The Nutmeg Tree (2 page)

“That the genuine antique?” asked Mr. Lewis with interest.

“Yes,” said Julia, returning promptly to business. “Now listen, Joe: I've got to go to France first thing in the morning. I've got to have ten pounds for my return fare, and a fiver for these toughs. That's fifteen quid, and I haven't a rag to my back. Make it eighteen-ten, and I'll throw in the stag.”

“Fourteen,” said Mr. Lewis.

“Seventeen,” said Julia. “Be a sport!”

“Be a sport, guv'nor!” echoed the bailiffs—now definitely on Julia's side.

Mr. Lewis felt himself weaken. A coffee table, a dinner service, a mattress, and a grandfather clock—it all depended on the clock. The chimes had been good ones, and if it looked like an antique to Julia it would probably look like an antique to most people. It might even
be
an antique, and old grandfathers fetched a lot of money.…

Julia had known what she was about when she appealed to his gambling instincts.

“Sixteen-ten,” said Mr. Lewis. “Take it or leave it.”

“Done!” said Julia; and at last got out of the bath.

Chapter 2

1

The first time Julia had seen her future husband by daylight was on a spring morning in 1916, when she woke at about half-past ten to find him still sleeping at her side. She knew his name, Sylvester Packett, and that he was a first lieutenant in the Gunners; and in spite of the fact that for six consecutive nights he had danced with her from twelve till four in the morning, that was all she did know. He was the most silent boy she had ever met; not even champagne loosened his tongue; and she had regretfully (but philosophically) come to the conclusion that he danced with her simply because he couldn't sleep. Boys got like that, in 1916; she wouldn't be a bit surprised if he'd come back with her the night before just to see if he could get some sleep
that
way.… Julia, at eighteen, considered this idea without either surprise or rancour: it was simply, like so many other things, the War.

“Poor boy!” said Julia under her breath; for she was easily sentimental, and cried over a casualty list whenever she saw one. The young man stirred in his sleep, sighed, and slept again. He had four more days' leave, and if only he stayed with her—thought Julia—he should sleep like that every single night.…

Sylvester Packett stayed. He wanted to be down in Suffolk, but in Suffolk he couldn't sleep, and with Julia he could. It was unfortunate, but it was the War. He stayed for four more days, and at the end of that time was swallowed back into France.

Julia wept when he went. Her affection had been at least disinterested, for she refused all gifts except a Gunner brooch. But it was also ephemeral; save for one awkward and unexpected circumstance, she would never have thought of him again.

2

At the beginning of August, after a five-hour chorus rehearsal for “Pretty Louise,” Julia fainted. When her friends had brought her round, and after she had taken expert advice, she went home and wrote to Sylvester.

There was nothing of the blackmailer about her. The letter said simply that she was going to have a baby, and she was sure it was his, and if he could lend her a hand she would be very much obliged, but if not he wasn't to worry. “With love and best wishes, Julia.” In answer she received the shock of her life.

He came home and married her.

He did it during a forty-eight-hour leave, and never in her life did Julia pass a more uncomfortable two days. What with relief and gratification her spirits, never low, had soared to an unexampled pitch; but he managed to damp them. He was no longer silent, but he was deadly. He talked to her for hours on end about a dreary-sounding place in Suffolk—an old, old house called Barton, in an old garden, in a village ten miles from a railway station, where his people had apparently lived, without either a car or a telephone, for hundreds and hundreds of years. He would actually have taken her there, but for lack of time; yet when Julia, happy in her escape and anxious to console, projected a visit for his next leave, he at once bit on the knuckle of his thumb and changed the subject. He behaved, in fact, as though the future had ceased to affect him. He wouldn't even buy shirts. To cheer him up Julia insisted on dining at the Ritz and going to a musical comedy; but even these measures were useless.

And if the evening was a failure, the wedding night was a flop.

Julia spent it alone. All night long her husband sat up writing a letter. It was addressed to his people, but not directly; the Bank had instructions, he said, to forward it at the proper time. When this letter was read, it was found to consist of detailed instructions for the bringing-up of his unborn child, to which he referred throughout as “the boy.” The boy was to be born at Barton, and to receive the name of Henry Sylvester. He was to remain at Barton till the age of nine, then to go to a preparatory school for Winchester. After Winchester, on making his choice between the Army and Medicine, he was to proceed to either Sandhurst or Cambridge. If undecided, he was to choose the Army. “But on no account,” wrote his father, with unsuspected dryness, “is he to become an Army Doctor.”

Such was the main outline; there were also provisions for a pony—“which must be exchanged as soon as the boy outgrows it; there is nothing worse for a child than to feel his feet trailing on the ground”—and for coaching in cricket during the summer holidays. At twelve the boy was to be given his father's old 20-bore; at eighteen, the Purdey 12: his grandfather would teach him how to handle them. All these things, and many others, had been thought of, pondered over, and put down on paper; with corrections, interlinings and much copying-out; for in this long, detailed and comprehensive document, far more than in his official will, was embodied the last testament of Sylvester Packett.

There was a brief codicil:—

I never told anybody, but there is usually a tit's nest in the old pump at the bottom of the orchard. Also a bulfinch's in the red May tree at the corner of the big field. Tell him the great thing in blowing is to go
slow
. You will of course never take more than one egg.

Your loving father,—

S
YLVESTER
P
ACKETT
.

Two months later he was killed at Ypres; and the child born at Barton was a girl.

3

She was christened Suzanne Sylvester. The first name was chosen by Julia as both patriotic (being French) and pretty; and the Packetts let her have her way. They were unbelievably good to her. As the mother of their grandchild (even of the wrong sex) they accepted her with open arms. Affectionately, unquestioningly, she was installed as the daughter of the house. All they asked was that she and the child should stay there and be happy.

And Julia tried. For nineteen months the lay figure of young Mrs. Packett did the flowers, paid calls, went to church, and played with the baby whenever the nurse allowed. Night after night this lay figure sat at dinner with its father- and mother-in-law; every night, for an hour afterwards, it played easy classics on the drawing-room piano. At such mild festivities as the neighbourhood afforded it played the same pieces on the pianos of its hosts. All its evening dresses had backs to them, and two had long sleeves.

Such was the puppet constructed by Julia's gratitude; and gratitude alone pulled its strings. Julia herself sat in young Mrs. Packett's room and wept for boredom; but even her tears, when discovered, were taken as one more sign of the puppet's faithful and tender heart. But Julia's heart was tender too: one of the worst elements in her boredom was the lack of someone to love. She had her child, indeed, and was very fond of it; but “someone,” to Julia, meant a man. Loving some man or other was her natural function: only the man had to be alive, and there, and kissing her back. Love for a memory—even for the memory of a husband—was right out of Julia's line.…

It must be admitted that to have held out as she did, under such conditions, for a year and seven months, was extremely creditable; and no less so because at the end of that time she gave up the struggle and went thoroughly back to the bad.

4

The bad, originally, was crowd-work in a comedy film, which Julia heard of through a girl-friend who had a boy-friend who knew a man in the then struggling British film industry. She met the girl-friend at Self ridge's, on one of her rare expeditions to Town; they encountered each other (in the stocking department) shortly after three; but what with having tea, and talking over old times, and having dinner, and going to the Bodega to meet the boyfriend, and then going on to meet
his
friend at the Café Royal, Julia missed the last train back. She spent the night at the girl-friend's flat, sleeping delightedly on the sofa in a bathrobe that smelt of grease paint; and that night, and that smell, settled her future. The next morning, at Barton, she told her parents-in-law that she was going back to live in Town.

“But—Susan?” said Mrs. Packett quickly.

Julia hesitated. Her husband's letter, now locked in Mrs. Packett's jewel-case, had been written on the assumption that the child was to be a son; but it was still a sort of gospel. Ponies, particularly Shetlands, were old Henry Packett's constant preoccupation, as the educational requirements of Girton were the preoccupation of his wife.…

“The child must of course stay here,” said Henry Packett, speaking his thought.

“If Julia can bear to be separated—” began his wife more tactfully.

Julia felt that she could. Those nineteen months of being young Mrs. Packett had exhausted her supply of maternal affection; and she was also aware that for a young child the life at Barton was far more suitable than the life she herself looked forward to, in Town. She hadn't yet any definite plans about it, but she hoped and trusted that it would be very unsuitable indeed.

“Well—if she won't be too much trouble—”

“Trouble!” cried Mrs. Packett joyfully. “Isn't this her home?—As it's yours too, my dear, whenever you choose to come to it.”

After that, all went smoothly. They disapproved, they were sorry, but they were unalterably good. Their patriotism had not permitted Julia to draw her pension; she had lived at Barton as a daughter, with a daughter's dress-allowance; and this was now made up to three hundred a year. Julia, obscurely conscience-stricken, thought it too much, but the Packetts were adamant. They had apparently no opinion of her earning powers, and their son's widow could not possibly live on less. That was heir portion, she must take it; and whenever she wished, she was to come back to her home.

5

During the next year she went back five times. The year after, she went down for her daughter's birthday, but did not stay the night. On subsequent birthdays she wrote. But when Susan was nine Julia had a sudden burst of maternity and invited the child for a week's sight-seeing in Town. The opportunity was a good one, for Mr. Macdermot, whose flat Julia then shared, had been called to Menton by an invalid wife; but Susan did not come, and in answer to her invitation Julia received a counterproposal of some importance.

The Packetts were prepared, they wrote, to take complete responsibility for the child's present, and to make her their heiress in the future, if Julia on her side would renounce all legal claim. Should she do so, she would of course see Susan whenever she wished, either at Barton or wherever else the grandparents decided; but she could not, without permission, take the child away alone. This last pill was gilded by a warm invitation from Mrs. Packett to come down at once and stay for a month.

Julia considered both these proposals carefully, accepted the first and rejected the second. She was only too glad to have her daughter's future so fully and agreeably secured, but she didn't want any renunciation scene. Also she was very busy, having interested herself, in a rather lofty, lady-patroness manner, in a new touring company then being organized by one of her theatrical friends. She would come down soon, she told the Packetts, but not just then.

Two months later she heard from them again. After that decent interval they presented her with a lump sum of seven thousand pounds in Government Stock, to take the place of her allowance. This surprising generosity Julia unresentfully interpreted as a desire to be finally rid of her; but she was only half right. It was, also, a salve to Mrs. Packett's conscience. “With some money of her own,” said Mrs. Packett (who had the frank, old-fashioned viewpoint), “she'll be able to get herself a husband.”

Julia did not get a husband, but she went into management. She put on two plays within six months; and when the second came off there remained, of the seven thousand pounds, exactly nineteen-and-six.

6

The death of Mr. Macdermot some three years later thus left Julia in a very precarious position. She was thirty-one, too old (and also too plump) to go back to the chorus; she had acquired comfortable if not luxurious tastes, and she was completely untrained for any of the respectably remunerative professions. But she managed. She was very versatile. She still got a certain amount of crowd-work, and was once (in a night-club scene) the Lady Who Fell into the Fountain. Now and again at mannequin parades she showed Models for the Fuller Figure. Her cheerful smile advertised a new baking powder and a Tonic for Women over Forty. Also, of course, she borrowed from gentleman friends, of whom she had a great many, and occasionally she accepted their hospitality. The only thing Julia never once considered was a return to Barton and the Packetts.

She was cut off from them forever. With real humility she weighed herself up, and looked at herself all round, and acknowledged that she wasn't good enough for them. Certainly she wasn't good enough for a daughter who (as Mrs. Packett once reported) went to school at Wycombe Abbey, and who had riding lessons, and whose great friend was the daughter of a lord.…