had that was good, to beg from her what she had that was good. From sheer habit she steeled herself against this delight, and leaned away from him. His fingers stiffened, he was hurt. Then she remembered she was free and moved back close to him, letting her body droop and her breath come softly, so that through the darkness he could feel her submission. His hand was contented again, closed on her arm, ran down it, made a bracelet round her wrist. She had never known him so utterly without laughter. That must mean that at last he felt safe, for his humour was a kind of knuckleduster he carried about with him, a method of defence. Gravity was his tonight, and an immense pride which towered above him like a strong pillar. When they were passing through the dark places in the chestnut alley, where two lines of trees made a tunnel, he was like her breathing hardly at all, moving as if his body were steeped in tenderness as in a softening fluid; but when they stepped into the bright places where there were no trees on the south side, and the moon watched them and the house looked up from the hollow with lighted windows, he walked like a very tall man. Twice his fingers tightened on her wrist and he stood still, drawing her towards him so that they looked into each other’s faces. Then it was as if she were bearing the weight of his soul on hers. There was no thought in that moment, and no feeling. Afterwards, she did not know whether she had been able to see his face through the dusk. All she had known was that he was giving himself to her, and she was taking him. The second time he did this it was as if he had said to himself that it could not really have happened the first time, he seemed to be standing a little way back from the experience in a verifying wonder. Then he pointed to the half-seen whiteness ahead of them and muttered urgently, ‘The statue! The statue!’ and hurried her on, as if since they had done so much they must do more.