The Beautiful Visit (28 page)

The first stair creaked loudly; instinctively I stood frozen; then realized that it would creak again when I transferred my weight to the stair below it. I waited again, my heart pounding loudly
in the silence, and then moved. The second creak seemed tremendous, but the stair below it was silent, and somehow I reached the bottom with hardly another sound. The front door was only a few
yards away. Leaving the suitcase I felt for the box and a match, and then, as I withdrew them, I thought I heard a sound. I listened, could hear nothing, and was about to strike the match (it was
almost entirely dark) when I heard it again. A muffled indistinct murmur. Someone was awake and talking, on the same floor as I; in the drawing-room, I quickly realized; and then realized almost as
quickly that it was the parrot gabbling away in the room. The shock had been so sudden, the relief so immediate, that a moment later the incident hardly remained in my mind. I turned feverishly
towards the door again. There were small windows on either side of it, and I was inspired to draw one curtain on the right-hand window. I turned the key, slipped back the top bolt, and, with more
difficulty, the one at the bottom.

A minute later I stood in the grey delicious air, suitcase and shoes in hand, and the door dosed behind me. The gravel was damp and painful to my unshod feet, but I crossed the sweep and
continued down the drive until it curved, when I turned back to look at the house. Even that last glance revealed something strange. There were no curtains over the window of Mrs Border’s
bedroom, which was suffused with a warm glow of flickering light. Her bedroom fire, I thought, and knew then that it must burn throughout the night. Spalding invariably lighted it before Mrs Border
changed for dinner; kept it in until she retired, but certainly did not rise to dear and relight it at six in the morning. ‘She never sleeps; she does not go to bed,’ I thought with the
old familiar dread and revulsion. Seizing the suitcase, I stumbled running down the drive, hardly caring any more what noise I made, until I reached the gate, where I put the shoes on my soaking
feet.

I must have walked the best part of a mile when a milk cart overtook me, and upon it I secured a lift to the station.

An hour later I sat in a train. My feet were wet, I was very hungry and unbearably tired, but I had escaped. From what? Almost immediately I found my mind struggling feebly with this (under the
circumstances) exceedingly tiresome question. Surely it was enough to relax and be thankful that I had planned and achieved the whole difficult business; but ironically I found it impossible either
to relax or be thankful. In books, I found myself thinking bitterly, in books, the character would not at this point be in any doubt whatsoever. If he or she had escaped, it would be from some
explicit danger or discomfort. I had escaped, but, I realized, without any clear idea of why I had done so. It was true that I had disliked and been afraid of the house and its occupants, but for
what reasons? Mrs Border had never been positively unkind to me. And now, without warning, I had fled; leaving more than half my possessions behind; almost as though I had been in danger of my
life. Instantly, my divided mind rushed to excuse this apparent foolishness. I have lived cut off for weeks with an old woman who wore a black repugnant wig; who never went out of doors; who had,
for no apparent reason, invented two husbands. But perhaps she had
not
invented the second husband, the clergyman. I had no evidence beyond Mr Tyburn’s curious remark that: ‘Mrs
Border will have told you that sad story.’ Possibly the man to whom he alluded had not been her husband; but there might have been another consumptive clergyman who was. This seemed
improbable, however, and I concluded that she had invented both husbands. But what if she had? In books, I felt again, there would have been some conclusive circumstance or event, sinister or
reassuring, which would have left me in no doubt as to what I should do and why. Then I remembered the parrot, and was filled with shame that I had not before realized that he was the author of the
frightful fits of laughter. He had not, of course, uttered a sound during the day, but I now remembered Mrs Border’s remark about his talking at night. That was satisfactorily about to
explain that, when I reflected with renewed alarm or relief (it was really impossible to be certain which) that parrots do not usually talk and laugh like human beings unless they have either been
taught to do so by one person, or been so much with them that they learn to mimic of their own accord. If her brother’s account of the parrot was true, Mrs Border was the only person from
whom the parrot could possibly have learned to laugh as he did. It had been with her through all her illnesses, the Major had said. This, again, presented Mrs Border in an unpleasant light. Perhaps
she had only laughed like that when she was beside herself with grief, or during those mysterious illnesses. Well then, Mrs Border was eccentric, even a little mad, but did that justify the
terrible night I had spent, and my subsequent flight?

A week later I received my second suitcase. Inside, on the top was an envelope. It contained a cheque for my salary. No note accompanied it. I never heard any thing more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

At home it was hard to believe I had been away so many weeks. Everything in my room was exactly as I had left it. My sister had plunged herself into packing parcels for the
Army. My mother helped twice a week in some Officers Club. They did not ask me many questions (I do not think they were really at all interested), and I told them nothing. My mother had sold one of
the pianos.

My mother and sister as the months went by became more and more obsessed with the war: they could talk of nothing else. They did not discuss the outcome of the war (it was assumed that we were
to win it), but simply food and dressings and hospitals; the gallantry of the Belgians; the cruelty of the Germans; the appalling casualty lists; the probability of further battles; and, of course,
Tom and Hubert, particularly Hubert. I think they existed in a kind of dramatic vacuum about Hubert, who they were sure would be killed. Tom was at some gunnery school and seemed likely to remain
there; but Hubert was in the thick of it. They awaited his letters as though his life depended on them, read each when it came as though it were the last, and generally treated him as the family
God of War. However, perhaps Hubert liked it. They were probably better for him than many families were.

Then ultimately I met Ian. I had not seen him since the Lancings’ years ago. I had been sent by my sister to buy tickets for a theatre, to which she and my mother intended taking Tom on
his leave. I remember that it was very cold, and that I did not want to buy the tickets, being unable to go myself, as I was working for the Red Cross and there being some function which I felt
bound to attend instead.

There were a great many people trying to buy tickets. When I had eventually secured them and turned from the box office, I came face to face with him. He was wearing uniform, and looked much
thinner and older. I did not immediately recognize him, as he did me. I think it was the first time in my life that anyone was really glad to see me, and I felt a warm rush of gratitude to him for
it.

‘Yes I do perfectly well. You are Ian. Ian Graham.’

‘I say, that’s most awfully good of you. To remember my name I mean.’

‘You remembered mine.’

‘Oh
well
,’ he murmured, and was about to move away with me when I said: ‘What about your tickets?’

‘Oh. Oh yes.’ He looked at the box office and at me, hesitated, and then went to buy them. He was some time, as there were people ahead of him. I saw him cast an anxious glance in my
direction, as though he were not quite certain that should wait.

‘I suppose you are awfully busy,’ he said as we walked slowly out of the theatre.

‘No. That is, I do part-time work.’

‘What do you do?’

‘I pack parcels and help in a canteen.’

‘Oh yes. Everyone is doing something, aren’t they? Nobody seems to have much time.’ We walked on for a few minutes of indecisive silence.

‘Are you on leave?’

‘Yes. My first for ten months.’

‘You must have looked forward to it.’

‘Oh, rather.’

We reached the end of the street. He saw me hesitate and said, ‘I suppose you are hurrying back?’

‘I’m going home.’

‘Home,’ he repeated; then, frowning slightly with the effort, said, ‘I suppose you wouldn’t care to have a cup of tea with me somewhere?’

I answered almost automatically, ‘I’m afraid I ought to go home. There was so reason at all for me to go home, I reflected, but now I could not change my mind, I should have to
go.

‘Shall I get you a cab?’

‘Oh, I think I shall take a bus. I go to Kensington.’

‘Where do you catch your bus?’

I pointed. We crossed the street together. I considered, for one moment, the possibility of asking him to come home to tea with me, but rejected it. I hated anyone to see my home.

The first bus was full, and although he raised his suck to stop it, it lumbered by.

‘No good, I’m afraid,’ he said, and as he smiled at me, suddenly I felt how desperately unhappy he was. It was such an overwhelming discovery that I was almost embarrassed by
it; and began talking at random to cover my dismay. I asked whether he had had a good leave. ‘Ripping,’ he said, and repeated himself to impress upon me that he knew the right answer.
It was nearly over, I learned, only three days remaining; he had been unable to go home for it, as his home was in Scotland and had been turned into a convalescent hospital. His father was away.
‘Not much point, you see,’ he said politely. His father was at the War Office all day and most of the night, he added. He answered all my questions patiently, as though he had answered
them many times before, and always at the end of a sentence he met my eye with a kind of deprecating reserve.

Several buses had passed us. When I had exhausted my stock of inquiries I turned again to the road, but changed my mind and said I
should
like to have tea with him.

‘Would you?’ he said, and the colour rushed into his face. He raised his suck, stopped a cab into which he handed me, said something to the driver, and we set off.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘Where would you like to go?’

‘I don’t know.’

There was a short silence. Then he said rather stiffly, ‘I have told him to drive once round the park first. I intensely dislike hiring a vehicle solely for the purpose of arriving
somewhere.’

I looked at him with some surprise. He seemed entirely different. We drove round the park in complete silence, and I had a curious feeling that he was all the while passionately conducting a
continuous private conversation with me of the utmost importance, although I neither knew nor could I imagine what we were talking about.

Ultimately, we arrived at Rumpelmayer’s.

Inside, he indicated a table in the extreme corner of the room. As I followed him, I realized suddenly that I had enjoyed the drive in the cab and his silent company, and began to dread talking
with him. Nobody can live up to their own silence, I thought, although he had at least refrained from apologizing for it.

At tea, however, he began talking of Scotland, about which he was remarkably well informed, and I entirely ignorant. He talked with an easy intimate devotion about the country, the people, their
politics (he was a Scottish Nationalist, I discovered, discovering Scottish Nationalism); their literature; their predilections for law suits, and learning, and alcohol, for devils and witches, and
sculpture and travel. He set out not to impress or inform, but to entertain me with his knowledge, and I think he knew that he had succeeded.

We had been drinking chocolate and the pot was empty. He was about to send for some more, when he recollected himself, frowned, and said, ‘Perhaps I should tell you that it is a quarter to
six.’

‘Oh.’

‘Will you allow me to take you home?’

‘Thank you.’

We were seated again in a cab. After a long silence he said, ‘Would you care to go to the theatre with me this evening?’

I answered, ‘I am supposed to be working in the canteen tonight.’

There was a brief pause. I felt him collecting himself. Then he said with some effort: ‘You see I have only three days left. I cannot talk to you as though it were only three days, I
cannot behave to you as though it were so short a time, because it would arrange everything I said in those terms. There would not have been time to drive round the park – ’ he stopped
abruptly – ‘a kind of emotional shorthand – ’ he stopped again – ‘I have never in my life – I am in love with you, and that is all the time I
have.’

We did not look at each other. The cab rumbled on until very distantly I heard myself say: ‘I will come to the theatre,’ and turned to find him regarding me with a kind of anxious
excitement.

An expression of extreme gentleness crossed his face; then he shivered and said, ‘I do not know where you live.’

I told him and he told the driver. We did not speak again until we were almost arrived at my house when he said: ‘May I come and fetch you at seven o’clock?’

He saw me hesitate and said quickly: ‘Half past seven if you prefer. The theatre is not until a quarter to nine, but I thought we should need something to eat first. Do you like
oysters?’

‘I don’t know.’

He thought a moment and said, ‘I think you will like them, but if you do not, there will be something else. You are not doomed to oysters.’

The cab stopped outside my house. We stood on the pavement a moment while I repeated the hour at which we were to meet; and parted.

The house was quiet. I went up to my room: I had just over an hour. As soon as I shut the door it dawned on me that I had nothing to wear; he would expect me to change and I had absolutely
nothing. I had only the pink frock he had seen me wear at the Lancings’. I dragged it out of its cardboard box. It presented the indescribably withered appearance that party clothes achieve
when they are not worn. It was old-fashioned, girlish and jaded; utterly impossible. I pushed the box under my bed and looked wildly through my wardrobe. I should have to wear my new dark grey
jacket and skirt; they were the only presentable garments I possessed, but I had nothing to wear with them which did not lower them to the drab and disreputable status of the rest of my wardrobe. I
hung the jacket and skirt on the back of my door, and stared at them. The skirt was well cut, the jacket charmingly braided; the ensemble possessed a large grey tam-o’-shanter to match it;
but all was lost unless I could procure a blouse.