The Beautiful Visit (9 page)

After lunch I packed my presents with Deb, whose parcels were all small and neat, wrapped in white paper and tied with silver cord.

‘What will you do when you go back to London?’ she asked.

‘Just be at home. There’s nothing much to do there.’

‘Oh!’ She glanced at me incuriously.

‘It’s awfully dull there. It’s not a bit like being here. There’s so much to do.’

‘Yes, but that’s only because it’s different. Think of doing them for years.’

‘I should like it. There are more people here. I mean you do things together.’

‘I like one person at a time,’ she answered absently, smoothing a piece of tissue paper.

‘You like parties, too.’

‘Yes, I like them well enough. If I were in London I should have many more.’

You would, of course, I thought. London would change for you, never present itself in an everyday manner for you. But that would be the same wherever you went.

‘Surely you meet a lot of people there?’

‘Oh well, musicians and people who like music.’

‘I should love that. What are they like?’

‘They are my parents’ friends,’ I answered stiffly, as though it was impossible for me to explain my parents’ friends.

‘Well?’ She was impatient. ‘Are you not old enough to like them?’

‘I don’t notice them.’ I was ashamed and irritated and it was not even true. ‘They don’t talk to me much.’

‘Of course, I suppose they wouldn’t.’ She had the half resentful respect the world has for an artist, that I already knew so well.

‘Do you like music?’ I asked.

‘I like waltzes. Chopin,’ she added as if to excuse her frivolous choice.

‘Oh, but other kinds of real music. Don’t you like that?’

‘I don’t know what you mean, real music. I like songs and music for dancing. But I don’t see the point of the other kind.’ I looked smugly shocked. ‘Well, can
you
tell me the point of it? What
is
the point?’

‘To – to listen to – and enjoy.’

‘How do you enjoy it, if you don’t see the point of it?’ she persisted, mischievously intent.

‘Well, flowers,’ I said lamely. ‘They haven’t much point and you enjoy them.’

‘They smell,’ she said indignantly. ‘And they are pretty colours.’

‘I don’t suppose musicians care much for flowers,’ I said, uncertainly, but it served my point to say so.

‘But flowers are useful. You can wear them and they make rooms look nice. There’s nothing useful about music.’

‘I suppose people have special enjoyments, and they don’t need them to be useful. It’s just luck if you like beautiful things.’

‘I adore beautiful things,’ she said.

‘Not all . . .’ I began.

‘But I just like to like them. I don’t want to have to be clever to like them.’ She threw a little parcel on the heap and touched her hair.

I realized then how self-consciously I admired the things I thought it right to admire. We were silent for a time and I was sorting desperately the things that I
knew
I liked. I did not
get very far, because I liked everything about that house and nothing about mine; and yet many things were the same. I dismissed the whole problem because Deb interrupted me with some comment on
our activity.

When we went to tea, I met Toby on the stairs. He was very warm and smelt of toast. There was a huge chocolate cake and everyone was hungry from skating. I sat next to Elinor, who left her icing
to the end, and ate it very thoughtfully. Everyone was gay and peaceful. Suddenly in the middle of tea the door opened and two young men appeared.

‘Rupert!’ cried Lucy.

There was much confusion, people got to their feet, with little cries of delighted surprise, and there was a spasm of excitement. I had leisure to observe, and watched Rupert because I had a
natural curiosity about him. The other young man might have been his shadow. Rupert walked forward, kissed his hostess’s hand, straightened himself and smiled faintly.

‘How did you come, my dear boy?’

‘We motored. Ian had a motor. By the way, this
is
Ian.’

‘How long did it take?’

Gerald wore a keenly professional look.

‘Well we had a puncture or so.’

‘Who drove?’

‘I drove and the wretched Ian sat and mended tyre after tyre.’

‘Introduce me to Ian,’ said Lucy’s mother calmly.

‘Mrs Lancing. The Lady of the House, and my, our, admirable hostess. This is Ian Graham.’

‘Have you come to stay?’

The young man was dreadfully embarrassed and Rupert had turned away to shake hands with Lucy’s father. Ian was thin and fair. He blushed, and murmured something, rubbing his hands which
were white with cold.

‘We’re delighted to have you. Sit down. Elspeth ring for some more tea. Sit by me,’ this to Ian. ‘Now I must introduce you. This is my husband. This is Deborah, my eldest
daughter, Lucy, Elinor, and Elspeth, who is their cousin. Toby, my youngest, Gerald . . .’ She continued round the large table. Rupert followed these introductions with a jerk of his eyes; to
Deb he threw a mocking smile of admiration, and then when Mrs Lancing stopped he came to me, and by reason of her silence, he stared a little. Ian seemed too confused to speak. He was very shy and
kept looking at his hands.

‘And who is that?’

‘Good gracious I forgot.’

I was duly introduced, Mrs Lancing explaining that I had been sitting too close to her, thus stalling the flood of shame in me that Rupert’s faintly insolent remark had induced. They sat
down.

‘How do you come by a motor car?’ Mr Lancing rarely spoke.

‘Well Ian is my only rich friend. We bought it this morning, because I don’t like trains and he’s very fond of me. And of course once we’d bought it, he had to come too,
and I knew you’d like him so that was that.’

‘Why didn’t you drive if it was your motor car?’

‘He doesn’t like cars,’ said Rupert calmly as he slashed a piece of cake.

‘Rupert how selfish of you. You are so selfish. Give Ian some cake.’

‘He doesn’t like cake either.’

‘Stop telling us what he doesn’t like. It’s horrid for him.’

The tea arrived.

‘Deborah,’ said Rupert lovingly. She arched her neck and looked at him inquiringly.

‘Sweet Deb, how do you manage to keep it up?’

‘Keep what up?’

‘Your beauty.’

She was defiantly silent.

‘Rupert, stop it,’ cried Mrs Lancing. ‘You are an impudent boor.’

He grinned sweetly.

‘Well it’s true. Ian don’t you think she . . .?’

‘It’s no use,’ said Lucy’s mother. ‘Every year when you go away I resolve never to have you again and then you write me such an enchanting Collins that I find it
impossible to deprive myself of the chance of another.’

‘Ho, you shouldn’t do things for gain.’

‘You shouldn’t speak with your mouth full,’ said Elspeth severely.

‘When you reach my age you can do the most awful things and no one will stop you. They merely shudder and hold up their hands.’

Toby suddenly shuddered and held up his hands, so funnily that everyone laughed. He relapsed into a silent little boy and took no notice.

‘What awful things have you been doing?’

‘Nothing much. Why haven’t you got a dog in this house? It’s all wrong, I found myself in that hall, and nobody knocked me down, or licked my face. I was awfully
disappointed.’ His narrow eyes screwed up. ‘But the chrysanthemums smelled a treat. Ian was at Cambridge with me,’ he added suddenly.

‘I should have thought people stopped you doing things far more when you were old,’ said Elspeth.

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Only then you don’t want to do them.’

Rupert looked at me.

‘Well, well,’ he said softly.

‘We’ve been skating,’ said Gerald after a pause.

‘There’s going to be a dance.’

‘I say how marvellous.’ Ian choked in his tea.

‘Pat him on the back. He’s very young.’

‘Awful chap,’ spluttered Ian.

‘Oh I’m beyond the pale. Far beyond it,’ said Rupert gravely, and for a moment he looked sad and obsessed. ‘I hope you’re surprised to see me,’ he said, after
a moment.

‘You’re conceited too.’

‘I suppose you think we’ve all been
gasping
for you,’ said Lucy cheerfully.

‘I didn’t say pleased. You’re all so kind that I imagine you pleased about anyone. I prefer to engender surprise. Shock. Startlement.’ His angular eyebrows shot up and he
looked fiercely at Toby who grinned resentfully.

‘Ha,’ said Rupert. ‘I really annoyed him.’ He said it with a sort of satisfaction.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Two days later I was in the library with Elspeth. There was a smell of books seldom opened, or perhaps it was Elspeth’s hair. I remember we were kneeling on the window
seat and there was a little snow on the ground outside. Rupert put his head round the door.

‘Come for a walk?’

Elspeth wriggled. ‘You come here and talk.’

‘No, I want a walk. And I didn’t mean you.’

‘All right.’ I scrambled off the seat.

Elspeth caught my skirt. ‘You don’t want to go.’

‘Why not?’

She pursed her lips. ‘We were looking at books.’

Suddenly I did not want her to come too.

‘Hurry up,’ said Rupert. I ran to change. When I was ready he was still standing in the door and Elspeth was sulking, and trying not to laugh. I said good-bye to her and she did not
answer whereupon Rupert slammed the door.

‘Silly little creature.’

We strode up the drive, our feet barely marking the speckled ground.

‘She’s clever.’

‘Only compared with the other people in the house.’

‘Of course she may prove intelligent later on,’ he said after a pause, then glancing at me. ‘Don’t look so shocked. Does intelligence mean so much to you?’

‘I don’t know.’ I said truthfully.

‘Oh I hoped you knew. I hoped you would say that intelligence was the distinction you needed and admired in your friends. That you would throw away beauty, charm and riches for so precious
a commodity as intelligence. What would you say it was anyway?’

‘What?’ This was going to be a startling walk.

‘Intelligence.’

‘Untrained knowledge?’

He threw back his head and laughed loudly. ‘What a damn silly thing to say. But she doesn’t rise,’ he said in mock surprise a moment later. I felt he was teasing, provoking me
into a reply, but I was better able to hold my ground with silence. We strode on up the hill, with the snow flakes slipping down towards us, dark against the milky sky, and suddenly shining white
as they fell into our landscape.

‘Do you like all this?’ I indicated the country before us.

‘Yes.’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t live in it for long. I am drawn to the Metropolis. The lights, music and the people. There isn’t enough to do here.’

‘Much more than in London, I think.’ I said warmly.

‘What? One can farm, or be a gentleman of leisure and I have neither inclination nor means.’

‘What do you do in London?’

‘Nothing now. I was to be a doctor.’

‘Were you expelled?’

‘No I left,’ he answered quite seriously, as though I had used the right word.

‘Why did you leave?’

‘That’s the trouble. I don’t know. I never stop anything merely for something else. Hence these awful gaps, when I come to sneer and vegetate in the country, with a crowd of
people who give me the benefit of the doubt through sheer ignorance.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘I did live in a horrible room in Gloucester Road. Last week I left it in the morning in a fog and I shan’t go back now.’

‘Have you left all your things there?’

‘Some of them. I didn’t want them you know.’ He seemed amused.

‘I have been throwing things away too.’

‘And where do you intend going?’

‘Going?’ I repeated ‘I hadn’t thought. I just want to do something.’

‘You do. What do you want to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ah.’ he said. ‘We neither of us know.’ His comfort in the fact communicated itself to me.

‘What could I do?’

‘Come and keep house for me.’

‘Oh
no
.’

‘What vehemence. You asked me what you should do. I imagine like most girls you have made a passionate resolve to be needed. You’ve thought of being a nun, a nurse, the wife of a
blind man. Surely my housekeeper is the next step? Or is there someone else? Have you dedicated yourself to some other aimless youth?’

‘I want to help myself.’

‘Hooray!’

‘I don’t like being teased. I was serious.’

‘I knew you were. I like teasing people.’

‘Well you shouldn’t.’

‘I only tease people I like.’

‘You shouldn’t do just what you like to people.’

‘Not to do what I like to people would be pretending. If you’re to housekeep for me I should see you every day and however much I liked you I couldn’t keep up the pretence.
That would be like marriage.’ He said the last with such extraordinary bitterness that I was startled into continuing the conversation which I had before begun to regret.

‘What do you mean “like marriage”?’

‘I forgot. You probably think that married people love each other.’

‘I hadn’t thought anything about it.’ Suddenly I was remembering my father padding away to his studio after meals, and my mother settling with a whimpering little sigh, to her
darning. ‘I thought they ceased to consider it.’

‘They pretend,’ he said fiercely after a moment, ‘so hard that there isn’t time for anything else.’

‘They have their house, children, work. I don’t think they consider it,’ I said.

‘Do they honestly love each other then?’

‘No.’

‘Do they admire each other?’

‘No.’

‘Enjoy each other’s company?’

‘Not much.’

‘Like each other?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I felt inexpressibly sad.

‘Poor little thing. That’s why you’re so concerned with doing something. You get away. They’re finished. You can’t do anything for them.’

At once the whole universe rocked for me, leaving what had been an accepted supposition an abyss of uncertainty and fear. The shock of realizing that Rupert knew I had been speaking of my
parents, breaking down as it did such necessary reserve, paralysed me. It did not occur to me that he was generalizing out of personal bitterness; that therefore this awful statement could be
fought, could be disproved or rejected. (I was at an age when if anyone said something with sufficient certainty I was forced to believe them and suffer accordingly.) I looked at Rupert; he was
only one person. He was still striding along with his head bent; a little cut on his cheek, furtive and crimson. The cut made me feel surer. Suddenly I could speak and my own voice gave me
courage.