“Well, summer’s nearly here,” he said, breaking a rather long silence.
“So it is,” lifting her face to the immense gentle vault of the darkening heavens. “It’s the first of May to-morrow.”
“Then we shall have the Longest Day and before we know where we are the evenings’ll be drawing in and there’ll be next winter to think about.”
“Oh please don’t!”
“Don’t what? What’s the matter now?”
“You’ve left out the summer altogether!” and at that moment she stumbled again and he put out his hand and caught her arm. His next remark was made while firmly holding on to her.
“Well, why not?” he said, and that was all. But she felt very sorry for him. He had no money, he had no passion for reading, he led a life without pleasure or hope or imagination, and he had carefully confined his conversation that evening to herself and the children. Poor Mr. Waite—poor Phil.
“Well—” she began, but found it difficult, and then impossible to continue. She wanted to tell him what pleasures and joys lay all about, even for the poorest, even for the most unhappy and how the deepest joy of all, the joy that outlasted all the others, was always spread silently in front of everyone, like air or light, like a delicious feast. But she was quite unable to say this to him or indeed to anyone, and so she kept silence, and he went on to make one of his stock remarks about life nowadays giving you no time for Higher Things.
She still kept silence, but, walking there beside him in the dusk and listening to his harsh discontented voice, she felt more and more sorry for him.
Alda had gone ahead of them and laid Meg down in the parlour and was now lighting the lamp in the hall. The soft glow slowly brightened until her face and hair were brilliantly illuminated, while her two sheltering hands holding the lamp-glass seemed made from transparent coral; she looked as if she were within a shrine, and all at once the dusk seemed chilly and lonely, and the two watchers felt shut out.
“Mr. Waite?” she called, standing upright and dusting her hands. “Come in and have some tea after all that hard work?”
“Yes, do, Phil,” said Jean warmly, but both women were surprised when he accepted. They were also slightly dismayed, for as was usual in the country within two hundred yards of a herd of cows in the nineteen-forties, the household was short of milk.
When Alda had put Meg to bed she came down to the parlour and found the tea ready and Mr. Waite sitting in the only comfortable chair explaining something to Jean. Alda let it drone past her ears as she contentedly poured out tea; to-morrow was undoubtedly going to be a fine day and Ronald was coming.
“J.,” she said suddenly, “you won’t mind taking the children out on the bicycles for the next few evenings, will you? Megsy can stay with Ronald and me, but I know the others will be wild to be off.”
“They won’t be fit to ride after one lesson!” exclaimed Mr. Waite, who seemed unusually at ease and undisapproving to-night, and then he took great draughts of tea and promised his evenings to the Lucie-Brownes for the next few days, and on being thanked, said that the light evenings always meant he had less to do.
“Don’t you garden?” asked Alda, glancing out of the window at the narcissus she had planted in December glimmering in the dusk.
“Only vegetables,” said Mr. Waite.
“Oh, but vegetables are thrilling!” exclaimed Mrs. Lucie-Browne, and Jean surprised a most sardonic look upon his face; how silly women are, it said, but there was something else in it that seemed to excuse one particular woman.
“Jean and I have put in thousands of radishes but I’m bothered if I’m going to plant anything serious and I shall jolly well take my bulbs with me when we go,” Alda went on.
“Why, do you think of going soon?” he asked, after there had been a little pause.
“My husband has been trying for the past year to get us a house in Ironborough, where we used to live and all my people and his people live, and we may hear at any time that he’s got one. It may have to be a prefab but we shall be thankful even for that.”
He nodded and passed his cup for more tea. Jean thought that his manner was less easy and friendly, and wondered why. Had he realised that the Lucie-Brownes and their friend Jean were only temporary residents at Pine Cottage, and decided to repress all amiable feelings towards them so that he might not miss them after they had gone? Or was the change caused by references to “my husband”?
In fact, Mr. Waite’s sudden reserve had nothing to do with sentiment. He was no novel reader and he was not given to self-analysis. He had never faced certain emotions that sometimes invaded his heart at the sight of one face and the sound of one voice; he ignored them; nor had it occurred to him that when Pine Cottage was empty once more his life would again be very lonely. But when Jean had remarked to Alda that next week she must go up to London to see her father’s business manager; and had gone on to explain to Mr. Waite that the management of the glass and china exporting firm was still in the hands of the very capable man who had been Mr. Hardcastle’s chief adviser for the past thirty years, Mr. Waite had simply not been able to resist deciding to propose to her.
The opportunity was too tempting; it was more than a man situated as he was should be called upon to refuse: a pleasant girl, alone in the world, emotionally unattached, owner of a prosperous business about which she seemed to know nothing, and plainly longing to settle down (Mr. Waite believed that all ladies longed to settle down, as if they were feathers that had floated about until they were tired). For his part, he could not understand why she had not been snapped up before, though that she had not was a piece of great good fortune for him.
He asked for nothing better than a pretty, docile wife with money. And such money! Not an income depending upon investments, to which anything in heaven or earth might happen and usually did, but money flowing in from an established and prosperous firm dealing in glass and china; cups and saucers, jugs, basins, plates—objects that everybody wanted, all over the world; and an export firm, too! at the time when “export” was not only a part of the National Consciousness but was also encouraged in theory, if not in practice, by the Government!
She had let slip the first time they met that she was an orphan and her father’s heir, but he, Mr. Waite, had supposed her to have merely some snug investments that bought diamond feathers for her, not a Business! a Business that would go on expanding and providing a ceaseless source of interest and comfort to herself and her husband for a lifetime!
Mr. Waite did not often experience vague, uneasy sensations, for his mind and character were almost uniformly practical, but on this occasion he did have a faint feeling that there was something that should have prevented him from proposing to Jean Hardcastle. However, it was not possible to think the matter out in detail amidst the chatter of the women, so he dismissed it from his mind until he should be walking homewards.
No sooner had he shut the garden gate than Alda said:
“He’s made up his mind. He’s going to ask you.”
“Alda, how do you know?”
“Oh, I can tell. I know the symptoms.”
Jean did not want the conversation to continue, but Alda went on:
“You see what an advantage it is, to carry on a courtship in the country. You really get to know each other; you see each other with ’flu and falling off bicycles, and out in the rain, and washing up—oh, I think it’s heaps better than in town, when you’re both dressed up and on your best behaviour. Well, ducky by June I shall be scratching madly round for my matron-of-honour dress. Can the children be bridesmaids?”
“Oh Alda—I don’t know—really, darling, I do think you may be mistaken, truly.”
“Not me. I’ve seen too many of them on the brink.”
Jean was silent. Alda took it for granted that she would accept the man. But shall I? thought Jean rinsing cups in the kitchen while Alda went round the house whistling, locking windows and bolting doors. No doubt it was better to see Mr. Waite
in all sorts of dreary and useful occupations; draped in a sack and feeding the chickens or tramping through the mud in his Wellingtons to pick a cabbage, but it was not romantic. I should like to see if he has a best behaviour and if he could dress up, thought Jean. Besides, I am not thrilled about him. Now if it were only my Mr. Potter——
“You aren’t worrying about Waite, for goodness’ sake, are you?” demanded Alda, coming back into the room and catching a glimpse of Jean’s face.
“Not exactly, Alda, only I don’t feel thrilled about him.”
“Well, honestly, J., you can’t have everything, you know. The man’s definitely not glamorous but he’s honest and kind-hearted and as near a gent as makes no odds. What more do you want?”
Jean was silent. Alda moved vigorously about the room, banging cushions into place and straightening newspapers with a crackle. She pushed back a chair against the wall; then glanced at her friend, and came over and put an arm about her shoulders.
“Truly, ducky, I do know what I’m talking about. Thrills are very little, you take my word for it, compared with all the real things,” and she gave her a little shake that was also a hug.
Jean stood still, within the firm, kind, impatient embrace of that round arm. Then she said, in a low voice:
“Don’t you think he might be trying to marry me for my money?”
Alda hesitated, then answered: “Well, I expect he sees all the advantages. He’d be blind if he didn’t. But I’m sure he isn’t trying to marry you only for that, J. He isn’t the type; he’s too honest. I expect he’ll say something about it when he asks you. And now come along, let’s get off to bed; I want to be up extra early to-morrow.”
She always was up early; her brisk step and thrush’s whistle were heard about the cottage before anyone else’s, and lazier people, lying in bed listening, knew that she had dashed her face with cold water and looked eagerly out at the morning before they were awake. This is not an endearing habit, but it seems slightly unfair that people who enjoy early rising should be so roundly condemned by those who do not. The latter have only Doctor Johnson on their side, and even he tried to get up early.
Jean lay long awake with her book and cigarettes, and the pleasantest hour of the twenty-four was spoiled by confused thoughts, and doubts, and indecision. Now that she was to be proposed to, she experienced none of those emotions which she had always anticipated she would feel in such a situation.
She thought of Mr. Waite (it was still difficult to think of him as Phil) with slight alarm. Honesty, kindness and a high standard of morals might make a man an excellent husband, but what if he had no sense of humour, and no indulgence for other people’s failings, and a silly religion? (It was all very well for modernists to tell you that you should “respect” other people’s religion, but where would Saint Paul have got if he had done that?)
She had always hoped to marry a man that Alda and Ronald would like, so that the old friendship should continue uninterrupted, but had Alda considered the prospect of dining with Phil, drinking-at-six with him, picnicking and bridge-ing and lunching with him, for the next thirty years or so, and he without one clue to their particular kind of joke?
Jean was sure that Alda had considered nothing of the sort, for she was so anxious to bring off her scheme that she had looked no further than the wedding-day. I should be left alone with a strange man, thought Jean, sighing, and shutting up the book in which she had read not a word for the past twenty minutes, and if I did refuse him, she would be so cross.
Walking homeward across the meadows, Mr. Waite gave his full attention to his decision. If he did not marry Jean, some fortune-hunter would; he had feared this since the day of their first meeting and, from a casual remark once made by Alda—Mrs. Lucie-Browne—he knew that she feared it too. He had not felt so strongly upon any subject but the Egg Board for years: Jean needed protection from prowling males, the firm needed a man’s guiding hand, and he would supply both.
She herself presented no difficulties. Her nature was gentle and attractive, and unspoiled by silly ideas about a woman managing her own affairs. It was a long time since he had met a girl who approached so closely to his Ideal, and owing to the extraordinary but fortunate circumstance that no one had so far succeeded in Snapping Her Up, she was fancy-free (at least, he presumed that she was fancy-free; she wore no ring; she never dropped hints or blushed or anything) and his for the asking! He would wait for a few weeks, until their acquaintanceship had ripened into a solid friendship, and then he would speak.
Owing to his rapid pace across the grass and his confident thoughts, Mr. Waite’s expression was unusually cheerful as he entered his dark and chilly cottage, and even the look which the chickens gave him when he brought their food half an hour late could not sober him. The vague sensation that had troubled him earlier in the evening, that there was some obstacle in the way of his proposing to Jean, some reason why he should explain something at length and carefully to her, had passed completely away.
That night Fabrio lay upon his side in his hard bed, wide awake, and staring into the dimness that was less than completely dark because of the light from the spring moon. It was nearly midnight: the uneasy quiet of the long hut, filled with tainted air, was broken by snores and sometimes the heavy movements of a restlessly sleeping man. Fabrio’s heart beat fast, and now and again he sighed, but it was with joy. He had decided: he would ask Sylvia to be his wife. She did not hate him; she would not have smiled at him so kindly only this evening unless she liked him; perhaps she even loved him, and that coldness, that rough way of talking, that fury when he kissed her, had been assumed to hide her love. Girls often did that. And she would be glad when he asked her; girls always were. And prisoners often married the women of the country where they were held captive: had he not seen half a dozen such cases in the newspapers?
It was true that he had no money beside the four and eight-pence halfpenny guarded for him by Mr. Hoadley, but, Mother of God! he was young, he was strong, he knew how to work, and when he returned to Italy there would be work for everyone. It was a pity to disappoint Maria, who had no doubt begun to hope, after all these letters, that he would marry her, but a man had to marry the one he wanted, and he wanted Sylvia.
He would creep about no longer, quiet and wretched; he would sing as he worked and show her that he was one to be admired, and when the time of harvest came, and they worked side by side in the fields under the hot sun, he would ask her to be his wife. He sighed tremulously, and muttered a prayer, and fell asleep at last with his tousled chestnut head thrust into the pillow in a way that would have stifled anyone but a foreigner.
A young man lounged in a great basketwork chair in the gardens of a club on the other side of the world, his eyes shaded by a linen hat from the fierce sun of a South African morning, a tall icy drink by his side, and an unopened copy of a newspaper, whose wrapper bore English stamps, on his knees.
He had slightly prominent greenish eyes, a big nose, a wide mouth that often laughed to show good teeth, and an easy, casual, gay manner that might make a sensitive heart doubtful of holding him down. Presently he began to read the newspaper, and presently he saw in it a piece of news that he re-read. When he had finished with the paper, he yawned, and pushed it aside, stretched, and pulled his hat further over his eyes, then opened a writing-case and dashed off a letter.
We must now return to Sussex.
23
ALDA CONTRIVED TO have her talk with Ronald about Louise and Roman Catholicism, but she found him so agreeably impressed by what he called “this improvement in the children” that he was inclined to make light of Louise’s enthusiasm, and when Alda admitted that she had not noticed any change for the worse in the child’s character, he advised her not to take the matter seriously. He broke the good news that he was actually in negotiation for a house in Ironborough which might be theirs by the autumn; a secret that he had kept until now, when the arrangements had reached a hopefully advanced stage, and he pointe
d out that when the family left Sussex the influence of the convent must disappear.
Alda was left with a sensation of slight bafflement. She was pleased, of course, that he was pleased, and of course she liked Louise and Jenny to be cheerful and busy and progressing, but she wished that they could have been equally cheerful and busy without going to school. School had undoubtedly taken them away from herself. They still loved her dearly and liked to be with her, but she was no longer the foreground and the background too; the Sisters, and Damaris Bernais, and a convent wit and daredevil named June Wilson, were the foreground, and had been for weeks. Alda resented this; refused to admit her feeling to herself; and took to making much of Meg, who received her attentions placidly.
They made of the unexpected fortnight’s leave a second honeymoon, even going to Ironborough for some days to visit Alda’s people and inspect the house for which Ronald was negotiating. Fine weather and the knowledge that the children were safe and happy in Jean’s care sent them off on their journey content.