The Beautiful Visit (15 page)

‘Why not?’

‘I just shouldn’t like it.’

‘That settles it,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ll have to turn down the offers. Lots of money in it though, I should think.’

‘Awful life,’ said Edward gloomily, and we all felt glad we were not on the stage.

What a lot Edward knew. I felt sleepy, and all their voices seemed to come startlingly separate out of nothing. They talked and I drank my second port in silence. I did not want it when it came,
but I could not be rude when I had asked for it. She got what she asked for, I remembered people saying, and this was what she asked for. Not so terrible as they had made it sound. A wreath of
convolvulus and pears swayed suddenly down to hit the top of Agnes’s head. My own head was too heavy. ‘For he’s going to marry Yum-Yum, Yum- Yum,’ crawled through my head.
Agnes and Arthur were swaying slowly in time to the words. ‘She’s nearly asleep,’ I heard Agnes say, and with a start I realized that my head was on Edward’s shoulder and
his arm round my waist. I sat up, blinking the blur of lights out of my eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’ How awful. What would he think?

‘Well be going upstairs. It’s time to go now,’ said Agnes.

Edward stood up to let me out and I got carefully to my feet, holding the table as I squeezed past. The floor was a long way down and every time I stepped it was like going downstairs. Agnes
took my arm and led the way to a tiny cloak-room.

‘How awful of me to go to sleep.’

‘It was the port,’ she said. ‘We’re going to see if we can get a cab.’

‘What about the bill?’ I was very pleased with myself for remembering the bill.

‘They’re paying it now. Like some powder?’ I took it. ‘I should wash your face first,’ she advised. She had innate tact. She must have known how the cold water
would clear my head and revive me but she said nothing. I dried my face and looked in the glass. Agnes was combing her hair over the puffs.

‘Been a lovely evening, hasn’t it?’

‘Lovely,’ I said, too emphatically. ‘Very nice,’ I repeated more guardedly.

‘There, now you’ll be all right.’ She had put on her hat. Where was mine?

‘Edward’s got it,’ she said. ‘The pins stuck in his neck.’

We joined the others. They had our coats on their arms and Edward helped me into mine. ‘You mustn’t get cold.’

‘Mind my violets.’

‘They’ll be all right.’ He squeezed my arm.

We went out through a side door into the grey airless street. I stumbled a little until I was used to the light. My head was aching and I could not loosen my tightly arranged hair because Agnes
held my other arm. We found a cab and got in. ‘Where to?’ said the driver. ‘Victoria Road,’ said Agnes. She knew I lived there. ‘We’d better drop you on the
corner,’ she said. I nodded forgetting that in the dark she could not see. ‘All right?’

‘Yes,’ I said. It was very stuffy and smelt of damp leather and mildew. Arthur lowered the windows. We were off.

‘Aren’t we nobs, going home in a cab,’ said Agnes. ‘Laugh at the buses we can.’ Dimly I understood that the cab was unusual and for my benefit.

‘It’s very kind of you,’ I murmured.

Edward bent down. ‘What was that?’

Kind of you,’ I murmured again. Agnes and Arthur were very quiet. I said something about how quiet they were, and there was a little suppressed giggle from Agnes and some movement in the
dark.

‘Put your head on my shoulder again,’ said Edward. ‘I like it.’

How kind he was. My hat was in his lap. I saw the straw gleaming like a neat round nest in a fairy tale. I leaned against him. He put his arm round my shoulders and clasped my wrist. His hand
was very hot. We jolted on in silence while I wished that someone would speak, but felt too tired and weak to begin. I sighed, and slowly his hand edged up to the back of my neck, his face loomed
over me for a second, so that I saw his eyes in the grey blur, and then his mouth was on mine; his moustache soft and dry in contrast. There was a feeling of a very long time or perhaps none at
all: still he was kissing me, with warmth and deliberation, and I lay in his arms unresisting, half stirred. He was not a person to me any more, he was a kiss, the part of myself that I wanted to
feel alive. He stirred over me and the hat slipped to the floor with a papery rustle. My neck was aching and I pressed against his hand until I was supported by the corner of the cab. He let me go
and then gathered me into his arms again more fiercely, his hands hard on my bones through the thin dress. My arms being limp at my sides, he took them and pressed them round his neck. There were a
little chuckle in the dark from Agnes, some whispered protest, and still Edward’s mouth urgent, harsh and warm. I was stifled, could not breathe, almost ceased to exist. I was no longer
stirred but endured him with a breathless acquiescence with no thought or hope or desire for an end. The jolting slowed into a walk.

‘I think we’re nearly there,’ said Agnes, and her voice sounded small, crushed and unreal.

Edward released me, bent down, picked up my hat, and placed it on my lap. The stopping, the practical neatness of his gesture bred in me a sudden panic, a horror of him and myself, and I had
only one thought to get out of the cab, away from him, from all of them, into the air with no part of my body touching anything but only my feet on the hard familiar pavement. I must have leaned
forward groping for the door, for Edward put his hand on my arm and drew me back.

‘Don’t be in such a hurry. We’ve not stopped yet.’

I bent my head stiffly over the straw hat in my lap. I felt very sick. I remember the clop of the horse’s feet running down slowly like a clock, and the jolt when we finally pulled up into
silence. Edward got out, and I followed, my legs shaking so that I could hardly stand.

‘Aren’t you going to say good night to
us
?’ said Agnes with a plaintive emphasis that made the others laugh.

‘Good night,’ I said, ‘and thank you very much. I’ve enjoyed it most awfully.’

‘So have I,’ said Edward softly. He was standing close to me.

‘Good night,’ I said. I could not look at him.

‘Say good night to me,’ his voice demanded softly. I backed away. ‘Why you little witch!’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’ His arms were round me again and I lifted my face in an agony of surrender and dislike. He let me go abruptly and turned to the
cab.

‘Hammersmith,’ he said, and there was a hurt significance in his voice.

‘Thank you for bringing me home,’ I called weakly as he was getting bade into the cab.

He turned and I felt that he smiled. ‘It was nothing. I shall see you again.’ And they drove off.

I stood and watched them out of sight, and then hearing, hardly able to realize the relief of being alone. A dry hot breeze ruffled my face; stirred the great trees in the park opposite me and
reminded me where I was. A quarter past the hour struck from some distant church clock. The houses round me were dark. It must be very late. I turned shakily sad walked bade to my home, where a
single light gleamed. They were waiting up, for me. The memory of my deception and the mood in which I had left the house a few hours before flooded back. I must not think of what had happened. I
must get safely to my room. I tapped on the front door and a minute later my sister opened it, with a candle in her hand. She stood aside for me to come in.

‘It’s after twelve.’ Her wrapper fell about her like the folded wings of a moth. ‘Where have you been? I was listening and I didn’t hear a cab.’

‘They dropped me on the corner,’ I said, very weary, and started to climb the stairs. I heard her bolt the door and follow me almost noiseless on her bare feet.

‘They? Who?’ she whispered. We were passing my parents’ room.

‘I’ll tell you about it tomorrow,’ I said. She seemed satisfied and pausing at the door of her room she kissed my cheek.

‘How hot your face is,’ she observed. ‘Good night.’

‘Good night.’

There was another candle burning on the low table by her bed, before a statue. Goodness, Purity, I thought and stumbled into my room.

I lighted a candle and automatically started to undress. Now I was alone all the nausea and panic crept back. I lived again those minutes lying in die dark; forced to remember every sensation,
up to the moment when my sister had finally touched my burning face with her lips. I wrenched off the frock which his hands had crushed. It lay on the floor and I could not bear to touch it again.
My mouth was bruised and dry. I remembered the uneasy fluttering and burning of my whole body when I had wanted him to go on kissing me; how I had not cared what he did; how I had lain passive
under his mouth and hands, only half conscious of a slow uncertain crescendo within myself. He had kissed me and I had accepted it, and even liked it. In the mirror over my washstand I stared at my
face. It was flushed with hectic ringed eyes. My mouth looked rough and pinched.

Suddenly I bathed my face; plunging my arms up to the elbows in the cold water jug, washing Edward from my body, rubbing him off my mouth until it ached. Agnes: had that happened to her?
‘I like a bit of fun.’ Of course it had. But it was different for Agnes. Arthur was her friend. To me Edward had been a complete stranger. Though he was the first man who had tried to
make love to me, I had accepted it with no thought of propriety or his feelings. In bed that night, I still rubbed my mouth again and again with the corner of the sheet.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The next day I faced the questions and comments of my mother and sister. I had insane gusts of wanting to tell them, or one of them; in order to be scolded and reassured. But
most of the time I realized that my adventure was beyond their horizon; that they would be even more shocked, disgusted and unhappy, than I had made myself. And so, pale and heavy eyed, I evaded
their probings and promised to help my sister with her stall as a sort of retribution. How fortunate that my parents had refused to allow me to work in the library with Agnes! I took a dreary
satisfaction in their refusal having turned out for the best. I was not fit to choose what I did, since I had so easily sunk to such depths of immorality on the first provocation.

I had a great shrinking from seeing Agnes: I knew that I could not endure meeting Edward again, and I had no idea what her reaction would be, although I was afraid that she would be angry with
me for an entirely different reason.

It was about then that I got a postcard which said: ‘This is where I live. Just the place for you, and I should like to see you here. I believe we called it tea? No matter. I am a very bad
painter, and shall expect to see you. Come whenever you like. R.’ I put it carefully away beneath clothes in a drawer. Nothing was said about it, although I was sure my sister had read it,
for she always read postcards. He must have found my address through the Lancings. I felt a stab of homesickness for the Landings. They had answered none of my letters and it was impossible to go
on writing to a collective silence. The postcard comforted me. He, at least, had not forgotten.

A week had passed since my evening with Agnes and I felt that I could no longer shirk seeing her. I went to the library, choosing the busiest hour in the morning. She was there, and looked just
the same, trim and neat and gay.

‘Where have you been? Somebody’s been asking for you,’ she began, and my heart sank.

‘There’s been a lot to do at home,’ I said lamely.

‘Well when would you be free?’

‘I don’t know. You see my parents were furious that I was so late.’

‘What a shame! Never mind, we needn’t be so late. We can sit in the park. Or what about a Sunday? Edward suggested Kew.’ I felt a shudder of the familiar sick feeling I
associated with Edward.

‘I can’t, Agnes. Truly I can’t.’

‘What’s the matter then? Changed your mind?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s it. I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Well!’ She was obviously suspicious and ready to be hurt. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘I . . . I wouldn’t want to marry him,’ I said with desperate simplicity.

She went into gales of laughter, covered her mouth with her hand and said: ‘Who said anything about marriage? You
are
a queer one. Don’t you like a bit of fun?’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’ll explain to you. Not here. We could have lunch and ‘I’ll try and explain.’

She looked at me for a minute, and then said slowly: ‘No don’t do that. I don’t think I’d like it really. I’ll tell him you’ve gone away.’

‘Thank you. It’s very kind of you.’

‘I must get back to work,’ she said. She was very flushed.

‘How’s Arthur?’ I said.

‘He’s all right.’ She blew her nose on a tiny handkerchief. She was going away to a customer.

‘When shall I see you?’

‘Oh, we can make an arrangement next time you come. I must get back. Bye-bye.’

I left the shop perturbed and anxious. I wanted badly to explain to her, and yet somehow I knew she was right, that I should not be able to do so without hurting her and myself. For the first
time I realized how painful people could be to each other, against both their will and intentions. It made me unbearably sad for the rest of that day.

CHAPTER TWELVE

For several weeks I concentrated on the children and my sister’s stall for the Bazaar. The routine steadied and comforted me. In the morning I sewed under my
sister’s direction, We became better friends sitting in the window of the large dilapidated dining-room with material spread all over the table and linen bags full of scraps on every chair.
She was wonderfully neat with her fingers, and her ingenuity and patience in contriving pretty and useful objects out of nothing, made me admire her, and feel less cruelly objective.

I remember asking her one day whether she would like to get married.

‘If it comes my way,’ she answered mildly, snipping off a thread. She had scissors like Deb’s; and in a way she reminded me of her then, so neat and calm and assured. She had
much hair and drooping shoulders.

‘Do you think things do come one’s way?’ I asked.

‘I’m sure they do. Our lives are very easily filled.’