To the North (12 page)

“My legs ache,” Cecilia exclaimed irrepressibly, as they left the studio. “Do you think we could possibly sit down?”

The girls, in some consternation, considered the matter: there did not seem to be anywhere, unless one went into a class-room and sat at desks. Pauline suggested that they should sit, very very quietly, in the chapel. Here, under the organ-loft, they seated themselves in silence. Meditation seemed to be indicated: Cecilia glanced at her finger-nails, Julian read the inscriptions on tablets let into the walls. “Three of our old girls have died, twenty-six are married,” Pauline explained in a whisper… . The strain was beginning to tell on Pauline, but Dorothea remained a rock.

“I think, tea,” said Cecilia, as they filed out of the chapel.

“But you haven’t seen the laboratory… .”

“I’m afraid I
must
have some tea. We passed such a nice hotel. You can come out with us, can’t you? We brought some strawberries.”

The early strawberries had been expensive, but Cecilia had said the girls would appreciate that. The girls glanced at each other; even Dorothea blushed. “It’s
very
kind of you,” they both said, lowering their voices. One could not doubt the poor things were hungry. They said they were not allowed in hotels, but there were some very nice tea-rooms approved by the school… . They walked back past the playing-fields; the girls were still playing cricket.

In the tea-rooms, some other girls were being entertained by their families: they smiled distantly at Pauline and Dorothea, their mothers glanced suspiciously at Cecilia and Julian, who did not look like parents. Pauline was in an agony; she felt that Cecilia’s appearance, not to speak of her manner to Julian, really did require some explanation.

When Pauline had got Julian’s letter, saying he hoped to bring down a friend, Mrs. Summers, who wished to meet her, she had gone hot all over and prayed for guidance. Such a thing had never been done before. It was too much to hope that Cecilia would look motherly: her Uncle Julian would not go motoring for the afternoon with a motherly soul. Pauline had turned, desperate, to Dorothea: she was most fortunate in her friend.

“Oh, I think they will be all right,” Dorothea had said. “They must be getting engaged: they may tell us at tea. She
is
a widow, of course, not a divorcée? An uncle of mine got married the other day: such a jolly, sensible person; we all like her. Not young, naturally.”

“I don’t think he would marry a sensible person,” said poor Pauline.

“Why, is he aesthetic?”

“I think he is lonely. I noticed that when I stayed there. I expect a man misses having a woman about.”

“Oh yes, they must be engaged,” Dorothea concluded. “Or else he would never compromise her by bringing her down here. Did you see any signs of it coming on?”

“No— The thing is, will
she
compromise
us
?”

“We must hope for the best.”

“You
are
a support, Dorothea,” Pauline had sighed.

When all four sat down to tea in the hot little room with its printed table-cloths, Dorothea and Pauline, released from the ardours of hospitality, were able to give the couple their full attention. Not a blink of Cecilia’s, not a flicker from Julian escaped their scrutiny. Solidly, heartily eating, the girls missed nothing: their eyes were watchful over the rims of their cups. Chaste jollity, with a hint of congratulation began to pervade Dorothea’s manner; Pauline’s look, sidelong, marked every interchange with intensity.

Perplexed, Cecilia lighted a cigarette: indicating a notice the waitress asked her firmly to put it out again. Julian said Indian tea disagreed with him: the waitress said there was no China. “Ridiculous!” cried Cecilia, and all the mothers turned round. Cecilia, smouldering like a Siamese cat at a show, was glad to find that their strawberry punnets left stains on the table-cloth.

“More cakes?” said Julian, seeing a plate empty.

“Thank you,” said Dorothea. “The school-girl’s appetite is notorious.” She and Pauline had done quite well: their hosts had not looked after them but they had passed things to one another and, with apologetic glances towards Cecilia, refilled their cups. … In the rather heavy succeeding silence Cecilia glanced at her wrist-watch and thought of the cool road.

The girls thanked them repeatedly for the strawberries. “They were my idea,” said Cecilia with some complacency. For the first time she met Pauline’s eyes, full upon her—anxious, expansive, pleading. This square child and the little lonely half-ghost in the flat upon whom she had lavished a vagrant sympathy were not, after all, so different… . Dorothea, however, thundered across the possible intimacy of the moment.

Dorothea—upon whom some inner fermentation of tannin and strawberries must have acted as an intoxicant—precipitated to speech by Julian’s quite open glance at the clock, leaned forward impressively, raising her tea-cup. “Well, I am sure,” she said meaningly, “we wish everyone luck!”

Magnified by her spectacles, the archness of the look that she cast at Cecilia and Julian was unmistakable. There was a slight pause in the tea-room, an acceleration of interest. The mothers paused, tea-pots suspended over their daughters’ cups. Pauline, eyes downcast, face crimson, thanked her Uncle Julian (turning to settle the bill with a good deal of attention) for their delicious tea.

Later: “I think
that
went off well,” said Dorothea to Pauline, as having waved good-bye to the car they walked back to the school.

“But they didn’t
tell
us,” objected Pauline, not yet recovered from a profound sinking.

“If they are not engaged,” Dorothea said huffily, “they ought to be. If they are not, I think her manner was most peculiar. Of course, Pauline, I shouldn’t dream of criticising your
uncle
— However, of course if you feel—”

“No, you were splendid,” said Pauline, rallying.

“I must say,” said Dorothea, “I thought it went off well myself.”

Under the beech trees pierced and sparkling with sunset, Julian and Cecilia drove for some miles in silence. The country looked pretty, but she had seen it before. She remarked: “That seems a very good school.”

“
Do
you think Pauline’s happy?” said Julian slyly.

“It’s bad enough being a woman,” exclaimed Cecilia with passion, “but I can’t think why girls of that age were ever born!”

Julian appeared to agree; they were once more silent. “What,” he said at last, “was that other girl’s name?”

“Dorothea—we heard it often enough.”

“She was very kind,” said Julian, looking ahead stonily through the windscreen.

“She’s not shy: I suppose that’s a dispensation of Providence.”

“Why?”

“She’s so plain, poor girl: she’s like a curate.”

Julian, not turning and with an effect of great suddenness, said: “Did you hear what she said?”

Cecilia, looking serenely at her cigarette case said: “Yes. Did you?”

His look crept round to her profile. “I wish we were,” he suggested.

“But how could we be?”

“I mean, engaged.”

“Yes, I know you do,” said Cecilia, exasperated. “And I mean, how could we be when you haven’t proposed to me?”

“But that’s what I’m doing.”

“Yes, I know, it’s frightful: it’s like a fly walking over one! It’s really too crass of you, Julian—simply because of that overfed child! I may sometimes wonder whether I’d like to marry you, but you might see I didn’t want to be asked. If I can’t marry anyone who wants to marry me more than you do, I won’t marry: I’m perfectly happy the way I am!” Tears of vexation brightened her eyes in the sunset: she repeated: “I’m perfectly happy with Emmeline.” Flying beeches sent shadows over her face. “I don’t love you, you don’t love me!”

“For heaven’s sake, Cecilia—” said Julian, appalled.

“For heaven’s sake what?”

“Don’t get so excited. I’m more than sorry I spoke.”

“So am I… . You don’t know what you want.”

“I’ve no doubt you are right,” he said bitterly.

As they approached London, Cecilia took out her lipstick. She said: “Shall we let this drop?”

CECELIA, FINDING HERSELF in Knightsbridge with no engagements, rang up Lady Waters at Rutland Gate, at about one o’clock. She was tired and would be glad of a little sherry and lunch in the dark quiet dining-room, even at the price of a Real Talk. Lady Waters, who seldom lunched out and was truly hospitable, said this would be delightful. “I shall be alone,” she said, “but for little Gerda Bligh.”

“Little Gerda who?”

“Gilbert’s wife.”

“Oh yes,” said Cecilia, blankly. “Well, thank you ever so much, Georgina. I’ll come round.”

Lady Waters liked to have someone about the house; the preoccupations of Emmeline and Cecilia’s uncertainty gave Gerda an opening. Lady Waters and she had been shopping together; after lunch they were going on to a lecture. Cecilia, arriving, was very much bored to find Gerda with her little air of muted vivacity, flitting about the drawing-room. Contriving to look as appealingly rustic in London as she had looked exotic at Farraways, Gerda wore a large chip straw hat and frilly frock with a fichu. With a cold eye, Cecilia watched her tucking her gloves away behind a sofa cushion with all the coy propriety of a favoured squirrel.

This tall crimson drawing-room, even its cushions, still felt to a great extent Cecilia’s own. Here she and Henry had met, and the room kept a smile for her in its formal shadows… . From Sir Robert’s mother came down the brocaded paper, the gilt-slung pelmets, chandeliers, mirrors, Sevres vases and ormolu clock. From indifference to decoration or a passive respect for the Waters family feeling Georgina had left the drawing-room much as it was—she had installed more sympathetic lighting and approached the armchairs suggestively into tête-à-têtes. She had been right: the room remained an imposing second to her personality, and guests were as much alarmed as magnetised into indiscretion.

Here Henry, feet on the white hearthrug, back to a roaring fire, had first smiled at the young Cecilia sitting under a lamp. Here, both not unaware of their Georgina’s rather marked inattention, they had withdrawn to a distant sofa after dinner. Disregard, frivolity, voluntary coldness of heart had for years overlaid this memory for Cecilia—the slate is too small, not much can remain written—but even now something stirred when she came in, as though a spring were less dry or frozen than choked, obliterated by dusty leaves.

Cecilia, her feet in the white hearthrug, facing the cold summer hearth, looked into the mirror between the Sevres vases and retilted slightly her charming hat. It was not of Henry she thought, if she thought at all.

Lady Waters, in black and écru, sat looking earnestly at her niece. “It seems a long time since we met. What have you been doing?”

Cecilia just glanced at Gerda. She said to herself, she
had
been feeling expansive, but how could one talk now? “Time does fly,” she said, “once it begins to be summer… . I’ve been trying on a new evening dress.”

“I hear you’ve been going out a great deal,” said Lady Waters, with that air with which lesser women prefix: “A little bird told me”—but her confidante would have been an eagle. “I hope you are not doing too much?”

“Too much for what?” said Cecilia. “I never do anything else. Don’t tell me I’m looking
tired
,” she added, “I’m discouraged enough already, from trying on. Dressmakers’ glasses make one’s figure look nice but one’s face awful. I can’t think why—they can’t hope to sell one a new face.”

“You’re not looking tired, exactly …” said Lady Waters, annoyed by Cecilia’s nonchalant way of standing—fur slung from one shoulder, rose stuck into her buttonhole, lighting a cigarette as though she would well manage life on her own account. Darkly, she saw her niece going about with too many men, talking too freely, being too affable… . Meanwhile there sat Gerda, hands folded like Cherry Ripe; a model of sweet dependence. Inspite, however, of her young friend’s pretty deference, Lady Waters felt her to be a clear-sighted girl, no doubt a far finer character than Cecilia.

“Gerda and I,” she said affectionately, “have been buying eiderdowns.”

“
Eiderdowns
?” said Cecilia, her whole figure a query. She could no more imagine her aunt in a domestic bargain department than she could imagine a yogi there.

“Lovely eiderdowns,” agreed Gerda, nodding.

“Wasn’t it rather hot?”

“Eiderdowns are reduced at this time of year,” said Lady Waters with an air of remarkable pleasure in this discovery. “Like fur coats you know: Gerda saw them advertised in
The Observer
. It is worth while to remember, Cecilia.”

“I know,” said Cecilia, indignant. In fact there was little that one could teach her about running or stocking a house: though economy may not have been her forte she was exceedingly competent. If she preferred, at this season, evening dresses to eiderdowns, the need was practical and immediate. “Emmeline’s and my eiderdowns don’t wear out,” she said. “I suppose we are quiet sleepers.” Particles of white fluff seemed to float through the air; she felt prickly all over and could have sneezed.

Gerda sighed: “Gilbert smokes in bed; he burns holes in our eiderdown.”

“Who’s Gilbert?” Cecilia enquired, wondering what there would be for lunch.

It appeared later that the question had been indelicate. Lady Waters, drawing Gerda’s arm through her own, swept behind Cecilia into the dining-room in some displeasure. Cecilia felt quite sorry: she had hardly glanced at the little creature and had forgotten she might be married. Watching across the table how Gerda hung breathless upon Georgina’s lips, she very soon placed poor Gerda as a child-wife. Gerda, who had dropped her hat in the hall as they passed through, frequently tossed back her short fair hair: her manner towards Cecilia remained propitiatory. Cecilia, however, did not like women to whom the diminutive could be applied. … It did not occur to Cecilia that, having invited herself to luncheon and being preserved by the excellence of the Rutland Gate cooking from the material rigours of pot-luck, she might take her company as she found it. She remained forbidding. “Really,” she thought, “if this is Georgina’s latest, she is coming down in the world.”