Westwood (37 page)

‘Doesn’t she talk to you?’

‘Not about Alex, darling,’ lied Seraphina, though Hebe’s laconic hints in any case could hardly be described as talking.

‘I thought women always talked,’ said Mr Challis, with a little sneer. Like most seekers for an ideal woman, he did not really like women, believing that they disappointed and failed him on purpose.

‘Gerry dear,’ said his wife gently, turning to him as she stood by the door with the sunlight on her face, looking like some Julia or Dianeme from a poem by Herrick, ‘I don’t mean to butt in or be rude, and of course I do know everyone
says
you’re such a
marvellous
psychologist and I’m not highbrow or anything, but honestly you
don’t
know much about women. The women in your plays are such
hags
, darling; absolute witches and hags, if you don’t mind my saying so. I don’t know
any
women like them and I’ve known
hordes
of women. Some of them were witches and some were hags, but they weren’t witches and hags in
that
way – so highbrow and
pleased
with themselves and not having any
young
, or any fun, or anything natural. I don’t know
why
I’m going on like this,’ ended Seraphina, suddenly recollecting herself and giving him a dazzling smile, ‘we
are
having a heart-to-heart to-night, aren’t we? I expect it’s all this worry about poor darling Grantey.’

Mr Challis said nothing for a moment. Much of what his wife had said he contemptuously ignored as the natural jealousy of an ordinary, attractive woman for the intense, gem-like goddesses of his creative imagination, but it did occur to him that, if she disliked his women, she might be able to suggest why the critics had turned in a body upon
Kattë
.

‘Men and women never admire the same type of women or even see women in the same way,’ he answered curtly. ‘I am sorry that you do not find my heroines attractive, although I am not surprised, and I congratulate you upon having concealed your dislike of them so successfully and for so long. Er – do you think the critics agree with you?’ he went on, with some embarrassment. ‘Most of them seem to find fault with
Kattë
, though none of them agree on where the fault lies.’

‘I expect it isn’t cheerful enough, darling,’ answered Seraphina at once. ‘Everybody’s so browned-off with the war just now, they don’t want any
more
miseries – however well written they are,’ she added hastily.

Mr Challis was so annoyed that he actually gave a bitter laugh, which is a thing people hardly ever do anywhere. This was exactly what Hilda had said to him in even cruder words. Oh, women, women! How narrow and earthbound had Nature created them! How infinitely better to design and create one’s own!

‘There was never a more urgent need for great tragic drama than now,’ he said – almost snapped. ‘Have
none
of you any conception of the meaning of that great phrase,
to purge with pity and terror
?’

‘I know, darling, but we
are
purged, every time we open a newspaper or go to the pictures. We’re being purged
all the time
; I mean,
I’m
not, because I don’t mind the raids except when any of you are out in them, and when they show you those films of dead Japanese and General MacArthur walking on them I always shut my eyes, and
I
never read the papers but
everybody
can’t do that, and when they go out for a spot of fun they don’t
want
to be terrified and purged, unless it’s a thriller or a nice juicy murder.’

‘They flocked to see Gielgud’s
Macbeth
.’

‘Well –’ said Seraphina delicately, and paused. ‘Shakespeare’s different,’ she said at last, thinking –
Poor Gerry. He doesn’t know, but he’s had it
. ‘And so they’ll flock to see
Kattë
,’ she went on gaily. ‘
No one
takes any notice of the critics, you know, and the Camberhams and the Wynne-Fortescues thought it was
too
marvellous, the best yet. So
do
cheer up, sweetie,’ coming over and dropping a kiss on his head. ‘I must fly now, I’m
too
appallingly late.’

‘The Camberhams! The Wynne-Fortescues!’ muttered Mr Challis, uncomforted. As she went out of the room he said:

‘Er – see that Mrs Grant has all she wants, Seraphina.’

‘There, you see, darling, you
are
much nicer than you think you are!’ said Seraphina as she shut the door.

Upstairs in her attic room, Grantey was lying in bed glancing at an evening paper which Hebe had just brought up to her. Hebe was sitting in the window-seat, between the faded curtains of ugly yellow cotton, and gazing out across the garden (which was even darker than usual in the shadow beneath the afterglow) at the glimpses of London, exquisitely distinct in the clear evening light. Every steeple and tower and white mass of buildings was visible, vivid and yet soft, as if seen in one of her husband’s paintings. She herself looked paler than usual, and tired, and the sleeves of her grey cotton dress were still damp and rolled up from giving the children their bath, a task which Grantey usually performed for her. The baby was already asleep, being still at the stage when he could be pinned down and must stay down, but from the large apartment on the
next floor, which Emma and Barnabas were to share with their mother that night, thumps and shrieks could be heard; not shrieks of anger or pain but the more ominous shrieks of a six-year-old who will not drop asleep until after nine o’clock.

‘They’ll wake Jeremy,’ muttered Grantey, frowning slightly but not looking up from her paper. Though the seriousness of her illness dated only from yesterday, she already showed an alarming obedience to the doctor’s orders and a lack of interest in matters which only a little while ago would have engaged all her attention; her responses to the children’s naughtiness, the damage to Lamb Cottage, and Mr Alex’s going off so sudden-like were mechanical, as if her real interest were somewhere else. And indeed, it was; for the first time in her sixty-seven years it was concentrated, though without her knowledge, upon her own exhausted and failing body, and from now on her strength would be devoted to keeping that body alive. All that she had said was: ‘I am tired, and that’s a fact; a bit of a rest won’t do me any harm,’ but the meekness of this admission had sent a thrill of alarm through Hebe and Mrs Challis; when had Grantey ever confessed to being tired?

‘Nothing wakes him when once he’s gone off,’ answered Hebe listlessly. Then, as if unwilling to admit by tone or pose that she was not her usual self, she sat upright, clasped her arms round her knees and said:

‘Well, how’s the b. war going?’

‘Don’t, Miss Hebe,’ murmured Grantey, reaching for her spectacles in their worn blue case. ‘I can’t make out what they’re doing in Burma.’

‘We should worry what they’re doing in Burma.’

‘Poor boys,’ said Grantey, arranging the spectacles on her nose. ‘It does seem hard – all this destruction and wickedness.’

She so seldom referred to the war that Hebe was a little roused by surprise. She drew up her knees closer within the circle of her arms and said:

‘Grantey, you know I don’t care a hoot about the war except for Beefy coming out of it all right, but – you believe in a God, don’t you?’

‘Now, Miss Hebe, don’t talk like that,’ said Grantey, with some of the severity of Hebe’s nursery days, and at last glancing up from the paper, ‘it’s not pretty or right.’

‘Well, but you do, don’t you, angel pet?’

‘Of course I do, Miss Hebe, and so do you, or you were brought up to.’

‘Oh – yes – but never mind that now. And you believe God is Love and all that, don’t you?’

‘
I
want to read my paper, Miss Hebe. I like to have you with me if you can be quiet, and we can both get a bit of a rest, but if you’re going to talk in that way, you had better go downstairs,’ and Grantey put down the paper and looked steadily for a moment at Hebe over her glasses.

‘All right, but I’m twenty-two, not ten,’ said Hebe, laughing but with another expression in her eyes, ‘and if I want to stay here, I shall. If you believe God is Love, how can He let the war go on?’ (
And Alex behave like a cruel stranger that I’ve never seen before, and go off and leave me and the children and not say when he’s coming back?
)

‘That’s men, not God,’ said Grantey briskly, but settling herself in the bed with a weary movement, ‘and it’s all part of God’s plan for doing away with war for good and all.’

‘How come?’ asked Hebe, still laughing. ‘You tell me.’

‘All these dreadful explosions and atrocities and secret weapons they keep on talking about,’ began Grantey, ‘and not knowing when you go to bed at night if you’ll be alive when you wake up in the morning – that’s all part of God’s plan. He’s letting it get worse and worse so’s it’ll destroy itself, like; it’ll get so bad not even wicked people’ll want it, and then it’ll stop. Not that
I
mind, for myself,’ she went on in a lower, more thoughtful tone, turning her head slowly towards the window and looking out into the fading light, ‘I never think about it much, I’ve got too much to do, but I do think about all those poor souls over there, in those concentration camps and all that, and that
does
upset me.’

Hebe said nothing. Her mouth was set in a hard line.

‘And then I think it’s all part of God’s plan to end war, and if we have to worry about the sufferings of others that’s our part in the plan – our share of the Cross.’

‘I expect that’s what it is, Grantey dear,’ said Hebe more gently, after a long pause.

‘When I was a little girl,’ Grantey began again, in a still lower tone, as if she were talking to herself, ‘Mother used to take Douglas and me away to the seaside for a week every summer to stay with her sister, our Auntie Belle. She and Uncle Frank lived in a little place on the east coast (Bracing Bay, it’s called now, it was Clackwell in those days, I’m speaking of over fifty years ago) and the sea was at the end of their road; on quiet nights you could hear the waves breaking on the shore. Mother would put me to bed in a little room with very high walls (at least, they seemed high to me), with a shiny striped wallpaper all over little bunches of flowers, very pretty, I thought it was, and texts hanging up in gold frames –
God is Love
, with red and blue birds and wild roses painted on them. Oh, it was so quiet and peaceful!’ She gave a long sigh, and lay still for a little while, remembering. Hebe remained silent. The room was filling with soft shadows.

‘Mother would leave me a night-light, and there I’d lie in the big bed, half awake and half asleep, listening to the sound of the waves coming up from the beach and watching the night-light, and the shiny stripes on the wallpaper and the little birds on the texts. They used to look so far away! – the walls being so high and me being so little, but I was never a bit frightened, it was all so beautiful, with
God is Love
watching over it all. I’ve never forgotten it. And that’s my idea of what Heaven’ll be like; just peace and quiet and a nice sound coming from somewhere far off, and flowers and birds to look at, and
God is Love
over it all.’

‘I’m sorry I was a pig, Grantey,’ said Hebe, after another long silence. She moved from her cramped position, stretched and yawned.

‘You’d better go and change your frock. Dinner’ll be ready in a few minutes,’ said Grantey, glancing at the clock and receiving the apology with a tiny, grim smile. ‘Though, goodness knows what Zita and Douglas’ll have got for you to eat between them. Is Mr Challis going to be in?’

‘I expect so. Shall I do your blackout?’

‘Douglas’ll do that when he brings up my supper. What time is this here
nurse
coming?’

‘After dinner, Mum said. I’ll bring her up to you, shall I?’

Grantey sniffed, and Hebe laughed and ran downstairs.

In the hall she found her mother, waiting for a taxi which Cortway had been fortunate enough to secure. Hebe fell into a chair and stuck her feet out in front of her with a long sigh.

‘Tired, sweetie?’ asked Seraphina.

‘
Dead
. Mums, it is going to make a difference having Grantey ill, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid it is. I don’t think any of us realized how much we all depended on her.’

‘Won’t Granny crow! She always says we don’t appreciate Grantey.’

‘She won’t crow, darling, but she’ll be very sorry and upset.’

‘Haven’t you told her yet?’

‘I couldn’t
face
it,’ sighed Seraphina, peering desolately at herself in a tiny mirror, ‘not that she
fusses
but –’

‘I’ll tell her, if you like.’

‘Will you? That’s very sweet of you,’ with a surprised glance. ‘Won’t that be dreary for you?’

‘I don’t mind that sort of thing. I’m stinking with moral courage,’ said Hebe gloomily, staring at the stubby toes of her little shoes.

This was true. She never minded what she said to anyone and never had; when they were children, it was always she who had told some unwelcome little guest that it was time he went home now, as it had been she who had braved the grown-ups when there was a row on; and now that she was grown-up herself, she would neither smooth out difficulties nor lie about them; the rough, loving nature that dwelt so unexpectedly within the shell of her placid beauty insisted upon complete honesty and a childish fair-dealing between herself and her husband and her friends, and although she made her tacit demand bearable because, unlike many women, she never discussed personal relationships and never analysed difficult situations, some people were incapable of fully meeting her demands. Apparently Alex was among them.