The Beautiful Visit (4 page)

‘I can’t go. I don’t want to go. Don’t make me. Say I’m ill. I
am
ill. I shall be ill if I go. I can’t be ill in a strange house. It wouldn’t
matter if you said I couldn’t go. Please mother I can’t go away’ ... My voice stopped. I was crying tears on to the frock, soaking little dark pink circles; and in a minute the
assistant would come back. I felt a handkerchief soft in my hand; I smelt lavender water, and the warm sweet smell of my mother: which made it much worse. I couldn’t speak, or stop crying:
and then I was in the fitting-room again, sitting on a round chair, blowing my nose, and feeling incredibly stupid and sad. My mother was treating me as a child; holding my shoulders, and seeming
beautiful and necessary again; saying that she understood, but of course I must go, and things were nice once you had started them, and I should soon be back, and so sad that it was over. Now I
must stop crying and come home and be pleased about my frock. So I stopped and we went home. I didn’t feel less terrified about going away, only a little relieved that my mother knew, and I
was not entirely alone with my fears.

CHAPTER FOUR

I was not ill. The morning arrived when I came down from my room with its bare dressing-table and my small trunk packed and strapped in the middle of the floor; and was
enjoined to eat a good breakfast.

My father took me to the station. I know I felt faintly apologetic in the midst of my apathy; he disliked trains; they made him nervous. He found me a corner seat in a second-class carriage
which possessed a large old lady who looked at me with inquisitive kindness, assuring my father of her protection.

‘Well,’ said my father. ‘You know where you have to get out?’ I nodded.

‘Got something to read?’ I shook my head. There was a lump in my throat.

‘Well, you can amuse yourself looking out of the window. Your luggage is at the back of the train.’ He edged out of the carriage, and looked up the platform, at the clock, I
guessed.

‘Don’t wait,’ I said. I wanted him to very much, but he nodded, offered me his pale grey face to kiss, almost smiled, and was gone.

I opened my bag, containing a new leather purse, my ticket, one sovereign, and sixpence for the porter; shook out my handkerchief and blew my nose. It had begun. I stared out of the window and
wondered whether everyone in the station had travelled alone and how much they had minded. The old lady suddenly offered me a pear drop which I accepted. It was rather common to eat sweets in a
train in the morning but I was afraid she would be hurt.

The old lady asked me where I was going, and what did I do at home, and whether I liked animals; and then told me about herself. She told me nearly her whole life, because the train started
quite soon, and she never stopped talking. Her life was very dull; mostly about how animals loved her and how much her sister disapproved, because her sister was very religious, and didn’t
believe that animals had souls and went to heaven. It all seemed pretty dull to me, or else she never told me the interesting bits. She had always lived in one house; and now she was left with her
sister, whom I don’t think she liked; their father having been a clergyman who died of a stroke when he was quite old. That was a horrible bit: she described his face and muttering with no
one able to understand a word he said. They had nursed him devotedly, until one day when he sat up, said ‘Thank God,’ and died.

We were in the country by then. There was fine drizzling rain, so that houses looked remote, mysterious and too small; and the cows in the fields lay and waited like sofas on a pavement;
patient, uncomfortable and somehow rakish. The train stopped four times, but it was never my station, and the old lady didn’t get out; until I began to think that she didn’t have a
station, but simply lived on pear drops in a train and told people about animals.

The old lady eventually said that my station was next. I tidied my hair, and looked in my purse to see if the sixpence was still there.

The train stopped, and I got out. The old lady said I was sure to enjoy myself, young people always did, and settled herself back in her corner seat.

I collected my trunk and it was wheeled outside the small station by a porter. I could see no one to meet me at all. It was cold and still raining; and I began to feel very frightened again. The
rain dripped off the scalloped edges of the platform roofs and gathered in sullen little puddles on the gravel; the tree trunks looked black and slippery like mackintosh. The porter asked me where
I was going. I told him The Village, whereupon he said They thought the train came fifteen minutes later than she do, they’ll be along, well miss he’d be leaving me. So there was
nothing for it but to give him the sixpence and wait.

They came at last, a boy and a girl, in a pony trap.

‘How long have you been waiting?’

‘Not very long.’

‘Mother’s fault again. She’s hopeless about trains. She simply makes up the time they arrive and it’s always wrong. Last week we were half an hour early.’

The boy shouted:

‘Joe. I want a hand with this trunk. Here I’ll find him.’ He disappeared.

The girl smiled encouragingly.

‘Get in. It’s no drier, but at least there’s a seat.’ I climbed up clumsily and sat beside her.

‘My name’s Lucy,’ she said. ‘What’s yours?’

I told her.

‘It was jolly nice of you to come. I hate staying with people, don’t you?’ For a moment I was outfaced.

‘I’ve never done it before, but I thought I would hate it.’

She flicked the whip across the pony’s back. ‘You won’t by tomorrow. Keep still you. We have great fun these holidays. Lots of people. We’re having a dance on Christmas
Eve. I hope you’ve got a frock.’

‘Yes, I did bring one.’

‘Good. How old are you?’ I told her. ‘I’m just sixteen too. Can you skate?’

My heart sank. ‘No. I’m afraid not.’

‘Well you needn’t. I hate it, it hurts your ankles.’ She stretched out a long thin boot. ‘But Gerald adores it.’

‘Is he your cousin?’

‘My brother. I have two sisters and two brothers but the whole place is full of cousins.’

‘Is there any ice for skating?’

‘Not yet. But Gerald says there will be. He’s always right about things he likes. He’s awfully good at it. He simply skims about. Lovely to watch.’ She turned her thin,
pale pink face to me eager and friendly. ‘What do
you
like?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘Oh well,’ she said cheerfully, ‘there’s lots to do. The great thing is not to mind doing it till you’ve tried. Here comes Gerald.’

My trunk was hoisted in and we set off; Lucy driving, with Gerald a watchful critic.

‘I shall tell mother about that train. She really ought to know better. Can you skate?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘But I’d love to learn.’

Lucy gave me a brilliant smile; I smiled back, and it was delightful.

‘Look where you’re going, Lucy.’

‘Gerald thinks only men can drive and talk. Women are so lucky to be allowed to drive at all that they certainly shouldn’t speak or enjoy it. Their poor little minds aren’t
capable of thinking about two things at once.
Don’t
Gerald.’ They were laughing, the trap was all over the road, and I felt much happier.

‘It’s easy,’ I thought, ‘staying with people is easy;’ then thought of the house and unknown family and shivered a little because I was wet.

‘Cold?’ said Lucy. Large drops of rain slipped down her face and thin arched nose, and watered her silky-gold strands of hair. Her eyes seemed almost transparently wet, so darkly
grey, clear and alive.

‘Of course she’s cold. We’re all cold
and
hungry. Hurry up Lucy, think of lunch.’

We trotted through a silent streaming village, into a drive, with an elegant iron gate swung back and embedded in brilliant soft grass; round a gentle curve edged with iron railings, to the
sweep before the house: a square cream-coloured house, with large square windows and green shutters; a magnificent cedar tree like a butler, old, indispensable and gloomy; and curls of smoke, the
colour of distance, creeping sedately up out of the squat mulberry chimneys.

We walked slowly past the house through an arch into a cobbled courtyard, surrounded by buildings, which smelled of moss and leather, hot wet animals, and a curiously pungent clean smell that I
afterwards learned was saddle soap. A white-haired man limped out of a loose box and took the pony’s head. He looked very fierce, until I realized that one eye stared out sideways unwinking
like a parrot. Gerald helped me out. ‘Parker will bring your trunk.’

We walked back through the arch, pushed open the green front door, and were in the large hall. I shall never forget the smell of that house. Logs, lavender and damp, the old scent of a house
that has been full of flowers for so many years that the very pollen and flower pots stay behind intangibly enchanting – candles and grapes – weak aged taffeta stretched on the chairs
– drops of sherry left in fragile shallow glasses – nectarines and strawberries – the warm earthy confidential odour of enormous books and butterfly smell of the pages, a
combination of leather and moth – dense glassy mahogany ripe with polishing and the sun – guns and old coats – smooth dead fur on the glaring sentimental deers’ heads
– beeswax, brown sugar and smoke – it smelled of everything I first remember seeing there, and I shall never forget it.

We hurried along a passage into the drawing-room. It was very full of people. Lucy took my hand, and led me up to a thin delicate woman who was sitting bolt upright in a tall thin armchair,
doing an intricate and incredibly ugly piece of embroidery in a wooden frame stuck with nails and festooned with strands of coloured wool.

‘Here she is. This is my mother,’ said Lucy. Lucy’s mother had a pair of mild blue eyes and a blue-veined hand with rings that dug into my fingers.

‘You are Mary’s eldest daughter?’ she said. As I had never heard my mother called Mary I kept politely silent.

‘No, Mother, she came last week.’

‘Ah yes. Then
I
know who you are.’

‘And you were quite wrong about the train, Mother.’

‘Nonsense. Here she is. How could I have been wrong?’

A gong boomed.

‘Lunch?’ said Lucy’s mother. ‘Come with me. Wash your hands, people. Mind the jigsaw.’

A boy got up from beside its fragments. ‘That is Mary’s eldest son,’ said Lucy’s mother triumphantly, as she rose from her chair, scattering little balls of wool, heavy
decorative thimbles, and tiny crumpled white handkerchiefs over the carpet.

We went to lunch, after washing our hands in a flower sink in the passage. We sat at an enormous table with a bowl of Christmas roses. At first, I had a confused impression of boys and girls,
with Lucy’s mother carving cold mutton neatly and fast at one end, and an oldish man, who came in last with a glass of sherry, at the other. Then I began trying very hard to sort them out;
their brown hands, freckles, fair heads, dark eyes. In a moment we seemed to have reached the fruit pie (with too much sugar on it); streaks of clear crimson juice round hectic shining mouths;
small hands crushing nutcrackers, the nut escaping with a teasing bounce; chairs scraping back; and older hands crumbling bread in the ensuing peace. The first meal, a ceremony I had been dreading
for weeks, was over, and when I counted the meals that remained, as I had so miserably counted them many times before, it was already with an entirely new and welcome regret that they could be so
easily numbered.

CHAPTER FIVE

After lunch I was taken to my bedroom, which was small, square, and white, with dark wood and a gorgeous carpet, a Lord Mayorish carpet, rich, and somehow vulgar. There was a
second door in one corner.

Out of the window I could see a wide gravel path, flower beds, a long slanting lawn drifting into distant long grass down the slope to a lazy winding river, with reeds, and moorhens in an
ungraceful hurry. Rising beyond the river were a field or park, picked out with big casual trees; and a copse at the top of a gentle crest, held together, it seemed, by railings, like an elastic
band round a bunch of twigs. Above this a grey sky was framed on either side by scarce bony trees, which were distorted high up, with dense dark jagged nests.

‘Rooks,’ said Lucy behind me.

‘How did you know I was looking?’

‘I didn’t. But you would have asked me. People always ask what they are. Come out. You’d better get some thicker shoes.’

‘I’d better unpack.’

‘Nanny’ll do it. Just get your boots out.’ We struggled over the trunk.

‘Are you awfully rich?’ I asked as it opened.

‘Good heavens, I don’t know. Papa wouldn’t tell me, because he won’t give me a new saddle unless it’s a side saddle. I would like to ride like a boy, but it’s
not delicate. Life for women is terribly unfair, you know.’ She sat on the floor holding her knees, earnestly sad.

‘Is that what it is?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, things haven’t felt right to me for some time now. Years really,’ I added, feeling old and extravagant about my life. ‘But I didn’t think of it being worse
for women.’

‘Of course it is!’ cried Lucy energetically. ‘Who gets the best ponies? The boys. Or they get a horse and we have to rattle about on little grass-fed creatures with no wind. If
Papa has an expedition and only a few may go, it’s always the boys. They’re always allowed to learn things first. Fishing and driving; and they shoot, but Papa says I may not. And their
clothes are so much more suitable. When I was fourteen I cut off my hair and there was a fearful row . . .’

‘Right off?’

‘Up to here,’ she placed her fingers just below her ears. ‘It was very uneven. I did it with Nanny’s cutting-out scissors. But of course I had to grow it again. And
everyone laughed. Except Gerald. He thought I looked jolly fine.’

All my clothes and possessions seemed strange and far away; belonging to my home and London, and even to the train; but not to me and this house. Boots at the bottom, of course. I plunged.

‘And chocolate pudding,’ burst Lucy. ‘They always get second helpings of that. Girls aren’t supposed to mind about food. Except fruit. It’s all right to like fruit.
Sometimes I can hardly bear it. Still, we do go to bed at the same time. And Gerald says I have beautiful hands. He’d trust me with his own horse, he says.’