The Beautiful Visit (43 page)

When she had nothing more to say, I took her hand and led her to the only chair in my room. Then I sat on the bed facing her. She was pushing the hairpins back into her thick slippery hair, and
staring at me with a haggard, somewhat vacant expression.

‘You cannot.’ I said patiently, ‘simply marry someone because you see them and want to be married. You do not know this man. You might not like him.’

‘I have not had a chance with him. I have never had a chance.’

‘But he might not like you. He might not in the least want to marry you.’

She flushed again. ‘You’ve set him against me!’

‘Don’t be foolish. We have not discussed you.’

I suppose you are so sure of him,’ she said. I suppose you do mean to marry him in the end.’

‘No, I do not. I don’t want to marry for the sake of marrying.’ As soon as I said this and heard how smug it sounded I felt rather ashamed.

‘How do you know that he doesn’t?’ she asked suddenly.

It was the first acute remark she had made. I was taken off my guard and said lamely: ‘I
don’t
know.’

Well, why won’t you help me? It’s not very much to ask. If you really don’t want him yourself, why shouldn’t you at least ask him here so that I have a chance to see him
again?’

I was trapped. I had already said that Rupert and I had not discussed her, so I could hardly say now that the only remark he had made about her had been far from flattering.

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘You are trying to put me off,’ she said and began to cry.

‘He might not want to come here now he knows that I won’t marry him.’

‘The letter,’ she sobbed, ‘you know what he says in the letter. Oh I wish I were dead! Everything happens to you and nothing to me. It is you who go off and find people and do
things, and I can’t. I’m not made that way. I thought I could lose myself in work, but now there is no work, and Mother does not need all I have to give. I’m sick of this house
that is too big for us and trying to find things to do. I want a nice little home: with Mother, of course; and children, and everything arranged by me.’ She pulled out a little handkerchief
embroidered by herself, and wiped her eyes. ‘Do you know, I have never even had a letter from a man? Of course Hubert used to write to me sometimes. But even he doesn’t seem very
anxious to come home, and he is only a brother, after all. Men don’t recognize the lasting qualities in women. You are hopeless in the house and yet he wants to marry you! How can you refuse
him!’ she added inconsistently. ‘What do you mean to do instead?’

‘I don’t know.’ I was becoming very tired of this question, because even on the rare occasions when other people were not asking it, I was asking myself, and I never had any
satisfactory reply.

My sister stared at me morosely. ‘You must be mad.’ she said at last.

I am sorry I struck you.’ I said awkwardly.

‘Oh. Of course I forgive you,’ she replied. She did not apologize for opening my letter.

Nor was that the end of it.

My sister and I avoided each other for the rest of that evening (she had left the room when she had forgiven me, still pressing the embroidered handkerchief to her eyes); but next day she
resumed her attack. When was I going to ask Rupert to tea? Why had I not already asked him? Why did I not at least
ask
him? In the end, worn down by a series of little urgent private scenes
with her I gave in, and wrote asking Rupert to tea. She posted the letter herself, and was then unaccountably irritable for the rest of the day.

Rupert accepted the invitation; my sister made various absurd and pathetic preparations; and I dreaded the whole thing so much that I felt sick when I thought of it. One preparation of my
sister’s consisted in manoeuvring our mother out of the house. She did this by the simple expedient of telling our mother that
I
did not want her there; but I only discovered this
afterwards.

Rupert was due to arrive at four o’clock, but at half past, when he still had not appeared, we received a telegram to the effect that he was unable to come.

My sister, who seemed in the most alarming state of nerves, broke down completely at this. She wept, became hysterical, and finally accused me of conspiring with Rupert against her. After a
useless interminable scene, I got her to her room with aspirin and lavender water and a handkerchief round the lamp. My mother returned and, when my sister did not come down for dinner (she had
locked her door and would not answer me when I tried to fetch her), I learned why my mother had gone out.

I had been thinking very hard since the end of the scene with my sister, and after dinner I took the plunge and told my mother what I intended doing. She listened to me carefully, and made no
objection, which was worse, of course, than even the most selfish or unreasonable opposition. She even offered me a little, a very little, money, which was, I am sure, more than she could afford. I
explained that I was out of sympathy with my sister, and that I thought the situation was likely to get worse. My mother did not understand me. She suggested hopelessly that perhaps things would be
better when my brothers came home, although she admitted that Tom would go straight to his school and Hubert showed no signs of appearing at all. Then she reverted to worries about money. One by
one she enumerated my own fears, and one by one I pretended to explode them. She believed me. By the end of the evening she was quite full of lighthearted admiration for the scheme, or pretended to
be.

I fell asleep stretching thirty pounds over twelve months so thinly that the weeks showed through, and I had to make shillings of the pounds.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The end of it was that I found, after much searching, a room in which I could live by myself. The search took several days, partly because I had no idea how to start anything
of the kind, and partly because even when I had learned something about it, there was the problem of finding a respectable room that I possibly dare afford.

I began by crossing Kensington Gardens to Bayswater and searching the streets at random for houses with signs about letting rooms. I did find one or two, but their landladies were expensive and
disproportionately suspicious. One of them, who raised my spirits by being much cheaper, scratched herself furiously while I told her what I wanted, and then, withdrawing her hand from the small of
her back, laughed so much that she broke two exceedingly dirty milk bottles which had been propped on her doorstep. She kicked the pieces of glass into the area and slammed her door.

As I neared Paddington station there were more and more houses with rooms to let., I became very used to ringing the bell at some gaunt house, to the door being opened (generally by a
pasty-faced girl with half her wits about her and a cold), to explaining what I wanted, to the girl shouting ‘Mum!’ or ‘Auntie!’ or ‘Vi!’, to the appearance of
some woman who was invariably too fat or too thin, and to whom I must explain all over again what I wanted, and then either to being turned away, or to being shown some attic which was damp, dirty
or dark, and very often all three, and finally to the long silent descent of the house after I had fabricated some excuse for declining the room – and then the street again.

The first day was utterly abortive; on the second I discovered the invaluable assistance of local newspapers; on the third, the still more invaluable assistance of newspaper shops. It was in one
of these that I found, approximately, what I was looking for.

I was scanning the rows of miscellaneous advertisements stuck to his window with stampedge when the shopkeeper himself beckoned to me.

‘Thought I might help you. I know them cards off by heart.’ he began. ‘What is it, a little dawg, or yer Mum’s tiara?’

I told him, and he whistled.

‘Don’t know London, do you?’ he said. ‘You want somewhere quiet, and respectable,
and
cheap. I know. Just come off the train you ’ave.’ He nodded
knowingly. ‘Now, let’s see, what ’ave we? We got everything ’ere,’ he said after a minute’s fruitless search in a large greasy blue book. ‘Ah! Here we have
it. Mrs Pompey. Number sixteen.’ He scribbled something on a card and pushed it across the counter. ‘Schoolmaster’s widder. You say I sent you. Williams is the name. Tell
’er ’er ad’s lapsed. Turn left outside the shop, keep straight on down and then right turn. Orlright?’

I thanked him gratefully.

‘You can get yer papers ’ere,’ he called cheerfully as I shut the door.

Number sixteen was in the middle of a terrace of tall thin houses, but was quite noticeable, being painted a rich apricot cream with a black front door. (The door was newly painted.) There was
nothing to say that rooms were to be let. However, I rang the bell. Mrs Pompey answered the door. She was a little woman with no neck and a strong Scottish accent. I explained who had sent me, and
what I wanted, while she surveyed me keenly.

‘What do you want to pay?’ she said.

I nervously stated my maximum figure.

There was a short silence.

It’s not very much, is it?’ she said.

I added another two shillings to my price.

‘I have one room I might let you have at that,’ she said. Will you step inside while I close the door?’

I stepped into a hall which was pitch black when she shut the door.

‘Will you follow me up, then?’

One floor from the top she halted and unlocked a door. At the same moment a loud bell rang twice from somewhere below us.

‘Perhaps you’d step inside and be looking round you a minute. I shall be back.’ And she hastened away.

The room was small, rectangular and clean. It was not very light, although possessed of a fair-sized sash window. The window, I discovered looked squarely out on to a sooty brick wall of a
neighbouring house, which stood but three yards away, and which was broken only by olive green drainpipes. There would never be very much more light, I realized, although the afternoon was a dull
one. I turned to the rest of the room. There was a black iron and brass bed, covered by a flaming slippery counterpane. The walls were covered in streaky buff paper which was heavily laced with
mauve wistaria clinging to a darker buff trellis. There were a small gas fire and ring, a washstand with huge pitcher, a large highly polished wardrobe with an oval mirror set in its door, a
comfortless armchair bristling with horsehair and little vicious round buttons, a stained oak chest of drawers. There were two pictures on the walls, one of which was entitled ‘First
Love’. I did not have time to examine the other before Mrs Pompey entered the room.

‘Well, have you decided?’ she began. She was a woman, I discovered, who went straight from one point to the next, wasting no time at all.

I started. I had been surveying the room with a minute, objective interest, but I had forgotten the purpose for which I was surveying it

‘You will see there is a gas ring, and the bathroom is across the passage. I change the linen once a week and you have your own keys. No visitors after seven, and one hot meal a day for an
extra consideration. This is a respectable household and I wouldn’t take gentlemen if they paid me.’

I did not feel that she would take anyone who did
not
pay her. However, I said nothing.

‘What is your opinion?’ she pressed after a moment.

I looked wildly round the room. It was not in the least what I had imagined, but I had searched for three days now, and did not seem likely to procure anything better.

‘I should like to take it, please.’

‘One month’s rent in advance, and when would you be coming in?’ she said instantly.

‘Tomorrow. I have to fetch my things.’

And so the bargain was concluded. In the end I obtained the room and the meal for the original price she had agreed to. I paid the rent, and she hastened away for a receipt, while I waited in
the dark hall.

I left with the keys, and strong, but very mixed feelings. By the time I had reached home, however, the situation settled itself into a romantic attitude of escape and a new life. I told my
mother that I had a clean and cheap room with a respectable landlady, and that I was leaving the following day. I was so intent upon concealing my anxieties and fears that I succeeded in sounding
merely callous about the whole thing; but my mother tried to enter into the spirit of it, helping me to pack, bringing me little pots of jam, and encouraging my optimism (assembled for her benefit)
as much as she was able. My sister absented herself from these preparations in a marked manner. She had made one remark to the effect that I should soon return, after which she had ignored me.

‘You will come back if you are ill?’ asked my mother when we said good night.

‘I’ll come back anyway, in two days’ time, for tea,’ I replied. Her face brightened.

No, it was not really an escape, I reflected, but it was a new life.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

I left my home at three o’clock the following day. By half past three I was back in the room facing the brick wall, with the door shut, and my trunks beside me. I found
the speed with which I had effected this a little disconcerting. It did not seem very adventurous to leave one’s home and reach the new destination in merely half an hour. The room was
exactly the same as when I had left it except that there was a coarse white net cloth on top of the chest of drawers, rather like the cloth I had at home. I tried to think that that was far behind
me, but half an hour did not seem very far. I decided to unpack and arrange all my belongings.

It took me about an hour to do this, I discovered that the wardrobe door swung open with a creak if I did not wedge it with a piece of paper, and that almost none of the drawers would open or
shut unless I employed great ingenuity or strength or both. The first real trouble presented itself when I realized that I had no table on which to do my part copying. I should have to speak to Mrs
Pompey. I would go and buy the food and other necessities required before broaching Mrs Pompey, I thought.

I bought bread, sausages, butter, margarine, apples and milk, in the street containing the newspaper shop. I did not feel able to run to the luxury of a newspaper, but I had decided to keep a
diary, and, remembering that the man sold stationery, resolved to buy an exercise book from him for this purpose. He was very cheerful, and asked if I was fixed up, and whether I had reminded Mrs
Pompey about her ad? I promised to remind her that evening, and he sold me a fat exercise book. ‘Going to write yer life?’ he remarked, expertly tying the string. ‘That’ll
be something for us all to read. My eye!’ He rolled them both skywards. ‘Come back when you get to Vol. Two.’