The Beautiful Visit (5 page)

‘Has he got one?’

‘Not yet. But he would. Look, I’ll get Nanny to come and do your clothes.’

Lucy was amazing, I thought. She seemed to have done so many things and yet she was no older than I. Perhaps it was living in the country. She came back with Nanny, who shook hands with me and
called me Miss.

‘We’re going for a walk, Nanny.’

‘Change your shoes, then.’

‘They’re changed. I didn’t change them for lunch.’

‘All that mud over the carpet. How many times have I told you . . .’

‘Hundreds of times, Nanny. I forgot. She still thinks I’m seven.’

‘Well, you behave like seven. You’re the worst of the lot,’ said Nanny adoringly.

‘I’ll change them for tea like anything. I’m afraid we’ve rumpled the trunk. Come on,’ she added to me.

‘Let her get her coat on. Whatever will the poor young lady think?’

‘Oh, is that your frock? How lovely!’

‘Leave go of it, Miss Lucy. Run and get your jacket. Be quick now. You’ll have to be back before tea because I’ve that blouse to try on.’

‘Nanny, you simply ruin my life.’

‘Anyone would think I was cruel to her.’ Lucy had gone for the jacket. ‘I’ve put your stockings in the drawer.’

‘Nanny, could I wash?’ Her eye, which had looked at Lucy with such loving despair and pride, and at me so calmly shrewd and appraising as if she could assess my manners at meals by
the way I parted my hair and tied my laces, was instantly active and commanding. I could see her managing all the little crises of countless children with tremendous certainty and devotion, keeping
life easy and natural and safe, always watching, now that they were grown up, for the rare casual moments when they might need her a little. I began to realize Lucy and the house, and understand
the security and affection which shot through the air like light.

‘Of course, Miss, I’ll take you. Miss Lucy should have thought. There you are. The other’s that little door on the right,’ and she padded tactfully away.

We went downstairs.

‘I know,’ said Lucy. ‘We’ll take Elspeth.’ She opened a door and we entered a library with enormous leather chairs.

‘Elspeth.’ No sound.
‘Elspeth.’
There was a faint scuffle. We crossed the room and by the window in one of the enormous chairs was a girl crumpled up and weighed
down by a great book with coloured plates. She shook her hair back.

‘Elspeth. You are hiding. Come out. Leave your old caterpillars.’

‘Oh, don’t.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t tell them about there being caterpillars. They think it’s just butterflies. They say caterpillars aren’t nice for girls.’

‘Oh, they won’t know. Come out, we’re going to the wood.’

‘I’d rather stay.’

‘You can’t read all day. We might build a house. They’ll find you here and send you out anyway, so you’d much better come with us.’

‘Oh all right.’ She got up and the book slid to the floor with a fat, heavy bang. ‘Oh!’

‘You haven’t hurt it.’

‘I have! Oh I have. There’s a page crumpled.’ Her eyes filled with tears and spurted out.

‘Don’t cry on the leather anyway. Remember what happened to Gerald’s stamp album. The marks all went puffy and dull.’

‘Put it away for me. I can’t stop.’ Lucy put it away.

‘Look here,’ she said severely. ‘You can easily stop. I’ve smoothed the page.’ She went close to Elspeth. ‘You look
stupid.
Your face will go puffy and
dull like leather.’

Elspeth took the antimacassar off the back of the chair and wiped her face. ‘I’ve stopped,’ she said calmly.

‘Well get your coat and hurry up.’ Elspeth went.

‘Now we’ll
have
to build a house. She loves them,’ said Lucy.

‘What kind of a house?’ It sounded rather childish. I didn’t think I’d enjoy it much.

‘Oh, a log house. You’ll see.’

Elspeth came back and we set off. It had stopped raining; there was a grey stillness, and my nose felt cold immediately.

Elspeth must have been about fourteen, although her face was older. She was very bony, with thin clear skin stretched over the bones, making her look taut and breakable. She walked beside us
with a little hop without speaking except when Lucy asked her a question to which she replied ‘No’, very firmly, thereby shattering any further advances. But her silence was not so much
unfriendly as absorbed, so that it didn’t spoil anything.

When we left the lawn for the long grass, little silver drops leapt from each blade as our shoes shuffled through. The river was very still as though the last moorhen hurrying across had cleared
the scene for some exciting action. I could hear the rooks now, fluttering about their messy nests. We turned left, and walked under their trees. There was a damp velvety path covered with leaves,
either slimy and curled as though each had died in a separate little agony; or older and rotted to delicate silvery skeletons. The path was edged with ragged rhododendra, massed, and hiding the
sudden rustle of some bird. We were in single file, Lucy, and me, and Elspeth hopping very slowly behind. We came to a wooden bridge over the river, mossy and overgrown; there were brown lily
leaves in the water, and the noisy uneven drip from the trees disturbed the grey of the river. The other side of the bridge we were in grass again.

‘Where are the others?’

‘Gone to fetch Deb,’ said Lucy.

‘Who is Deb?’

‘My sister. She’s been staying with cousins. She’s very beautiful.’

‘Have they all gone to fetch her?’

‘Only Gerald and Tom. And Elinor. The others are in the house. Aunt Edith has a cold and my mother doesn’t go out much in winter. Papa will be riding. He likes best to ride by
himself. Do you ride? Oh I suppose you don’t. What do you
do
in London?’

‘Not very much.’

‘Your papa is a painter, isn’t he?’

‘He writes music.’

‘All the time?’

‘No. Every now and then. He teaches it, too.’

‘You cannot teach people to write music, can you?’

‘No,’ said Elspeth.

‘Elspeth, you don’t know anything about it.’

‘I do. A girl at school wrote a song. It just came. No one taught her.

‘She wasn’t a proper writer. One song!’ said Lucy scornfully.

‘He doesn’t teach people to write it. He teaches people to play it,’ I said.

‘Can you teach people to write it though?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully. I felt embarrassed. Of course I should have known.

‘You can’t teach people anything that matters,’ said Elspeth surprisingly.

‘Of course you can, Elspeth.’ Lucy was very shocked. ‘Books and things. People always learn like that. Think of schools. You ought to know that. You’re always
reading.’

‘It saves a certain amount of time. I couldn’t get enough species together in my head unless there were books.’

‘She’s showing off. You read lots of fairy tales.’

‘I don’t.’

‘You do.’

‘I hardly ever read them. I read books out of the library.’

‘Don’t be silly. It doesn’t matter what you read anyway.’

‘It does matter what I read.’

‘The trouble with you is,’ said Lucy very gravely, ‘that you take yourself far too seriously for your age. You simply can’t go about being so old
and
crying. Do
you
read a lot?’

‘Well, a bit,’ I said cautiously.

‘You don’t read just to talk about reading anyway. I hardly ever read. It depends whether you need it. I like moving about.’

We were quite close to the wood which was striped with different trees; dark, aloof and inviting.

‘I never like starting a wood,’ said Elspeth.

There was a small iron gate. We went in. It did feel rather like going into a place that easily might belong to someone who resented our feet and our voices. A blackbird flew low, chattering
dramatically.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To the middle,’ said Lucy. ‘There’s a clearing with a bank.’

I looked up at the sky streaked with branches and suddenly thought of Michael and his kite. He would like Elspeth and scorn Lucy, and he was the kind of awful person whom it was difficult not to
believe, so perhaps it was a good thing he wasn’t there.

‘Is Rupert coming?’ asked Elspeth.

‘He’s coming for the dance. Just for Christmas; otherwise he has to work.’

‘Who is Rupert?’

‘Rupert Laing. His father was at school with Papa. He always comes in the holidays.’

‘He sounds mysterious and rich.’

‘Why?’

I didn’t know why I’d said that. How silly. How very very silly.

‘How odd. He is mysterious. I don’t think he’s rich. You’ll see. He looks into the back of you, and he makes very silly jokes.’

There was a silence. Rupert was finished. To me he was just an appalling embarrassment and Lucy and Elspeth had explored his character and whereabouts sufficiently to leave him alone.

‘Here we are,’ said Lucy.

It was a clearing, a hollow, filled with Spanish chestnut suckers, reddish brown, with shining sharp bumps. We sat down on the rubble of leaves and moss.

‘Now,’ said Elspeth.

‘All right,’ said Lucy. ‘But you can’t expect a house every time you go for a walk.’

Elspeth rolled on the ground clutching her knees; then leaped up and walked slowly, darting down for a silvery stick. One was too long and she bit it. It snapped in half, and she bit it again in
a rage and stamped it into the leaves.

‘It wouldn’t have been strong enough,’ said Lucy. ‘I’ll help.’ And she, too, joined in the collecting. I sat, feeling miserable and stupid. I had no idea what
they were doing.

‘We collect sticks,’ said Lucy.

‘We collect special
useful
sticks,’ said Elspeth, pouncing in time to her words. I smiled foolishly and sat still. They put eight sticks upright and firm in the ground, two
and two in a square. Then they laid thinner sticks in between to make walls, which crept up slowly with uneven ends. I stared at the ground, a tear dropped on to a leaf, tap, and it overbalanced;
oh horror, I was going to cry, and for no reason I filled my hands with earth and squeezed, ground the tears out of my eyes; tap, tap, tap, they seemed endless. It was terrible to be sixteen and
cry in a wood.

‘You’re crying,’ said Lucy, concerned, and they both came and stood in front of me looking down. ‘What’s the matter?’

I looked up and snatched bravely. ‘I’m a bit homesick, that’s all.’

‘Oh,’ said Lucy. She squatted. ‘Bad luck. You needn’t be. Have you got a handkerchief?’

‘Yes.’ Really, I couldn’t use other people’s handkerchiefs.

Elspeth stared. I blew my nose.

‘Poor you,’ said Lucy. ‘Do you want to go home?’

‘Only a bit.’ I didn’t at all, but once you cried you had to sound brave about it.

‘Bad luck,’ said Lucy again, very helpless. ‘Would you like to go back to tea?’

‘You’d better finish your house first. I’m all right.’

‘Will you help us then?’

‘You’ll have to show me what to do,’ I said patronizingly.

‘I’m never homesick,’ said Elspeth.

‘You don’t get the chance to be,’ said Lucy fiercely.

I got up.

‘Promise you won’t tell the others I cried.’

‘I promise,’ said Lucy. ‘Go on, Elspeth.’

‘Honour bright,’ said Elspeth carelessly, and turned away.

It was a beautiful house. The walls were about a foot high, with a gap in one wall for a door. There was the intricate job of constructing a flat roof which did not imperil the shaky structure.
We laid slender strips across, then bark and moss on top of them. Elspeth wanted leaves; but they would not lie flat, and snapped and crumbled maliciously weak, so we gave them up, and between the
twigs crammed smoky dry moss in wedges. We scraped the ground flat round the house and Elspeth started to make a fence; but got bored, and found a slug. It was under a bit of loose bark, and was
grey and oily, with a brilliant orange front. ‘If I look at it long I shall be sick.’

‘Don’t be silly, Elspeth. Don’t look at it.’

‘It’s moving,’ said Elspeth, horrified.

‘I can’t think why you mind them if you like caterpillars.’

‘Caterpillars are dry.’ She loved watching it really. ‘Anyway, it’s such a slimy shape.’

‘Better kill it,’ said Lucy.

‘No, don’t kill it. It’s a horrible poor thing.’

‘They eat the vegetables.’

‘It couldn’t walk as far as the vegetables. Ugh, it doesn’t walk. It crawls. It sort of slimes along. Lucy, there are probably lots of them. I may have sat on one. Have I,
Lucy?’

‘Oh, my goodness! An enormous one!’ Lucy examined her skirt in mock horror, then turned her round.

‘Don’t cry, baby, of course you haven’t. Can’t you take a joke?’

‘Can’t always risk a joke.’

‘The house is finished,’ I said. I had been patting and poking the roof. It was beautiful, and it looked so useful and necessary that I wanted to have it and take it away. It was
finished and we stood round it. Even Lucy was touched by its complete sweetness.

‘The best we’ve ever made,’ said Elspeth.

They had done it before. It was so new to me that I couldn’t bear to think of that. I suggested we go, and we left the house to its first night’s adventure.

We were through the gate again, on the grass, staring at the misty dusk ahead and the little orange sparks glowing from the house down the slope.

‘Let’s run,’ said Elspeth.

We took hands and ran down the slope; past when we were breathless, until our running became almost frightening, although enjoyable because we were together. The ground was uneven, and I watched
it (I was not as used as the others to running on a field). When I looked up, the bony trees were high above us; the river gleamed like a wide snake asleep; the windows were paler gold broken by
their frames; and the black creeper clinging to the house made it seem a wonderful place to receive us for the end of the day. We were panting, Elspeth had not run all the leaves out of her hair,
and the lights shone in our eyes.

Upstairs, Lucy showed me her room. There were two beds and a coat lay at the end of one.

‘Deb’s back,’ said Lucy joyfully.