Two Solitudes (38 page)

“Paul!” she cried. “Hi, Paul!”

He saw the up-turned nose and wide mouth and knew it was Heather. He longed to speak to her, but was ashamed without exactly knowing why. He made an elaborate pretence of looking over his shoulder to see whom she was calling, and when he glanced back again he saw that his movement had puzzled her. “I'm sure that was Paul Tallard,” he heard her say as she turned to the girl on the horse beside her. Paul stole a quick glance and recognized Daphne. She looked tall and very slim on the horse, sure of herself, with the sunlight on her hair. But the instructor was annoyed at the interruption. He demanded attention, and before Heather could get away from the group Paul slipped off the road and disappeared in the shrubbery. There was no path from here to the top, but a sheer wall of rock with large cracks and hand-holes in its face. Concentrating on what he was doing, pretending he was like the Swiss mountaineers he had read about, he hauled himself up the rock face and finally reached the top. He saw that he had cut a hole in the shin part of one stocking and felt badly about it. His mother had told him that his clothes would have
to last him for years now. He decided he must learn how to darn socks. His mother hated darning, and he did not want to make trouble for her.

He was breathless from his climb, but now he was on the top of the mountain and could see the whole city spread out beneath him. It looked magnificent in the sunshine merely because it was large and he could see so much of it. The upper part hugging the mountain was beautiful, soft lights and shadows lying among trees and the roofs of various houses quiet in the shade. But the central and eastern parts were a raw waste of masonry with an occasional square building jutting high above the flat roofs around it. In all parts were the spires and domes of churches, more to the acreage than any other commercial city in the world. About the oval shore of the island the river curved in a great distant sweep out of the Lachine Rapids under the Victoria Bridge, folded the slip of Nun's Island and the green bluff of Saint Helen's. Factory smoke from Verdun drifted downstream on a light southwesterly breeze, but through it he could see the plain spreading to the mountains across the American border, sloping so gradually that at this height it even seemed to be tilted downward.

Paul wandered about the summit, moving under the trees and out again, for nearly half an hour. Then he went down the slope again to the city, reached Sainte-Catherine Street and walked east to University, his hands in his pockets. The traffic was thick at the noon-hour, the whole city beating about him: hundreds of acres of concrete, bricks, mortar, asphalt, street-cars, trucks, motors, advertising signs in flaring scarlet and white, crowds–everything hot under the sun. He saw by a clock in a store window that it was twelve-thirty. His mother would not likely be back for another two hours at least, she never knew what time it was. He walked down
University Street to Beaver Hall Hill, down Victoria Square to McGill Street, down McGill to the harbour.

He killed another hour by strolling along the waterfront watching stevedores loading and unloading ships. He saw vessels from England, France, Australia, India, Norway, Sweden, Holland, as well as the red-and-white lake boats that were always on their way past Saint-Marc in the old days. He felt a faint thrill of recognition, finding something here which fitted into the pattern of what he had read and of what he had been told by Yardley. The ships could still discover the Americas. But what was left for him to discover when he grew up? What could be new for him except old places like India and Greece? He walked along each pier to the sterns of the ships, and was fascinated by the names of their home ports: Liverpool, Glasgow, Saint-Nazaire, Sydney, Bergen, Göteborg, Amsterdam, Bombay.

But finally he became so hungry he could watch the ships no longer. He had two miles to walk before reaching home, and no money in his pocket for a tram. He set out, going back up the successive slopes, with the hollow feeling of hunger growing inside him. The traffic became steadily thicker as he neared the centre of town, newsboys on every corner selling copies of the
Star
, magazines from the States, crowds speaking French and English around him, signs and billboards repeating second-hand the slogans they had learned from the Americans, beckoning with Players, Sweet Caps, British Consuls, Black Horse Ale, Mother's Bread, the signs screaming bi-lingually in red, white and yellow: buvez coca-cola–the pause that refreshes–la biere de votre grandpere–the remedy your uncle used; streets signs telling him to keep to the right gardez votre droite no parking here ne stationnez pas ici, while in
front of one movie house Theda Bara with hair flopping loose on her face was clasped by Lou Tellegen, and in front of another Mabel Normand smiled into the bleak and angular face of a huge American in a ten-gallon hat.

When Paul reached home the place was still empty and his mother's bed still unmade. He went into the kitchen and opened a can of beans, spilled the beans out into a saucepan and heated it on the stove. Then he cut a slice of bread and buttered it, and poured himself a glass of milk. The beans and the milk tasted good.

Toward mid-afternoon Kathleen returned. She found Paul reading on the sofa, the bed made and the dishes washed. She put her arms about him and held him, saying how wonderful he was to have done all these things by himself. He felt her warm softness and smelled the strange, fresh, remembered sweetness of her skin. He saw also the wonderful smile that had always made her seem lovely to him. But in spite of this the loneliness struck right through him. For now that his father was dead his mother seemed changed, a different sort of person; still herself yet somehow much less than she had been before. And he knew now that although her smile was as sincere as possible, it was still somehow automatic, a gesture as natural and unconscious as the sway of her hips when she walked, and that behind it her mind was a stranger.

Outside the street was hot in the afternoon sun, and the murmur of Montreal came in through the window.

 

PART THREE

1934

 

THIRTY-ONE

H
untly McQueen was giving a dinner party. For the first time in many months, the huge house he had purchased twelve years before, on the mountain-side opposite the Methuens, had guests in it. Daphne had just returned from England with her husband and the party was in their honour. It was the first time she had been home since her marriage two years previously to the Honourable Noel Fletcher. They had been living in London.

The guests sat around a thick-legged mahogany table in a dining room which had given McQueen special satisfaction ever since he had come to possess it. A better example of a style he considered correct could be found nowhere else in the city. It was a thoroughly solid kind of room and he felt it reflected his personality. The walls were panelled shoulder-high in dark mahogany; above the panels rough tan wall paper reached to a lofty ceiling. The bay window at the end of the room was screened by draperies the colour of port wine with dust in it. From the ceiling hung a gigantic chandelier, at least two hundredweight of metal and cut-glass prisms, almost enough potential energy to smash the table to pieces if it ever fell. On
one wall was a line engraving, four feet by three, of Sir Walter Scott meeting Robert Burns at the Edinburgh Literary Society. On another wall was the painting of McQueen's mother which had formerly hung in his office. There were peonies under it now in a cut-glass vase.

When dinner ended they filed into the drawing room. This was another lofty chamber, furnished with oriental rugs, three ormolu clocks, walnut tables, chairs covered with rose brocade, imitation Constables surrounded by ponderous gilt frames, two bronze statuettes on marble bases and several Dresden figurines. The walls were covered with more tan paper. Heavy red draperies were drawn across all the windows, though this side of the house was overlooked by nothing but McQueen's own garden. He could never stand being in a lighted room with the windows unshaded.

Janet Methuen entered the drawing room first, wearing a severe black evening gown. Daphne followed in white with gold trimming, svelte about the hips and breasts. Heather was in lime green, which suited her cheerful youth. After a few moments they were joined by the men: Noel Fletcher, a head taller than the others; General Methuen, who came along with a stiff, stalking movement, both hands in his waistcoat to ease it; then McQueen with a benign smile on his wide face and one hand on the general's shoulder.

McQueen's smile concealed a discomfort which during dinner had verged on irritation. Twenty years of increasing recognition by Montreal society had done more than mellow him. It had made him feel at one with his environment, which he was inclined to think was in many ways superior to any other in the world. It was an environment in which a man was not accustomed to being disturbed.

But during dinner Noel Fletcher had exasperated him. It
was not so much what he had said as what he hadn't bothered to say. His arrogance was a new kind to McQueen. It went deeper than the arrogance one expected to find in certain Englishmen visiting what they considered a colony. Although only thirty-seven, Fletcher made everyone around him feel themselves to be his junior. He did it effortlessly, simply by existing in the same room with them.

Then there was Daphne. The change she had made in herself seemed to McQueen to be deplorable. She had acquired a flippant way of speaking about everything. She dressed like a Parisienne, and in her own way she had become as overbearing as her husband. McQueen wondered what her grandfather thought about her now. The general was really marvellous. At seventy-seven years of age he had eaten a full dinner and had not once complained about any of his vital organs.

“How about a rubber of bridge?” McQueen said.

Daphne turned in the middle of the drawing room, one long-fingered hand on her golden hair. “But Huntly, aren't there six of us?”

The general stalked across the room to the screened fireplace, turned his back to it, his head on a level with the ormolu clock which centred the mantel. “We'll take turns,” he said. To McQueen he added, “Always like to play with you. Keep your mind on the game. Damned if I can see why no one in our house can do it too.”

The general's shoulders were still square, his back straight, his cheeks flushed. He looked like a much older brother of the major who advertises Army Club cigarettes in Piccadilly Circus. If he was a survival of a period his country would never see again, he clearly did not know it. Tonight he felt very comfortable. It was a fine June evening, the family was
together, and he was pretty sure he was going to digest his dinner.

“Let Heather play,” Daphne said.

Janet's voice broke in. “But Heather despises bridge!”

As she turned to look at her younger daughter the silk-shaded lamps cast heavy shadows over Janet's face. During the past years her features had become hawk-like. If she had not acquired an ease of manner, she had at least gained a self-confidence which took its place fairly well. Not a little of this self-confidence sprang from the knowledge that Daphne was in line for a title. She stood by the chesterfield, her eyes star-tlingly large with dark circles under them, skin stretched tightly over the bridge of her nose, tight also over the cheekbones. Her hair was neatly shingled, and lay in precise waves over her head, all of it steel grey.

“Of course,” she said to Heather, “you can play if you want to. I've always said you could learn if you'd only watch what other people do.”

McQueen cleared his throat. There was no particular reason why anyone should play bridge except that he had planned it. It disturbed him to hear his guests apparently talking at random, their words falling loose and going to waste. In front of the mantel General Methuen was saying to Noel Fletcher, “Take Airedales, now. There's not a better dog in the world for catching bears. Down in New Brunswick…”

But Fletcher was paying not the slightest attention to the general. His head, with hair ash-blond and not too recently trimmed, was balanced evenly on a pair of wide shoulders as straight as a soldier's and as lithe as an athlete's. He had the tapering body of a middleweight fighter, and a sort of shining cleanness that set him apart from everyone else. His eyes were a brittle blue; boyish at first glance, disconcertingly mature on further acquaintance. He had been to Harrow and Sandhurst
and had served in the Flying Corps in the last war. His words came out in a cultivated drawl. He was known as a ruthlessly competent man of business, owning a controlling interest in a large aircraft factory in England. McQueen, who instinctively judged people by gauging what they wanted in life, was completely baffled by Fletcher. So far as he could tell, Fletcher was disinterested in everything.

The general was still talking. “After all, Hitler may be extreme, but he's not a fool.”

Fletcher looked into the cold hearth. “He knows what he wants.”

“But how's he going to get it? The Boche has scuttled his own fleet. We'll blockade 'em to death if he tries any monkey business.”

“Oh, really?” Fletcher said. “You think fleets still matter?”

“Damn it!” the general said. “They always have.”

McQueen cleared his throat again, but nobody paid any attention to him. The three women were discussing Heather's dress. Fletcher was surveying the general's old face, which looked back at him with a certain dog-like anxiety.

“In the next war,” Fletcher said, “the only thing a battleship will do is sink.”

“You talk as if you took another war for granted,” McQueen said shortly.

“Don't you?” Fletcher said.

Before McQueen could answer, the general began to snort. “Too many sound people in Britain to let anything like that develop.” His old face carried the expression of a man who had never found it necessary to be intelligent but who knew right from wrong without thinking about it. His eyes seemed to be telling Fletcher that he knew his England as well as anyone. “The British government,” he said emphatically, “is
the best in the world, and that's all there is to it. Over here we've always known that.”