The House in Paris (17 page)

No news from Rushbrook: perhaps the thing had been put off. Perhaps such things did not happen. News from Paris was that Naomi was safe home; the American girls were there.

Karen thought: the great thing now is to marry Ray. Every day, like an exercise, she shut her eyes so point-blank that Max was gone till next day, when she shut her eyes again. She could not see Ray: his face was gone as though a spot of acid had dropped on her memory. But she thought of their marriage constantly and with hope. This would be the last May of her undecided girlhood; this time next year she would be Karen Forrestier, living in a house she had not seen yet; even, possibly, going to have a child. She saw herself familiar with their new hall door, staircase and firesides, picturing times of day in the future house, making tomorrow fatten thin today. If what was to be expected came of Ray's time with Sir H., Ray's future would be assured; they would live in London. But it won't be the same she thought, even London will change. I shall be different. She found she had come to hope everything of change.

Her expectation that other Mays would be different gave this May, like a tree in front of a cloud, a fragility, or made it the past now. In her parents' world, change looked like catastrophe, a thing to put a good face on: change meant nothing but loss. To alter was to decline. 'Poor So-and-so is so changed.' You lived to govern the future, bending events your way. If change did break in, you bowed and accepted it. In such a world, except for that year in Paris, her mind had always been very clear, with few dreads, though she saw enough to be thankful to be so safe. The in-tuneness of her marriage with all this had pleased Karen nearly as much as her mother. She had not been born Karen Michaelis for nothing; it had been on the daylit side of marriage that she liked to dwell; she had expected, even, to show her friends that there is nothing in love to get so angry about. But since the day she had walked away from Victoria, her thoughts had bent strongly to whatever in marriage stays unmapped and dark, with a kind of willing alarm. She had now to look for Max in Ray.

There was her home, their new house, to assemble. If you want nice things, you cannot begin to look about too early. Tables and chairs that have their period, four legs and their price; they are more than visionary. And for a bed you generally go to Heal's. Mrs Michaelis and Karen often stopped before an antique shop window with the same pleased thought. But not always — an Empire sofa in Wigmore Street one morning suddenly sent the blood to Karen's head. Its unexaggerated sea-green silk curves made her want to exclaim: 'Stop: we won't want that! I can't take it to Paris, to Naomi's young man!' Which would be like whipping a pistol out of her kid bag and firing at the sofa through the glass ... If that half-French couple had any place, it was certainly not here. (She liked them as visitors — what Max had said dug in crookedly, like a bent pin.) But since they had gone, since the afternoon of the cherry tree there had been no Today. She enjoyed the sweet light streets, flattering talks, the Opera, in terms of regret, by thinking: Soon I shall be gone. She must rely on marriage to carry her somewhere else. Till it did, she stayed bound to a gone moment, like a stopped clock with hands silently pointing an hour it cannot be.

Ray's married sister Angela was in London this month, and often at Chester Terrace. 'We are all far too alike,' Angela said. 'But after all, there
is
only one way to be nice. Nothing unlike oneself in people really is not a pity. It's better to inbreed than marry outside one's class. Even in talk, I think. Do let us be particular while we can.'

Karen said coldly: 'I shall grow more like you, then?'

'Nonsense; you're so individual.'

'It costs money,' said Angela. 'But that's fair, I suppose.' She had two little girls; she went on: 'No doubt I shall live to see the poor children nationalized, or married in a laboratory. But while we
have
names, not numbers, I think it's nice to be like what one's like, don't you, even if everyone else is?'

To disagree was to be foolish.

'You're not wobbling about Ray?' Angela added.

'No. Why should I be?'

'I thought you looked rather cosmic — it's wretched that your engagement has to be so long.'

The Wednesday after that, a letter came for Mrs Michaelis from Paris, from Mme Fisher. The envelope with the vigorous violet writing sat all that afternoon on the hall chest, waiting for Mrs Michaelis to come in, and Karen found herself always passing it. This must be news. She could not think Mme Fisher had other reasons to write. Had those two, with no more warning, married? No date for this had been spoken of when they left. When Mrs Michaelis did at last come in she took the letter, and others, up with her to the drawing-room. But here she was kept busy pouring out tea for visitors, with her unopened letters tucked under the tray. When the people had gone she glanced through them again and said: 'Oh, look, here's a letter from Mrs Fisher!'

'What does she say?'

'I haven't opened it yet.'

'No, I know. I mean — won't you?'

But London posts do not let you catch up with letters; at this point Braithwaite brought in the six o'clock post on a salver.

'Dublin ...' said Mrs Michaelis, looking this new lot over.

'Dublin — who?'

'It looks like Uncle Bill.'

Karen's heart stopped. Indulgently, Mrs Michaelis opened Colonel Bent's letter. She paused, put it down, and stared at the rim of the tray; then said after a moment: 'Karen ... Aunt Violet's
dead..''
Karen, who had got up, came across to stand dumbly beside her mother. They had not met like this before; no one had ever died; her brother Robin had come safely through the war. Aunt Violet was four years older than Karen's mother; she was her only sister but they had never been intimate because of Aunt Violet's being so shy — she had been perhaps less shy with her husbands because men do not expect to know you so well ... Mrs Michaelis put out a hand towards Karen — not wanting to touch, to show she was glad she was there. There was nothing whatever to say. Mrs Michaelis had not wept for years, and never in the drawing-room; she could not begin now. In a dream she picked up Uncle Bill's letter and went on reading. 'He says they went up to Dublin at the end of last week, then she had the operation on Monday. She would not let him write first, she said she would write herself. Then, I suppose, couldn't bring herself to. He says he thinks she dreaded what we would say. But of course, he should have written; we ought to have known. Poor Uncle Bill ... Did she say
nothing
about it when you were over there, Karen?'

'No. She said nothing.'

'Why — why did she always live so far away?'

Mrs Michaelis's hand now closed, trembling, on Karen's. 'This is not the worst that will happen, Karen,' she said. They both saw the crack across the crust of life. Mrs Michaelis went over to the window, as though someone, not herself, needed air and had to be taken there. The sea of trees in the Park did not look too smiling: after all, they had not known her. A death can only touch what the life touched. Karen saw the dug-up daisies on the lawn at Rushbrook, while Uncle Bill spoke: the death had been then. She saw the strong grass at Twickenham springing up after her and Max's hands. Watching her mother facing the outdoor air like a self-commanding figurehead, Karen thought: Aunt Violet was wilder, she would not stay with us. Heaven may be peopled with such wild mild figures ... Mrs Michaelis turned to look round the drawing-room, gold with evening sunshine across trees. 'It is the shock,' she said scrupulously, half smiling. 'I don't feel anything else yet.' She picked up her gloves, which were on the back of the sofa; she was still wearing her hat. 'I'm going up,' she said. 'Don't let them disturb me. When Father comes in, tell him, and tell him I don't think I'll see him just yet.' She looked at the tea-table. 'And better open those other letters, Karen, in case there should be anything — '

'And put off the people for dinner?'

From the door, Mrs Michaelis looked back in a fixed way. 'Yes,' she said absently, 'yes.'

When Karen had telephoned — it was in the study — she went back to the drawing-room, where Braithwaite was clearing tea away with a concerned face — if she did not know, she knew there was
something
to know. Karen, picking up the letters, stood with her back to the parlour-maid, nervously saying nothing. She thought: Servants are terrible: why should they share one's house? ... In the sun, the curtains were flame-pink; prismatic crystal candlesticks shot rays out; the flooded empty white room looked like a stage.

She died before this, thought Karen. She would want me, though, to be very sorry for him. She saw Uncle Bill looking up and down the Dublin streets not knowing where to go now, with no one with him to smile and make his face uncrinkle. Braithwaite had shut the door but Karen opened it, to be able to hear her father come in. Waiting like this to hear his latch-key made her too nervous to touch Mme Fisher's letter; she opened the others and put them under a paperweight. How many people wanted to see her mother — did she make them feel safe? .. . Her father was late; what could be keeping him? Mother was right in saying worse could happen: once a board gives, the raft begins breaking up. Were not awaited people killed in the streets every day? He was a careless confident vague man. She thought: If Father were killed I could not marry for some time, then began to weep and walk about, repeating 'Max, Max, Max!' This was a moment to meet: life stood at its height in this room and she wanted him to come in.

She heard the latch-key and, going half-way downstairs to meet her father, told him the news. His shocked empty eyes met hers; it shocked Karen to think her life sprang from an impulse of his. 'But don't you think I ought to go to your mother?'

'She said not, Father.'

'But don't you think I ought to go, all the same?'

'If you want to very much.'

'Poor Violet,' said Mr Michaelis. 'Poor Violet. She was a lovely girl.' Then he saw the tear-marks on Karen's face. 'It's too bad,' he said, touching her cheek gently. 'It's too bad; you were with her. You mustn't cry . . . you mustn't cry, little one.' He went heavily upstairs past her, glanced at the flight above but went into his study, shutting the door, still doubtful.

Karen opened Mme Fisher's letter, which had thin purple lining inside the envelope. She
had
had a reason to write; there had been a misunderstanding. A Lady Belfrey, who had written during the winter, then, by doing no more, left matters in mid air, had just written again, apparently taking for granted that Mme Fisher would have a vacancy for her niece. There was no vacancy for Lady Belfrey's niece. Since last month, when Naomi had decided upon this marriage, there had ceased to be question of vacancies for any more girls. The last two girls, Americans (and these two, even, had been received under protest), would be remaining until the end of June. After that no more. Mme Fisher regretted this misunderstanding with Lady Belfrey infinitely, the more because she understood Lady Belfrey to be Mrs Michaelis's close friend. But having heard no more from Lady Belfrey last winter, she had had the impression the matter was to be dropped. She would gladly have stretched a point and taken Lady Belfrey's niece later in the summer, but this was impossible, Naomi's marriage to Max being fixed (so they told her) for early July.

'After which,' wrote Mme Fisher, 'I must expect Naomi to be too fully occupied with her husband's happiness to give the assistance I need, as I grow older, in the supervision, however slight, of young girls.
La jeune ménage
will, moreover, take up space in my little house, and there is the possibility of children to be considered. At my age, one must learn to recede gracefully.'

Mme Fisher had, naturally, written to Lady Belfrey, but dared hardly hope that any explanation of hers would make the mistake less annoying. She was, therefore, writing to Mrs Michaelis to express her regret and explain the position more fully. Such high value did she set on the happiness of her connection with Mrs Michaelis that to disoblige any friend of the family was odious to her. (In short, Mme Fisher suggested that Mrs Michaelis should smooth down Lady Belfrey.) Lady Belfrey was a strikingly stupid woman; there was no question whose the mistake had been. Why, then, should Mme Fisher care? She had said 'no' to a number of stupid women when to take in girls had been the only living she had: now she needed no more girls. What makes her write? Is she writing to hurt me?

She wrote in a later paragraph:

'Naomi speaks gratefully of the kindness with which in London, you received her and her fiancé. She believes the young man pleased you. He has the ability of his race, though some people do not find him sympathetic. His decision to marry Naomi was a surprise to me, as I believed he had other prospects in view. I suppose it can seldom be with complete confidence that one entrusts one's daughter's happiness to another's hands. You,
chère madame,
are in the matter of Karen's marriage most happily placed. I have, perhaps, the too great suspiciousness of a woman who has stood long alone. Till this legacy, upon which we could never depend, Naomi had no
dot
; in my country, where, as you know, such considerations rank high, marriage was not, till now, to be hoped for for her. My son-in-law to be is not a rich man, and though this increase of my daughter's income would not, of course, have influenced him unduly, it cannot, if they are to marry, be immaterial to him. This momentous change in her prospects has elated my daughter: she has a full heart and I hope that there may be no deception in store for her. July 5th, at the
Mairie,
has been fixed for the marriage; the honeymoon will be spent in the Auvergne.

'Tell Karen that she is in my mind often: I feel she will not disappoint the expectations I formed. I shall be sending her, a little nearer her marriage, a small comb set with pearls which should, I think, be her type. The pearls are at present being re-set. (It is an heirloom on one side of my family, from, I think, a maternal great-grandmother.) Naomi speaks with pleasure of Karen's good health and spirits, Max of her distinguished beauty. For myself, I shall wish for her every happiness.