To the North (10 page)

“I know,” agreed Emmeline.

“Do you share this indifference?” enquired the Vicar anxious.

“No, I like driving my car.”

“It is hardly fair to say that,” said Sir Robert, pursuing his own train of thought. “I feel it is nice of all these young people to have driven so far to visit an elderly couple. As you know, we’ve got little to offer at Farraways in the way of amusement— no wireless, no swimming pool, nothing, I feel sure, that they are accustomed to— What else are your friends accustomed to, Emmeline? However, they seem to be finding their own amusements: happy among themselves no doubt. That young Farquharson seems a little below par; I understand from something my wife said he’s been badly treated: girl threw him over the evening before the wedding. Still, no doubt he’ll do better. But those young Blighs seem devoted, never apart: it’s quite pretty to see them. They are about the garden all day together, like boy and girl. That young Mrs. Bligh’s very unaffected and nice: intelligent, too; she’s interested in the Minoans. I’m lending her Evans’ book when we get back to town. For such a pretty young woman she knows a remarkable lot—isn’t that so, Emmeline?”

“More or less,” said Emmeline, smiling at him.

Next morning, Tim Farquharson motored Emmeline back to London. She had come by train (her car was having new pistons fitted) and would have been as glad to return that way. She so much impressed on Tim the urgency of her business, and made early rising such a condition of her company, that they left Farraways soon after sunrise, stealing out past the doors of sleepers. Mists still filled the valley; the tulips stood up asleep. Something caught at her heart as they started, though she told herself she was leaving nothing behind.

The roads were empty: Oxford, where they had hoped to breakfast, was still asleep, so they rushed the Chilterns and breakfasted at High Wycombe. Tim Farquharson watching her pour out his coffee, said he did hope they might meet again. They swerved north a little at Uxbridge and spun into London by the great empty bye-pass of Western Avenue. Small new shops stood distracted among the buttercups; in the distance aerial glassy white factories were beginning to go up among forlorn may trees, branch lines and rusty girders: here and there one was starting to build Jerusalem. Emmeline smiled at London, where her friends still slept under that haze of shining smoke.

Skirting the rotten ribs of the White City, Tim asked her
when
they might meet: she was uncertain.

ON FRIDAY, a cold cloudy evening, Emmeline rang the bell of one of those very high, dark-red houses in Lower Sloane Street. A light sprang up over the door and a manservant admitted Emmeline to a darkish hall.

Markie lived in a flat, completely cut off, at the top of his sister’s house: she was a Mrs. Dolman. They made a point of not meeting, cut each other’s friends at the door, had separate telephone numbers and asked no questions. One, in fact, might have lain gassed for days before the other became suspicious. It was all, Markie said to Emmeline, more than simple: to her it had sounded elaborate. Markie’s meals, separately cooked, went up to the top in a service lift; he gave orders and scolded his sister’s cook down a speaking-tube. When a cook, outraged, left, Mrs. Dolman, setting out grimly to look for another, dialled through to Markie warning him to eat out until further notice. Delicacy did not exist in Markie’s family, in which only a brutal good sense put the brake on egotism. He and she, exacting hard terms from each other without compunction, wrangled cheerfully on the stairs or insulted each other by telephone. The agreement worked well for both parties; he secured more than moderate comfort with no anxieties; the Dolmans, whose minor economies were remarkable, could keep on their large rather disagreeably imposing house whose lease had been purchased almost for nothing during the War.

Emmeline wished Markie lived in the Temple. She did not like the look of the servant who let her in; she felt she was forcing her way through a strange woman’s house. None of Markie’s other friends can have shared this prejudice, of which Emmeline was ashamed.

“Straight on up,” said the servant, when Emmeline asked for Markie. He was perfunctory, knowing she must have been here before. Before she was up the first flight he switched the hall light off: evidently they economised. There was no staircase window; light filtered down through the banisters from a much higher floor. As Emmeline felt her way up in her long yellow dress, like a ghost astray, a door shut above and with firm, quick steps, well knowing her way, a woman began to come down. She came humming, snapping a bracelet on to her wrist; stiff taffeta brushed the stairs. Emmeline, apprehensively raising her eyes, saw a stocky, vigorous figure trailing a cloak, a line of faint light from above on some fuzzy hair. Seldom conscious enough to be shy, Emmeline, pressing back to the wall, found herself wishing to dematerialise. They came practically face to face.

“Mustn’t pass on the stairs: bad luck,” said the strange woman, halting against the banisters. Emmeline felt herself cynically regarded by unseen eyes. She had the sense of a powerful presence, of a familiarity that was startling, close to her in the dark. She heard slow, heavy breathing, and taffeta creaking against the banisters.

“Going up to Markie’s?”

“Yes,” said Emmeline.

“Know your way all right?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Right you are.” A bare muscular arm, with the bracelet, came up to pat the hair and adjust a shoulder-strap. “Well, good-night: have a nice time— Oh, and turn out that light as you go up: I never waste anything.”

She went on down with a rush; Emmeline in her chiffon went on up silently. Markie’s door was open; he stood at the head of the stairs.

“Hullo,” he said. “Meet my sister?”

“I think so: yes.”

“What a bore for you— Come in, Emmeline.”

It would have occurred to Cecilia to ask why Markie, hearing his sister engaging his friend on the stairs, had not come down to introduce them instead of listening cynically above. Emmeline did not know what was wrong: she gave Markie her hand, which was chilly from driving, and they went into the flat. Here Markie’s curtains were drawn on the last cold daylight, the lamps were all lit, pictures and glasses shone. One stepped back from summer, late light in squares and gardens, into the seasonless glare of festivity. Emmeline’s world, that had hung shining throughout the week like a bubble on some divine breath, contracted suddenly to this room—staring, positive, full of shelves and tables—the scene of some terror from which she had lately fled. To-day, at last, was Friday. “Here I am,” she thought, smiling to reassure herself.

Markie helped her off with her coat; they smiled at each other and said nothing. Markie folded the white fur coat and put it down, liking the silent intimacy of her arrival. Misty with short-sight, her eyes dwelt anxiously on his face, as though there were someone here that she did not recognise. Something slipped from her, on the instant, like a bright cloak, leaving her colder.

“Sherry,” Markie said.

“Is your sister married?”

“Oh yes, she has a husband.”

“What is he like?” pursued Emmeline gravely.

“Oh, just a man,” said Markie, bored, bending above the wine-cooler. “I’ve got some new sherry I want you to try; I ought to have opened it—something to do with gas: he directs companies.”

“She’s rather like you.”

Suddenly straightening himself to stare at her, holding the bottle and corkscrew, he said: “You do look lovely, Emmeline!”

Emmeline, like a tall crystal lamp in which the flame springs up, at these words shone taller and brighter. Having turned his way at once absently and intently, she remained still listening, as though he had not yet spoken, her eyes fixed on his with docility as though his pleasure commanded her and she could not turn away.

“You don’t wish we were going out?” he asked with a certain amount of confidence.

“No, I like being here.”

“
I’d
much rather.” Drawing the cork, he filled their two glasses. Emmeline took up hers and drank.

“How do you like it?”

“Yes,” she said, vaguely sipping.

“Or don’t you know?”

“I’m afraid I like almost anything dry.”

Markie gave Emmeline up, but was pleased with the sherry. “I suppose you do dislike
something
” he said, refilling his glass accurately. “But I wonder so much what goes on with you, all the time.”

Markie’s rather imposing, finished bad manners—which nervousness and a pressing sense of the unusual had accentuated, for he was not himself—were lost on Emmeline: he might have been quite ordinary. With a surprise so mild as to be either innocent or satirical she said: “Do you want to know?”

Markie, after a moment’s reflection, said perhaps he did not. His eyes were on Emmeline’s cool bare arms held out to the fire. With her clear reticence she was as calm as a stupid woman, without that drag on the nerves.

“All the same”—he was beginning—when from the neighbourhood of the bookshelves a reedy, ghostly whistle made Emmeline jump. She started violently, spilling her sherry. “What’s that?” she exclaimed.

“Only the cook whistling.”

“But why?” This seemed to Emmeline funny, she laughed immoderately. “Why does she do that? What an extraordinary cook! Our cook doesn’t whistle.”

Markie, whose sense of humour was not agile, saw nothing funny about his domestic arrangements. He was accustomed to lead laughter rather than be surprised by it. He explained rather coldly that the cook, having no other means of communication, whistled up the speaking-tube when dinner was starting up in the lift.

“But supposing your cook couldn’t whistle?”

“I suppose we should have a bell.”

“But why don’t you have a bell anyhow?”

“I suppose because our cooks can whistle.” He returned the cook’s signal and went to open the hatch: Emmeline, seeing she had annoyed him, waited anxiously. A small table behind the sofa was set with silver and glass on a green damask cloth: Emmeline, self-reproachful and nervous, feared that the lift might stick. She had never dined here before, only come back after a restaurant.

“I’m so sorry, Markie,” she said. “But it sounded as though your cook had got in behind your books—like a cat, you know.”

The lift appearing, Markie took out a tureen with plates and some silver dishes which Emmeline helped him put down beside the fire. “I had no idea,” he said, rather slightingly, “you were domestic.”

“Everything seems like magic in this flat.”

“Why do you get so rattled?”

“I’m sorry: I don’t feel rattled. Am I?”

“My dear, you’ve been like a cat on hot bricks ever since you came.”

Emmeline, putting hot plates on the table, confessed: “I was startled, meeting your sister.”

“But I told you she lived here.”

“Oh, yes.”

“
Well
?” said Markie, twitching his eyebrows up in exasperation. “I don’t see why that should upset you. I know she’s a bore.”

“Is she? I’d like to meet her properly.”

“What, at tea? Of course, if you like. But I can’t see why you should want to. She’ll be rude for one thing; she’s always rude to my friends.”

“She made me feel like a tramp,” said Emmeline, bringing this out with a rush.

“No, she didn’t,” said Markie sharply. “And you wouldn’t mind if she had. I know quite well what she made you feel. Don’t be childish, Emmeline: the thing’s too absurd!”

While this discussion took place they sat down to table; Markie looked angrily at her across the glasses. Emmeline, bowing her head in despair, pleated an edge of the table-cloth. “Nonsense,” Markie went on: his manner was at its coldest and most aggressive.

“You asked me,” said poor Emmeline. She looked bewildered —like a gentle foreigner at Victoria, not knowing where to offer her ticket, to whom if, at all, her passport, uncertain even whether she has arrived— Her friends had never been angry: she dared not meet Markie’s eyes.

Then: “I’m so sorry,” he said, with an abrupt alteration of manner. “You make me feel frightful: do look up and smile… .
Emmeline
, you don’t know how I’ve been looking forward to this!”

“So have I,” she said, looking up and smiling.

“Is that why we’re both so cross?”

“I expect so,” said Emmeline quickly.

“But we are enjoying ourselves,” Markie said with authority, and once more she sprang to agree with him. The dinner at once took on the air of a celebration: here was Emmeline beaming, exalted, floating all ways in light. She was too happy.

“Don’t burn yourself—” exclaimed Markie, having just done so. Emmeline had, however, forgotten her soup; she took up her spoon quickly. “What a good lift,” she said, “bringing up soup so hot!” Her tone was heartfelt; she looked round for more to praise.

“Angel …” said Markie, forgiving her, in the moment, for having put him out and disarmed him, for having made him feel, perhaps for the first time, not quite all he could wish. “Angel …” Markie repeated, leaning across the table. “Emmeline—I’ve been thinking of nothing else!”

Emmeline straightened one fork, then another, looking down at her hand.

“It’s really been frightful,” he said, with unfeigned surprise.

“But you have so much to think of,” she tried to suggest, with an anxious lift of the eyebrows.

Her concern was not for his work—his energy was terrific; ambition was written all over him; his ability, when allowed to appear, was beyond question. She knew of his reputation: Markie was “rising” with the inevitability of a lighted balloon. But she was literal, and believed in a fearless exactitude between friends and lovers; overstatement troubled her with its mystification and false accents; in love she would speak the bare truth, or allow it to be inferred. Respecting so much and regarding so steadily the unconscious Markie, she could but be appalled when Markie spoke of himself. She sought the hearth, he led her into a theatre: reluctant, she was made free of a mock-heroic landscape with no distances, baroque thunderclouds behind canvas crags. It seemed impossible for him to speak of himself naturally, and in those emphatic pauses preceding self-revelation she did not know what she dreaded to hear him say. Though she might love him, she must dread at all times to hear him speak of their love: it was not in words he was writing himself across her. She might be said to be drawn, with a force of which she was hardly aware, by what existed in Markie in spite of himself. “We should be dumb,” she thought, “there should be other means of communication.”