The Beautiful Visit (38 page)

Rupert suddenly began the most fantastic stories about London in war time. After a few minutes, nobody took him seriously, and there was a good deal of laughter, in the midst of which Aubrey
appeared.

My first impression on seeing Aubrey, was amused admiration that Deb should have discovered, and then married, someone who seemed so exactly designed to pair with her. He was tall, dark,
discreetly handsome; and, as I was very soon to discover, he invariably made the right remark at the right moment. (Afterwards, one realized that it was rather an obvious remark to make; but at the
time he produced it with such a charming air of modesty and kindliness – this is only a small white rabbit, but it is all I can find in my hat, and perhaps it may please you – that one
could not but be charmed.)

Now, he begged not to interrupt; managed to be introduced to Rupert and me; to salute his elder child; to inquire respectfully of Nanny after his younger; to meet Deb’s eye with intimate
admiration; and to seat himself at the table next to her with the kind of appetite Nanny would expect of him: he managed all this in a few moments, and then steered the conversation back to
Rupert’s imaginary exploits in London.

Nanny insisted on making a small special pot of tea. It was plain that she adored him, that he dazzled Elinor and pleased Lucy. It was only not plain how precisely he affected Deb.

Rupert concluded his tale by turning to Aubrey and saying, ‘That was solely for the benefit of your wife, who seems to have an incomprehensible passion for London.’

‘I know she has. I have quite enough of it myself, but I expect we shall all end by living there. If Nanny doesn’t desert us. But she doesn’t realize,’ he continued,
having secured Nanny’s devoted denial, ‘how expensive London has become for a beautiful woman, or that I am only a poor struggling minnow at the Foreign Office.’ And he smiled
brilliantly at Deb.

‘I only want a small house.’

‘Yes, darling, and a motor car, and four servants – But you shall have them all so soon as anyone will buy my very inexpensive soul.’

‘You might get sent abroad somewhere,’ said Deb.

‘I might,’ he said, anxious to agree with her.

‘You easily might,’ repeated Deb.

‘I’m sure you would be able to go too,’ said Lucy.

‘The climate might be very unsuitable for the children,’ said Elinor.

‘Why?’ Deb stared at her. ‘There are surely very few places where children do not live; and Aubrey would have to be a great failure to get sent to one of them.’

‘Children have to be born in places to live in them. Sometimes even that isn’t enough.’

‘One surely is not expected to have one’s entire life arranged by children . . .’

The atmosphere suddenly became unbearable; then Aubrey cleared his throat and said: ‘In any case, I think you would enjoy a year or two in London first, as you missed your season; and
after that, I hope I shall be in a position to select somewhere, within reason, which would be suitable for all of us, including Nanny.’

‘That’s right, Mr Aubrey, we must all cross our bridges when we come to them,’ said Nanny approvingly. ‘Drink down your nice milk, Charles.’

After tea, we all played musical bumps, ostensibly for the benefit of Charles, who hit his head on the corner of the rocking horse, and didn’t enjoy any of it. Rupert worked the
gramophone, and Aubrey nearly won, being left at the end with Lucy and Deb. The latter was defeated by the gasping triumphant Lucy. It was then clear that Aubrey intended to give Lucy a good run
for her money, and let her win. He did this, from his point of view, extremely well; so that Lucy was convinced that he was fairly beaten, while at the same time it was perfectly clear to at least
Deb, Rupert and me, that he lost intentionally.

‘I’m beaten!’ he exclaimed in good-tempered distress. ‘Your aunt has beaten me, Charles! Never mind, I shall win next time.’ And I felt that, in the interest of
family diplomacy, he probably would.

After dinner, while Rupert and Aubrey played chess, the rest of us spent the evening mending, with glue, needles, cotton and other oddments, the large and battered collection of Christmas tree
ornaments. ‘We
must
use the same ones,’ Lucy had said at the beginning of the evening.

The whole family apparently agreed with her, for they spent, and I helped them, hours of patience and ingenuity, on a multitude of fragile tarnished objects. I remember suddenly looking up to
see Lucy sticking the dry yellow hair on to the head of a fairy doll; watching her intent, and happy, and disproportionately serious, and wondering whether I had dreamed or imagined her passionate
outburst in the wood. But then I felt that when I had first known her, she would not have been quite so serious about the doll, and I knew that I had not dreamed.

She had divulged her secret. I was imprisoned with mine, and the new fear which accompanied it. In the dark of my room I wept for Ian; resolving that it should be the last time I wept for him;
that I would leave him dead, would not consider how he died, would not try to think of him apart from myself. For a moment I allowed myself to remember him bending his head and kissing me, then
walking away; the two doors slamming; the cab, and the silence. I endured the silence until I slept.

CHAPTER THIRTY

For the week before Christmas we all ate and played and slept, and generally fulfilled our functions in the house. We saw few people outside the house, and too much of each
other, since the Lancings all tended to drift together for any arrangement. We saw too much of each other because for the amount of time involved, we communicated remarkably seldom. A man will pick
his friend for some common interest; the friendship will flourish largely as the interest flourishes. A woman will pick her friend for some more or less intangible sympathy, emotional or
compensative; and this friendship flourishes, dependent on continuing sympathy. But a family does not pick its component parts. It is marched down the aisle, and gradually born. It becomes so used
to itself, it is so dependent upon regarding itself as a whole, that its individuals must find it increasingly difficult to have any emotions unrelated to other members; because if they
do
give vent to these emotions, the family, that public private life of its own, is threatened, and re-retaliates.

The Lancings were far gone in family life. They had reached the state where the real desires and feelings of each one of them were hidden from each other one. Nevertheless I, being outside the
family (in a sense, more outside it than Rupert, who wished to identify himself with it), was increasingly aware of the private underlying tensions. These were not, perhaps, very significant, the
Lancings having well developed the capacity of concentrating upon the many communal diversions with which they provided themselves, but they did exist; and I, unable to throw myself into the
diversions with the abandon I had previously enjoyed, had very little else to do but watch the small personal struggles of temperament against the settled environment.

It was almost immediately clear that Deb was not happy, and that she was consequently not kind to Aubrey. Aubrey, however, seemed genuinely unaware of this. The rest of the family protected him
as best they could, and pretended not to notice. Deb roved about the house, beautiful, discontented, capricious and, above all, bored. She obviously intended to appear all these things, and it was
some time before I realized how unhappy she must be. Then I noticed that the more time Rupert spent with me, even if he did not spend it exclusively with me, the more distant she became; until she
was so positively rude that I felt it could hardly escape notice. I think Rupert noticed it (he seemed very much attracted to her), but no one else did, or, if they did, they were relieved that she
was not being rude to Aubrey. I formed the conclusion that she was in love with Rupert, or very near it, and that he was aware of this and frightened by it. It upset his notion of a jolly family
pre-war Christmas. He pursued me with a kind of relentless desperation, aware that the Lancings viewed this with approval. I also began to suspect that Elinor was quietly and hopelessly in love
with Aubrey. It was always she, I observed, who flew to his rescue when Deb attempted to disconcert or embarrass him, to puncture his modesty and good temper. He was more the great man with Elinor,
more the possessor of brilliant inside information: he knew more than he could possibly tell her, while with Deb he knew less than he dared admit.

I reached all these conclusions amid a whirl of secrets and presents and general Christmas plans, and, much of the time, it was difficult not to think I was merely dramatizing or enlarging
situations which barely existed. But then I would see Lucy breathless with tickling Toby on the sofa; or clamouring to ride Deb’s devilish black mare; or pink with importance over packing her
Christmas presents: I would remember her leaning against the tree, her frantic outpourings of what must have been to her the most horrible story conceivable, and the infinitely touching manner in
which she had said that when other people talked about Gerald, her heart broke out. And sometimes, when Mrs Lancing mentioned Gerald (which she seemed unable to help doing at every possible
opportunity), I would see Lucy flinch, and try to smile, or simply smile. Then the chasm between the family and each member of it yawned suddenly. I would watch Lucy withdraw from it, trembling
over the skates that she would once have given Gerald and would now give to Toby; would watch her feverishly trying to decide whether to tie the parcel in red ribbon or green; watch the chasm close
up again, as her mother approved the red ribbon and she scrambled to hide the skates because Toby had entered the room.

Toby suffered a little, perhaps, from being too much the object of Mrs Lancing’s passionate anxiety and care, but for a greater part of the time he remained unaware of this, and of almost
everything else. His life was rendered full and complicated by the fact that he considered roller skates superior, if not necessary, as a means of transport. He and several noisy and dangerously
accomplished friends spent hours building ramps up and down steps and staircases, rolling gravel paths, and indulging in the most appalling accidents. Sometimes, however, I would see Toby submit
with uncharacteristic docility to his hair being ruffled by his mother; or to a long and tiresome rest, so placed that, as he would sadly explain to anyone else present, it ruined his day.

Mr Lancing lived, so far as I could determine, an extremely exhausting life of leisure. That is to say he ostensibly did nothing, but was perpetually occupied with the most exacting and onerous
self-employment. He, alone of all the family, spent much of his time without them. On fine days he would swallow his breakfast and stump into the hall, where he would collect a large and intricate
tape measure designed by himself, an old tweed cap, a villainous knobbly stick, and a small nervous little henchman called Salt, who was largely composed of long drooping moustaches and frightened
faithful eyes. He would disappear for the day, occasionally sending Salt back for sandwiches. What he actually did remained a mystery. I noticed that Salt carried a large notebook in which be wrote
down, or attempted to write down, everything that Mr Lancing said. This, as Mr Lancing appeared when alone with Salt to talk incessantly on an endless variety of subjects, and usually when standing
or walking at great speed, was naturally a somewhat difficult task, but Salt, with a spare pencil behind one ear, stuck faithfully to the job. We would sometimes watch Mr Lancing stride off,
shouting information down the drive or across the park, Salt trotting behind him, the pages of the notebook flapping. On wet days, Mr Lancing would be discovered reorganizing the gun-room or
repairing inexhaustible quantities of broken wine decanters, reputed to be his own wedding presents; and Salt was nowhere to be found. Any tidying or mending Mr Lancing did involved a chaos which,
temporarily, at least, almost stopped the entire household. His most peaceful days were occupied in writing immense, abusive and erudite letters to newspapers. From all these pursuits he emerged at
meals, and occasionally in the evenings, calm, silent and benign. He was devoted to his grandchildren, the elder of whom he frightened horribly, largely because in its presence he insisted on
impersonating a lion. Charles could hardly be expected to know this, and invariably retreated, howling, to the nearest woman. This caused Mr Lancing great disappointment. He persisted, however,
certain that Charles would see the joke in the end.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Just before Christmas Elspeth arrived with the two entirely new men. The latter, called George and Nicholas, were quite unremarkable in any way; but Elspeth, with whom the two
young men were evidently in love, was certainly remarkable. She was now eighteen, and where she had been precocious, was now fascinating, where she had been an oddly attractive child, was now an
unusually beautiful young woman. Her once long hair was now bobbed, and lay sleek and shining on her head; her clothes were expensive, and unlike everyone else’s, in their neatness and
severity; and she was possessed of a high, perfectly clear, voice, which in some way crowned her distinction. Altogether she imparted a glamour, an elegance to the household, which was badly in
need of stimulation. She arrived with a small quantity of luxurious luggage, and an Alsatian dog who followed her everywhere, but on whom she bestowed almost no attention. She greeted everyone with
enthusiasm, and at dinner, when we were all dressed in various depressing frocks ranging from beige lace to blue velveteen, caused a minor sensation by appearing in a white silk shirt, grey tie and
sleek black skirt.

‘Is this what young women are wearing for purposes of education?’ inquired Mr Lancing. He pretended to disapprove of her, but was in reality fascinated.

‘Oh no, Uncle. It is merely what this young woman wears for amusement.’

‘Are you terribly educated?’ asked Rupert.

‘Terribly terribly educated. It is really the result of my darling uncle worrying for years about my spare time. He has educated me so much that nobody could possibly marry me and so that
I know how difficult every thing is and how little I know. And now he’s stuck, poor lamb. It is frightfully sad for him.’