The Beautiful Visit (35 page)

‘When did you return?’ she cried on seeing me.

‘A moment ago. Is Hubert back?’

‘Gracious no, I should hope he would give us some warning.’

‘Thank God for that,’ I thought. ‘Anyone is better than Hubert.’

Then she said: ‘A man called Mr Laing has called to see you. He says he knows you. He says he met you at the Lancings’ before the war. He’s been wounded,’ she added in
tones of rapturous solicitude.

‘Why on earth has he come here?’ I found myself repeating as I went down to the studio. ‘Why on earth come
here
? He could have written,’ I thought with a sudden
rush of anxiety and irritation.

I opened the studio door, and found him sitting in the leather arm-chair, drinking tea with my mother. He made some attempt to rise when I entered the room, but my mother motioned him back: I
saw that one of his legs was in plaster, and that a crutch lay on the floor by the tea table.

‘I told Mr Laing that you wouldn’t be long,’ said my mother.

‘My sister told me you were here. How are you, Rupert?’

‘As you see, a little the worse for war,’ he replied.

‘I’ll fetch you some tea, darling,’ said my mother and before I could stop her she had flown tactfully out of the room.

‘I really think,’ observed Rupert, ‘that your family expect me to propose to you on the spot.’

‘You’d better propose to me then. Having exposed yourself to my family, you must not disappoint them,’ I said crossly. I was still annoyed at the manner of his arrival.

‘All in good time,’ he said, staring at me. ‘You have grown up. I should hardly have known you.’

‘You haven’t changed at all.’

‘Are you not in the least glad to see me?’

‘I really don’t know. Yes, I suppose I am.’

‘You should be, you know. You should always be glad to see a soldier back from the wars. As I did not, so to speak, invoke the King’s sympathy for my leg in the shape of a medal, I
do feel entitled to a little feminine consideration.’

‘I am sure my sister provided you with all you were entitled to.’

‘Your mother likes me. I do think you should try and be polite to your mother’s friends.’

‘I did not think you were principally one of my mother’s friends.’

He replied in an utterly different voice: ‘I had forgotten about that. I’m sorry. I have been away so long that I had forgotten the details. I have reached the stage where I really
only notice whether someone is alive or dead. Anyway I like your mother.’

‘I like her. But that isn’t the point.’

‘No. I am sorry,’ he said again. ‘Will you have dinner with me tonight?’

I considered this for a moment. ‘If you like.’

‘I don’t like your sister,’ he said. ‘She gave me
exactly
what I deserved about my leg. Is this where your father worked?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you play the piano to me?’

‘No, I cannot play the piano to people.’

‘I am not people, and it is such a long time since I heard a piano.’

‘
No!
I said no.’

‘I wondered where your sensibility had got to,’ he observed. ‘I’ve lost mine. That is one reason why I
should
like to dine with you. Do you think your mother is
going to bring you tea?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll go and stop her. Do you want me to change?’ I was glad of a chance to escape.

‘Well, I cannot
honestly
say you look very nice as you are, but I doubt my being worth any very radical alteration. I seem to remember you in a pink dress.’

‘That was for dancing when I was sixteen.’

‘Ah yes. And how you are not sixteen, and you don’t dance.’

‘No,’ I said patiently. ‘Do you want something to read while I am away?’

‘I’ll find something. I am perfectly capable of rising to my feet if no one is watching and trying to help.’

I rose to go, and he said: ‘I am not really so tiresome as this. At least, I do not mean to be, and do not enjoy it when I am. I shall desist with the undergraduate backchat, when I have
spent a few hours alone with you. Please have dinner with me. I am sorry about appearing in the bosom of your family.’

So I had dinner with him; without any strong feeling one way or the other. He seemed to have disintegrated in the most alarming manner, and was quite incapable of concentrating on anything, even
to the end of a sentence. He asked me about myself but did not listen to the end of my replies; and he talked a great deal, without hearing, or, it seemed to me, caring, what he said. He was
irritable and self-conscious about his leg; and alternately boastful and depressed about his future. He continually reminded me of things we had said or done together, but he never remembered them
accurately, and lost interest when, at the beginning of the evening, I tried to correct him. ‘Did we?’ he would say.

Drumming his finger on the table he remarked, ‘My father has offered me the management of his estate, just like that. But of course, it doesn’t really offer much scope. I could do it
with one hand tied behind my back, and still have time to think. What’s your opinion?’ Without waiting for a reply he continued, ‘I’m no good at painting really, and even if
I were it will be impossible to make a living out of it. I should end up by drawing on pavements, though you know, I was never any good with chalk. I’m no good with anything. I’ve spent
so many years trying to make the best of a bad job. That is enough to finish anyone. Do you remember that walk we went with Deb? I wonder how she is getting on.’ We had never walked anywhere
with Deb, but I did not interrupt him to say so, as he continued, ‘She’s married, you know. They’ve asked me down there for Christmas. I know,
you
come too.’

‘I have not been asked.’

‘That doesn’t matter. I’ll ask them. They always make a good thing out of Christmas. No tinned puddings for them. Please come. My first Christmas home. You remember what fun we
had?’

Suddenly I became infected with the desire to go. My beautiful visit. I wanted badly to get away.

‘Will you ask Mrs Lancing whether shell have me?’

‘I’ll ask her now. Waiter! I want to send a telegram. Could you manage that for me do you think?’

The waiter hesitated, and then, looking at Rupert’s stiff white leg, said that he would do his best. Rupert wrote out a message on the back of an envelope, and gave him money. And that is
how I came to spend a second Christmas with the Lancings.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The day before my departure, my mother insisted that I buy at least one new garment. When I protested, she pressed on me the considerable sum of ten pounds, imploring me to
spend it. My sister offered to accompany me, in order to help me choose something sensible; but this I hastily declined. I took my mother, and we purchased a new black skirt, a coffee-coloured
shirt and a very superior mackintosh cape, the outside of which was dark green velveteen. We ended the afternoon with tea out; my mother seeming to enjoy the whole excursion hugely. Even I began to
view the prospect of Christmas in the country with pleasure. ‘You’ve looked so
pale
, darling,’ my mother kept saying, implying, rather optimistically I thought, that never
again should I look pale.

Rupert was to fetch me in a cab at eleven o’clock the following day. I packed my clothes, and began to wonder about the Lancings. My mother and sister wondered (aloud as much as they
dared) about Rupert. ‘Such a pity he has been wounded,’ said my mother, and mechanically I agreed; wondering what else was the matter with him.

My sister implied on the eve of my departure, that I was behaving in the most dissipated and selfish manner imaginable. Either I was missing my brothers’ return; or, in the event of their
not returning before Christmas, I was leaving her and my mother utterly alone, as she put it. She seemed unable to decide which was worse. She did not succeed in shaking me from my purpose, but she
managed to make me feel exceedingly sorry for my mother, who continued, however, pathetically anxious that I should go.

We left London shrouded in fog, which resolved to a white mist in the country. Rupert had brought innumerable papers which he strewed, half read, all over the compartment, while I stared out of
the window, unable to forget the last occasion on which I had been in the train.

‘I ought to be spending Christmas at home,’ Rupert suddenly remarked, some half an hour after the train had started.

‘Why?’

‘Oh, because it is expected of me. But having done what is expected of me for more than four years, I feel entitled to a little personal choice. They talk about nothing but the war. You
would think they had been through it. I can’t stand it. Give me the Lancings any day. Life will be just the same there as it used to be – you’ll see. Gerald was killed
though,’ he added. ‘You remember Gerald,’ he said when I remained silent.

‘Yes, very well.’

‘Although really they’ve come off better than most families. All those girls. Better to have girls.’

‘Who has Deb married?’ I asked, to change the subject.

‘I really don’t know. Some chap who lives quite near them. He has a job in some Ministry or other. Nice for Deb. She’s got two children, but that won’t have changed her.
How I hate journeys!’ he exclaimed. ‘I never want to go anywhere again. Just shut myself up in a little box, and have the box moved from time to time without my being aware of it.
It’s all the machinery of movement that bores me.’ We hardly spoke again until our arrival.

We were not met, so we took the station fly.

‘She’s certain to have muddled the trains, bless her,’ observed Rupert; and then, stretching out his leg, he exclaimed, ‘By Jove, it’s good to be back. Something to
come back to which won’t change.’

We both leaned forward as the fly rounded the drive and revealed the house. It was very quiet, and smaller than I remembered. The shutters (still crooked) had been repainted, but not the fading
stucco of the house. When we stopped, I heard the peevish rhythmic wail of a baby crying. Our driver, after glancing back at Rupert’s leg, jumped down and rang the bell. ‘How he must
hate these glances,’ I thought, ‘or perhaps he does not notice them’; but he said irritably, ‘Go on, out with you. Don’t wait patiently for me.’

We were met in the hall by Mrs Lancing herself, armed most incongruously with a hammer.

‘My dears,’ she said, looked at Rupert’s leg, and kissed us both.

‘My dears – Come along – I knew I was right about your train.’ We followed her, past the bowl of lavender, to the drawing-room.

‘Wretched fire – Parker will not dry out the logs,’ she exclaimed; looked doubtfully at the hammer; and laid it down on a small table covered with chestnuts.

‘Where is everybody?’ inquired Rupert when we had seated ourselves.

‘Some people are collecting holly for the church. Richard has been crying all the morning. That is darling Deb’s youngest child. Alfred is writing a letter to
The Times
, but
he meant to write it last week. Now I’m going to give you some sherry and hear all your news.’

Rupert proceeded to furnish her with his news, interpolating some general remarks about the war; upon which she interrupted him, saying, ‘That is exactly what Gerald always said. You know,
of course, that we lost him.’

Rupert began to murmur something, but she continued as though he had not spoken. ‘March 1917. He was hit by a bullet, and died at once. His Commanding Officer wrote me a very nice letter.
He said Gerald was killed instantaneously while attempting most gallantly to hold a position. He was killed instantaneously; no pain.’ She accompanied this last statement with a little social
smile of reassurance; her face contracted again, and I realized how very much older she seemed. She raised one of her hands to touch her hair: I noticed that the hand was trembling, and that her
hair was grey and lifeless.

‘Tell me about the others,’ said Rupert cheerfully. I looked at him in some surprise; to see that he was leaning forward smiling at her, almost loving her.

She pulled herself together. ‘The others. Well, darling Deb is married – Aubrey Hurst – such a nice man, who has been doing something very clever at the Foreign Office. She has
two babies. Charles, who is a lamb, and no trouble at all, and Richard, who has a very strong character. Alfred adores them. They have made all the difference to him. Of course Nanny is here with
them . . .’

‘How’s Toby?’

‘Dear Toby. He’s had a horrid attack of bronchitis this term and he’s growing so fast. I’m afraid he isn’t too dreadfully strong, but Alfred says I worry too
much.’

The door opened and a tall rather colourless girl came in.

‘They’ve arrived,’ cried Mrs Lancing triumphantly. ‘You remember Elinor.’

‘But I’ve just sent Parker to the station. You said twelve forty-five, Mother.’

‘I know I did, and here they are. Even earlier!’

‘Shall we try and stop Parker?’ said Rupert.

‘It’s too late, I saw him leave.’ Elinor smiled at me. ‘Has Mother shown you your rooms?’

‘No dear. We were drinking sherry and I was telling them about – everybody. And Gerald. They wanted to know about Gerald. But you show them their rooms. Lunch is at a quarter to one
because of Toby.’

‘I don’t want to see my room,’ said Rupert. ‘I want to hear the letter to
The Times.
And more sherry.’

‘You need the bandage on your leg re-doing,’ observed Elinor, with more animation than she had previously shown.

‘Oh no I don’t. You leave my leg alone.’

‘Dear Elinor can do anything!’ exclaimed Mrs Lancing, rather as though she wished dear Elinor couldn’t.

I had the same bedroom as before. When Elinor left me, I laid my jacket on the bed, and stared out of the window at the lawn, the river, the park and the copse. It seemed unchanged; even the
rooks and moorhens jostled and slid across my view as they had done before. ‘I suppose they
are
different rooks and moorhens,’ I heard myself say aloud; but it was hard to
believe that they were. I wondered what Deb would be like; and whether Lucy and Elspeth were in the house, but I was in no great hurry to satisfy these curiosities. I unpacked my clothes, without
any anxious speculation as to their quality and quantity when compared with those of the others, and was combing my hair when there was a knock on the door, and Lucy entered. Except that she was
taller, and that her hair was knotted in a tight sleek bun, she had not changed at all.