The Beautiful Visit (6 page)

I did not see Deb until tea. She was beautiful, and it was obvious that they all adored her. She sat between Gerald and her mother, and I saw him turn the plate round so that the cake with the
large cherry was nearest her. She took it so easily that I knew she had always had the cherries. Elspeth told her about the house; Elspeth’s father about a horse; and she turned from one to
another radiant; recounting her visit with a kind of brilliant modesty, infecting us with her success and happiness, and enriching all their tales with her attention and concern so that one watched
her, wholly enchanted. She was quite beautiful; triangular eyes with flecks of green, shining dark hair, a thin pointed mouth, pointed eyebrows to match, and a skin so milky pale that if you were
to touch it it would hardly be there. I could not take my eyes off her. I sat and watched her neck twisting (she wore a tight gold chain round the hight collar of her blouse), and neat head above
it. I sat and watched until my fingers were cramped in the handle of my tea-cup and Lucy leaned forward and said ‘
Isn’t
she lovely!’ in a warm rush. Everyone laughed. Her
mother said ‘Nonsense.’ I flushed. Deb sat quite still, half smiling and not at all shy.

After tea, we all went to the morning-room which everyone left in a joyful state of confusion. The jigsaw was still on the floor, half completed; it was very big, and Toby, the fat little boy,
would allow no one to touch it but himself. He was very slow and immersed in fitting pink roses all over a thatched cottage. When Lucy found the door, he growled and crossed the room with his hands
in his pockets in a solemn rage, and one tuft of hair sticking straight up from the crown of his head.

Lucy’s mother said, ‘Don’t dear,’ calmly. She was embroidering a hideous peacock with exquisite deliberation; admiring Elspeth’s butterfly transfers, crooked and
smeared in a large scrap book; reminding Gerald and Lucy about the names of ponies (they were absorbed with an old collection of plaited horses’ hair kept, with labels attached, in a weak
cardboard box); advising Deb over colours for her cross stitch, who, I noticed, listened charmingly and never took the advice; hearing Elinor’s poem that she was learning, and being quite
unruffled when the recital always stuck in the same place; then talking to me, asking me about my mother and my sister and brothers, what I did, and which I liked best, town or country; making
everything I’d done seem important and interesting, so that I could not imagine why it had all seemed empty before.

‘I think it is very brave of you to come,’ she said. ‘Come along, darling, finish the roses.’ Toby came and smiled a beautiful slow smile, shook himself like a puppy, and
fell on the floor beside his great work. ‘He does it over and over again. No, darling, a
host
of golden daffodils. Start again to yourself. And are your brothers all at the same
school? That must be nice. Punch he was called, Lucy dear. The funny pink pony with a brindled tail who used to flybuck.’

‘Strawberry roan,’ they chanted, and Gerald wrote another little ticket.

‘All right, Toby, I won’t do it but you should try and finish the edges first. And do you play the piano? You must play to us some time. Not today; wait until there are a lot of us
and then we can dance. We all want to hear you. Well, darling, call it a Tortoiseshell, and do another with more water for a Painted Lady. Will you ring the bell, dear? I want to speak about Aunt
Edith’s sarsaparilla. No, Toby, that bit is lost. Blue, Deb, like the other side; or red like the border; you’ll find them both in my Indian Bag.’ Deb abstracted a thread of green
with a charming smile.

Feeling completely part of the great warm untidy room I asked if after all I might play the piano. Of course I might. I played a rather scratchy piece of Scarlatti, and remember feeling faintly
shocked when no one paid the slightest attention. Elspeth had just upset her transfer water and was mopping it up with a skein of pale blue wool, and Elinor was half-way through the daffodils,
still holding her breath for the last verse. However, I found it much nicer from the playing point of view; it was much more enjoyable to approve and criticize oneself, to play back, as it were,
only to one’s own ears. I stopped after a bit. There was a great dark picture above my head, with the canvas gleaming like oily water at night. It was of a man, surly with health, in a pink
coat, holding a riding crop with both hands and leaning forward a little. He looked irritable and impatient, as though sitting anywhere but on a horse was a woman’s job; and now he was dead,
I felt he was very dead, and condemned to listen to any music I cared to make, with only the welter of mainly feminine ploys beyond as relief. A maid came and drew the curtains all round the bay
window and at my side by the piano. She moved on tip-toe and answered Lucy’s mother about sarsaparilla with a kind of gasping lightness as though it were only respectful to use the very edge
of herself, her toes and fingers and the front of her throat. She was very neat and pretty.

Deb rose from her work and strolled over to me. ‘Come and change for dinner with me,’ she said. She was leaning over the piano, provocative and friendly, with a ‘come and see
what I’ve got’ look.

Lucy heard.

‘The bell hasn’t gone,’ she said. Their mother laughed.

‘You know how Deb loves to potter. Run along.’

As if Deb would run. No, she would glide unhurried, preferably, I thought, down smooth paths banked by pinks and delphinia, or glassy floors flocked with people less beautiful than she making a
wide lane for her, she accepting it. We left together, with a little laughing demur at the door which ended in my holding it for her and turning the glass knob carefully, shutting us out together.
Half-way down the passage she stopped and dabbled her fingers in a large Chinese bowl.

‘Lavender,’ she said stretching out her fingers to me. I copied her. We went straight to the room with the two beds.

‘I have to share it with Lucy. Sit down, I’ll show you my jewellery. Wait, I’ll shut the door.’

She sped to it. I sat and watched the room in comfort. Lucy slept there, but I could now see that it was certainly not shared; it was Deb’s room. The pictures, the large pink roses
flopping over the white chintz curtains; the dressing-table delicately shrouded in muslin with petulant frills, topped by a slender elegant rosewood mirror; the fat white beds, and heavy jug and
basin with kingfishers on it; all assumed a pretty significance, unique and personal to Deb; Deb’s possessions, Deb’s elegance, and her rich careless charm. She was kneeling by a little
cabinet with two doors which swung back to disclose a pile of shallow drawers of blushing yellow wood. There were eleven, and I knew the first six were hers.

‘Which belong to Lucy?’

‘Those at the bottom. I have one extra.’ And she smiled very sweetly.

They were stiff to pull and the knobs were too dainty for use. I was very pleased at being right about the drawers. It is a wonderful feeling to guess anything about a person and hear aloud that
you were right. It made me feel stronger with Deb. Suddenly the drawer flew open almost too far so that it swayed and disclosed rows of pink and yellow shells neatly placed on flat cotton wool.

‘Wrong drawer,’ said Deb crossly.

The jewel drawer slid open with ease; she dropped down to it and then, straightening casually, flung a handful of jewels in my lap, so suddenly that they weighed my skirt down between my knees.
She rose, leaving the drawer bare and gaping like someone who has had a great surprise.

‘Look at them,’ she said impatiently, seeing me. ‘I’m going to change my dress.’ She opened her wardrobe, and ran her hands through her frocks in a nervous and
affected manner.

There were a pearl brooch shaped in a crescent; a turquoise heart; a locket on a golden chain. There were a string of corals; a topaz brooch with elaborate gold work round it; a large and
beautiful ring with garnets and pearls and a minute turquoise in the middle; a golden cross on another chain; and a thin wavering bracelet with moonstones. There was also a brooch with a miniature
of a lady, placid and fragile, with grey powdered hair, a fresh complexion, a tiny little dark red mouth, and pale blue eyes which looked out with an air of sprightly indifference.

‘I don’t like that one,’ said Deb. ‘An aunt left it to me. It’s a clumsy old thing. I don’t take it away when I stay in houses. Do you enjoy paying
visits?’

‘This is the first I’ve ever paid.’

‘Well, are you enjoying it? I do. I enjoy
all
the times I stay away. More and more I enjoy it,’ with a voluptuous little sigh.

‘Do you always go by yourself?’

‘Usually. Do you? Are you enjoying yourself now?’

‘Oh yes. Much more than I thought.’

That pleased her, and she began unpinning her hair as though it were a direct reward.

‘You seem to have had a lovely time,’ I said.

She paused, her face full of a thousand unknown moments, smiled a little, shook herself, and turned to receive my curiosity.

‘There was a dance,’ she said. I did not perceive the significance of this remark, but I gave an understanding smile of encouragement.

‘Do you dance much in London?’ she asked abruptly.

‘No, not much.’ I felt that I could hardly afford never to have danced at all.

‘Do you know why I am unpinning my hair?’ I shook my head. ‘In a minute I shall tell you. There.’ And suddenly there it was; pouring down her back; flocked and tumbling,
swinging round each shoulder; clinging to her head but escaping in tendrils round her ears. She seized a white brush.

‘Now,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you. If you are interested. You are interested, aren’t you?’ with a questioning dart at me.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Oh yes, I am.’ She laughed; of course she knew I was. ‘Will there be time?’

‘We can have more talks,’ she said, settling comfortably down to her monologue. ‘Something very exciting has just happened to me. We have always lived here and as you can see
nothing would be likely to happen here that could afford one any real amusement. That is why I have always longed to go away and one is only allowed to do so in order to pay visits. And even then .
. . but this time . . .’ She broke off holding the brush against her head.

‘You must listen and not watch me. But – am I beautiful? I don’t want you to say so unless you think I am.
Am
I?’ She leaned forward a little. She was sitting on
the floor holding her knees, her face tilted towards me. I complied. There was such compelling charm, such charming desire, that I had no alternative, although I was embarrassed into inadequacy.
She seemed satisfied, however, and leaned back with a little sigh.

‘You don’t know how important it is for me yet. It all happened in this last fortnight. I was staying with cousins. Very distant cousins of Papa’s. We had an awfully jolly
time.’ She paused again, forcing me to an unbearable impatience. She had the quality of making one feel that anything she said was almost unbearably interesting. ‘We rode a great deal.
I don’t know why it was so pleasant. New people, I suppose. And it was a lovely house. I had met Roland before but we hadn’t noticed each other. It is extraordinary how one does not
realize at once about the most important person in one’s life. Everyone adores him; but I – this is the point, and a very great secret, only I must tell someone – I love him. I
told him.’

‘Was he pleased?’

She opened her lovely eyes, incredulously.

‘Of course. We both love each other. I shall marry him, but my parents don’t know yet. We aren’t going to tell them. Roland agrees that there should be some secrecy about
anyone’s love. Don’t you think so?’

‘I don’t know much about it.’

‘I’ll tell you. We decided at the dance. Before, I hadn’t been so sure that Roland really loved me. But half-way through a dance he suddenly waltzed me away and into the hall,
threw a man’s coat round my shoulders and we stole out through a door in the passage, and down a path with a high hedge. I was shivering, but I wasn’t cold. Then he took my face and
kissed me. I wasn’t frightened at all. I watched the leaves black against the moon. I put my arms round him and then there was a cloud across the moon and I couldn’t watch the leaves.
He’s wonderful. He said that he loved me and asked me to marry him. He is sure our families would approve, we are such very distant cousins, and I think so, too, although of course they will
say we are too young. Isn’t it extraordinary that they can say that when they haven’t the faintest notion how much we love each other? Roland has got to get settled in his
job.’

‘What does he do?’

‘He works in the City. He hates it, and as soon as he has thought of something else he’s going to do it, if it doesn’t make our future uncertain. But I shouldn’t mind
what he did as long as I could be with him. Do you know he tried to pull down my hair? Isn’t that odd? He said it would seem more possible, more real to him, if he saw my hair down, I should
seem to belong to him more. That reminds me. Look.’

She had a pair of golden scissors, shaped in some curious way like a stork. I can only remember the wings and neck impossibly graceful and twisted.

‘Cut some off for me. He wants it. I can’t cut it myself. I can’t cut hair.’

I was terrified.

‘I’ve never cut hair. Couldn’t you get Nanny to do it?’

‘She’d want to know why. What are you thinking of? This is a secret.’

I took the scissors.

‘Why does he want it?’

‘To keep, of course. People always do that. Didn’t you know?’

‘Have you some of his hair?’

‘No. No, I haven’t. Roland’s hair isn’t the kind one keeps. It’s too thin – fine,’ she added. And then honesty got the better of her and she said,
‘Besides it isn’t a
very
interesting colour.
Please
cut it for me.’

‘How much do I cut?’ I still felt nervous.

Deb seemed nonplussed. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never actually done this before. How much do you think he would like?’

‘All of it, I should say. Growing.’ I was holding a lock, feeling rather proud to be with her.