The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot (50 page)

For Meg, David had been all too aware, these times of silence that came so naturally to him and to Else, were an agony. Her desperate
attempts to disregard them, to avoid laughter, to join with them, had been one of the aspects of her early adjustment to the house that had most distressed him, perhaps above all her attempts to join with them which had so underlined her neurotic desire to please. In the last fortnight, however, he had noticed a change. She could genuinely disregard their silence, reading without covert glances, or moving, if she needed, without elaborate hushedness. On occasion even he noted that she also sat still and silent, and her face, when she did so, seemed to him truly relieved of the strain that had marked her, even in her gaiety, right back to their childhood. It gave him great happiness to think that he might have brought her some true peace if only for a half hour or so. He truly felt, as he had told her, that his disciplines were not to be preached, but if he had communicated some part of the inner quiet that, despite all his moral anxieties and all the tension of his repressed desires, lay within him, the severe limits he had
imposed
upon his life seemed to be vindicated. To reach one person and to still them seemed to him more than he had hoped for in so hopeless a world.

This evening Meg sat silent. She had found for herself, as he
believed
people must, a naturally relaxed posture. Her dark eyes had stopped their constant, restless moving, she apparently even found no need for her endless jerky cigarette smoking. She was truly, he
believed
, at peace.

It was Else who broke the silence; and immediately David realized how strong her hostility must have become; how great the misery of her jealousy, that she should be driven to destroy what was certainly her greatest and perhaps now her only bond with him.

She said, ‘Meg.’ He saw Meg look up startled and also tense against Else’s unaccustomed use of her Christian name. ‘Meg, I think that David is not being fair to you. No, David, please! I wish to speak quite freely to Meg about this. Eileen Rattray has told him today of some interesting work near here that is offered to you. And he has refused to speak to you about it.’

David said, as calmly as he was able, ‘Else, this is all very foolish, you know.’

But Meg wanted him to be silent. ‘But now
you
can tell me about it, Else,’ she said.

David could only guess at what anger she felt, for her tone to Else was entirely friendly. Only a flickering smile and a very slightly puzzled frown suggested that she didn’t understand why such tension
had gathered around the subject of a prospective job for her. Once again David could not believe that she did not know why.

Else was certainly disarmed. ‘I really think it’s a marvellous chance‚’ she said. She told of the Rogersons’ offer. ‘You will be doing
something
so good. He is such a fine man and badly overworked. He needs an intelligent sympathetic person to work for him. And then he too can help you. He has such great energy.’

Meg smiled. ‘You think I need energy, Else? Perhaps I do. I don’t feel it myself. I’m rather glad to have a rest from energy.’ Then she said, as it seemed to David without any overtones, ‘I don’t know whether I should take it. Does Eileen think it’s a good idea too?’

‘Yes‚’ said Else, ‘everybody does who cares for you, I am sure. There is a time, you know, when someone like you who has been ill must resume her life. And you were so sure that you wished to take up secretarial work. You spent so much time on the course. Too much, perhaps. You made yourself ill. But now I am sure you are ready to begin again. It’s difficult for you, I know, to take this step. That is why David should urge you.’

‘I’m not going to urge anything,’ David said. ‘It’s entirely for Meg to decide. I didn’t tell you about it, Meg, because I didn’t want to
influence
. I thought it was up to Fred Rogerson to tell you himself. Or Eileen since she’s broached it to me.’ He wanted desperately to tell her that she need not consider taking it if she didn’t wish to, but he somehow feared to be responsible for urging her not to. I can’t commit myself to asking for her presence here as a full-time member of the household, he thought, it would be wrong. But he knew that fear was stronger than belief in non-interference as a motive in his withdrawal.

She said, ‘I see. I wonder what Dr Loder would say.’

‘I think,’ Else said, ‘that he would certainly agree.’

Again Meg said, ‘I see.’ Then she added, ‘Of course doctors always talk more to other people than to their patients; one must expect it.’

He could detect no note of sarcasm in her voice.

‘It would be a job that would allow me to go on living here. I shouldn’t take any other kind.’

There seemed no threat to Else in her words. She appeared simply to be speaking her thoughts aloud. ‘I don’t think, Else,’ she said, ‘that you should have expected David to urge me. Of course what he said would influence me greatly. As it would you. We are here because of
him, and if we push him into disposing of us, he might have to say things that would make us very unhappy.’

‘I came here because of Gordon.’

‘Yes, of course you did. But Gordon’s dead now.’ Meg’s tone was without any cruelty. She seemed simply to be announcing from far away a rather irrelevant fact. ‘But why didn’t Mr Rogerson ask me himself?’

‘He wanted the ground to be prepared. He would not have liked to be refused.’

Meg looked surprised and interested. ‘Dear God! Not like to be refused? Such a fine man. I’m not being sarcastic, Else; I too get the impression of a fine man. But not to want to be refused! That really is interesting, David. It almost persuades me to take the job.’

David could not look at Else, he was too angry with her. He gave himself to considering the loneliness that must be driving her. I must, he thought, find an acceptance of her; I owe that at least to Gordon.

Meg broke the silence. ‘You’ve all made it very difficult for me, Else,’ she said, ‘by the way you’ve arranged this. You, Eileen, the doctor, all think I should take a job. I’m bound, you know, to feel against it. But I’m trying not to be influenced by that, but simply to decide whether I want to. I think, on the whole, it’s worth trying. At any rate, if I don’t try it, I might miss something interesting. And I shall be here still. That’s the main thing.’

Else smiled. ‘If you insist on taking our interest like that, you must do so. The important thing is to help you out of this inertia.’

‘Oh, I’m not really mistaking your motives,’ Meg said. ‘I think you’ll be glad to see the back of me during the day. Why shouldn’t you? But I’m sure you also feel that I need to be shaken out of my lethargy. And I’m sure that Eileen thinks everybody should be
occupied
with a useful task.’

David thought, My God! She’s travelled a long way since she thought everyone here was so ‘enchanting’; or perhaps she still thinks so, she makes all these statements about them so completely without sarcasm, as though they were facts that she happily accepted. Something disturbingly simple about her whole behaviour made him wonder if she were not a more childlike person than he had always supposed. He said, ‘You
do
feel that you’re qualified to take on the job, Meg?’

She laughed. ‘Well, really, David,’ she cried, ‘you opt out of all this. And why not? But then, when you contribute, it’s to doubt my
competence. Yes,’ she went on, ‘I think I can manage. I might be quite good. At any rate, we can see. I’ll go and ring Rogerson now.’

Later David got Meg a whisky and soda to take up to her bedroom. She had said, soon after she recovered from the first days of her breakdown, ‘Do you mind, David, getting whisky in for me? Now that I’m in a proper house again instead of hotels and other people’s rooms, I can’t bear the idea of not having a nightcap. It was one of Bill’s strictest habits.’ Tonight, when she took her drink, she said, ‘It was nice having Bill to protect me from people. I don’t care how bad for me it was, it was still very nice.’

David said, ‘Meg, you don’t have to take this job with Fred Rogerson.’

She smiled. ‘Don’t I, David?’ she asked. ‘No, I suppose I don’t. But I shall. I’ve agreed now, and I think I shall find it interesting.
Besides
, I shall still be here and that’s all that matters to me at the
moment
. Although I’m afraid I’m not managing it very well.’

*

As far as David could tell, Meg greatly enjoyed working for Fred Rogerson. She left Andredaswood every morning in the Rover at a little after eight and was back most evenings before six. His attention, however, was given very closely during June to the nursery. He knew that he had been neglecting it and, if he realized with a certain amusement that the staff managed very happily without him, he felt a certain dislike for the idea of recognizing himself as a sleeping
proprietor
. He told himself, and he knew that there was enough truth in the view to make it tenable, that if the Nursery staff could get on without him, they got on better when he showed a full interest. Climbers, it was true, her affection secured by Eileen’s using her as a baby-sitter and proxy ‘aunt’ for the children, had developed a dogged attachment to Tim. It was an attachment perhaps a little more
maternal
than that she had for David, and certainly not without patronage, but Tim, under his wife’s management, was now rather proud of his capacity to deal with ‘the old thing’. Each indeed began to act as interpreter of the other to David. Climbers clearly saw herself as one who understood the younger generation and the new class.

‘I shouldn’t take too much notice of Tim’s abruptness, David,’ she said, ‘it’s only a part of the sort of upbringing he’s had, you know,’ and ‘I know how you feel, David. We liked things done in a certain way, didn’t we? But these young people have a kind of directness that’s jolly good really.’ And on occasion Tim would say, ‘Oh, I
shouldn’t worry too much with what looks like the muddle of Climbers’ sales returns. It used to send me up the wall, but I’ve found she has her own ways and methods and I’ve given up arguing. She was usually right in the end.’

All this David took with amused detachment; but there came a day when Climbers and Tim approached him together in the little office. Collihole, they said, was given too free a hand with the shrub roses. ‘We haven’t the facilities here or the experience,’ Tim said, ‘to make all these experiments with hybridizing. He’s wasting time repeating work that’s being done, and far better, in specialized rose nurseries. Some of the graftings he’s made are ridiculous. Work done ages ago by Korde in Germany.’

‘Yes,’ Climbers chimed in, ‘it’s quite quite true, David. Tim’s been showing me a lot of articles in the Rose Annuals.’

‘We can’t do more here,’ Tim said, ‘than supply tried favourites.’

David felt angry. ‘You have a free hand with the rhododendrons,’ he said to Tim.

‘I know what I’m doing,’ was the answer.

He reminded Climbers of Collihole’s long and loyal service.

‘Oh, yes, David. He’s a wonderful chap. But he’s a bit of a stick-
in-the-mud
.’

He forbade them to interfere; they had to accept, but he could see that they didn’t like it.

David had always spoken a little sarcastically of the shrub roses because of the ‘chic’ aura that hung around the demand for them. Yet, as he knew, when the shrubs, the hardy herbs, and the annuals had all become routine bores to him, the shrub roses still retained his affection and interest. He now gave his full time to working with Collihole, and his trust in the rake-thin, glassy-eyed old man was confirmed by the number of prizes that they won at the June show.

On top of this, the new electrical machinery was installed in one of the houses to generate a moist heat for forcing on rootings. Tim was enthusiastic and grateful to David for allowing the expenditure.

‘We can advance everything by at least two weeks,’ he said.

David knew that Tim would master the working of the machinery and its potentialities far more quickly than he would. Nevertheless lie set about studying it himself and towards the end of July felt able to meet Tim in discussion of its value and its future uses. Tim,
perhaps
, proved a little less on the spot in these discussions, since his mastery had already been completed for some weeks and his interest
diverted to a new colour reproduction process which might allow them to insert two illustrated pages in their annual catalogue. David noted his own perseverance and excused any misgivings he felt by telling himself that he must either be competent at the Martha tasks of his life or relinquish them. There for the moment he let his inner debate rest.

Preoccupation and fatigue, then, allowed him to do little more than note the success of Meg’s acceptance of the job with Fred
Rogerson
– a success which, in any case, was brought to him daily by Else’s proud reports of Meg’s evident but less irresponsible happiness and of Fred Rogerson’s complete satisfaction.

June had given him further reason to delight in Meg’s presence. The nearness of Glyndebourne had been one of the chief factors that had decided the purchase of Andredaswood. For him and for Gordon the June season was the crown of the year. They disliked the chic atmosphere but easily forgot it in their pleasure at the performances. Else, on the other hand, found it impossible not to think the
smartness
was in some way an evidence of a certain falseness, shallowness, or unseriousness, which her spiritual integrity demanded that she should detect. Things could be done on this lavish scale, she seemed to imply, on the Continent; but the essence of
English
musical culture was its simplicity, almost its amateurishness. If they remarked on the great Continental singers or conductors who appeared there, she smiled in a way that suggested she knew with what embarrassment they saw their talents subordinated to English shallowness. She loved to say, ‘So all the snobs have had their spectacle. The opera was
beautifully
arranged to enhance the decor.’ She made this joke every year.