Pure Juliet

  ‘Yesh.’ Clemence held her glass, admiringly, up to the light, fuzzily smiling, ‘There would. Be gossip.’

  ‘And when she does make a name for herself – and I believe it’ll be a very big one – it would be tiresome for her to have had . . . well . . . a shady-sounding adolescence. Added to her being a woman. What?’

  Clemence had muttered something else and now was nodding; she had meant to shake her head with decision, but somehow the gesture reversed itself.

  ‘Any hint of sex interest . . . I simply cannot face inviting some unknown female, however suitable, to come here as companion for the months before Juliet goes up. I can’t face it, I’d murder the unfortunate creature. So what’s to be done?’ He paused. ‘I simply do not know.’

  ‘You could marry me,’ Clemence said.

  His glass fell to the floor.

  She nodded – sagely. ‘Marry me. Alwaysh wanted to marry you, since I was seventeen. I could see to Juliet and I want shome children. Lotsh of children. We get on so well, you see. Alwaysh have.’

  There he sat, gaping, a pool of dandelion wine at his feet, and the smashed glass glittering. The silence lasted just long enough for reality to make its way up to the edge of the alcoholic liberty in which Clemence was floating.

  She was on the brink of realizing what she had done, and if she had continued to sit, leaning back comfortably and gazing at him with that glazed, silly smile, and gently waving her glass at him, perhaps convention and common sense and bachelor habits might have asserted themselves.

  But suddenly she gulped, and set her glass down with care on the table and covered her contorted face with both hands, and burst into tears, crying loudly like a child.

  ‘Clem! Love!’ Frank scrambled across the six feet separating them and took her awkwardly into his arms (with none of the sensuous reverence with which he used to take Deirdre or Ottolie). ‘Don’t – don’t cry – it’s marvellous – a marvellous idea – of course, that’s the solution. Only a fool like me wouldn’t have thought of it before. Of course we’ll get married. Brilliant girl – there, there,’ and he attempted a soothing rocking, which failed because she was lying back in the chair. ‘Don’t cry—’ A series of kisses were deposited all over her wet face as he pulled down her hands. ‘Here, have some more whisky—’ He looked distractedly over his shoulder for the bottle.

  Clemence! He felt as if the roof had fallen in.

  Then he was visited by one of those angels who bestow strokes of genius upon ordinary people; who inspire the sentences that heal wounds, and modestly, with simple means, shape lives. He drew back a little, still clasping her loosely, and said, the angel prompting him to a doubtful tone: ‘You did mean it, didn’t you, my love?’

  ‘Of course I meant it, you idiot,’ she said, between sobs. ‘Been meaning it for agesh, only you kept falling in love with all thoshe—’

  ‘No more,’ he assured her earnestly. ‘That really is over. My poor Clem,’ kissing her tenderly, ‘you must have been so miserable. My jewel of a best friend.’

  She looked up at him, her face lacking even its usual ordinary pleasant attractions because it was so ravaged and tear-stained.

  ‘But you don’t love me, do you?’

  Don’t hesitate, commanded the angel, in as near a hiss as an angel can get.

  ‘Of course I love you. In the best, most lasting way of all. As one loves a wife. I’ll love you more, too, when we’re married. You wait.’

  He ventured a smile, and Clemence sat up and produced a handkerchief. Reality returned.

  Suddenly, she felt more than usually sober. And all those slightly dreary but necessary spirits which had guided her since she had decided she wanted to marry Frank, stood before her, and ‘The Smile of Reason’ was gone from the faces of Control, Common Sense, Prudence, and Planning. Those faces were all a yard long; and their owners were enquiring in one dismal chorus, ‘Clemence Massey, what have you done?’

  ‘I think it might work,’ she said shakily, after some nose-blowing which did not add Romance to the occasion.

  He stood up, towering over her, looking down at her with gentle eyes. ‘I get my best friend for life. You get what – you seem to want. And Juliet gets protection for her genius. Perfect.’

  Juliet.

  Clemence was now well afloat on the tide of reaction that had replaced the blissful alcoholic one, and she heard the dismal chorus of her inward mentors change to a warning note.

  Oh yes, they were saying, it will work if you don’t drop Us, and don’t protest about herb wines or no carpets, or, most of all, that ghastly little Juliet. It’ll work all right. And work is the word, they added coldly. You drop Us, my girl, and see what happens.

  Clemence lay back in her chair, feeling dazed, and there was silence in the room. She was very aware of that smell of putty. Perhaps that was why she felt sick?

  Frank had gone off into a stare, his eyes fixed on a wooden spoon which came from Indonesia and was hanging on the wall, for he had already begun to install his possessions. A soft sound broke into his reverie.

  ‘Why are you giggling, love?’ He turned smiling to her, beginning to laugh too.

  ‘I was thinking – no one but you would sit staring at a spoon when you’ve just been proposed to.’

  ‘Spoon – nice old Victorian word – most appropriate,’ and he went over to her and began kissing her.

  ‘You don’t like being kissed, do you?’ he said anxiously, in a moment, drawing back.

  And Clemence, still suffering the effects of whisky and putty, burst out: ‘How can you expect me to like it, when I’m so tired, and it’s all so, oh, do let me go home to Grandmamma!’

  Both were laughing as they went out of the Cowshed, but her laughter was not free from hysteria.

  The next morning at six o’clock, an hour which she preferred to pretend did not exist, Mrs Massey, dimly dreaming, heard two loud bangs and, with confused and indignant thoughts of the IRA, sat up in bed. Her snowy curls were crowned by a cap with lilac and white bows and her night attire was unsuitable and gallant.

  She at once realized, as the bangs were repeated on a miniature scale, that they had been magnified the first time (in the peculiar way that light sleep does magnify sounds) from the noise made by three small stones thrown against her window. A fourth one tinkled against the pane as she sat up.

  She glanced at her watch on the bedside table, in the full sunlight of the first day of June, and having drawn on an equally unsuitable and gallant dressing-gown, she marched across to the window, vigorously opened it and peered down into the dewy little garden.

  ‘Frank! What on earth—?’

  ‘I’ve come to breakfast.’

  ‘We don’t breakfast until eight.’

  ‘Oh – well – I’ll wait. Is Clem there – awake, I mean?’

  ‘Of course she’s here, and probably awake by now, too, with us bellowing at each other—’

  ‘Can I see her?’

  ‘I suppose so – she was rather seedy and peculiar when she got in last night. She went straight up to bed. If it had been anyone but Clem I’d say she had been drinking.’

  ‘Didn’t she tell you?’

  ‘Tell me what? (For heaven’s sake come in, if you’re coming. I’m freezing.)’

  The air was white with drifting pear blossom.

  ‘We’re going to be married. We got engaged last night. I’m taking her over to St Alberics this morning to get the ring.’

  ‘My dear boy! How perfectly delightful! I couldn’t be more pleased! Come in, come in, I’ll wake her up.’ A generous allowance, at least. Quite thousand a year, if not more . . .

  ‘Grandmamma, what is going on?’

  Clemence, rosy from deep sleep, her brown curls in a Rossetti cloud they seldom got the chance to display, appeared at the door, knotting the girdle of her housecoat. She looked, as she leant from the window to smile down at her betrothed, for the first time in her life, beautiful.

  Frank blew her a kis
s, and repeated that he had come to breakfast.

  ‘I’ll get dressed,’ Clemence said and retreated, feeling solidly and bread-and-butterly happy. It’s going to work, she thought as she brushed her hair and put on one of her sensible dresses.

  Mrs Massey’s aim in life was to present to the world the image of a perfectly behaved, gracious and tactful being; but she was not so tactful as to suggest that she should breakfast in bed. There would be lots of interesting things to hear, and she would enjoy seeing dear Clem looking so happy.

  Dear Clem looked shy and rather glum. I was radiant, I remember, when James proposed; quite radiant; everyone said so, thought Mrs Massey, in the intervals of calculating how much a year she could count on from Frank after the wedding. Such a pity the child hasn’t a more expressive face.

  The conversation was about practical affairs, and hardly touched upon the future, until a certain name was mentioned and Frank spoke of ‘semi-adoption’.

  ‘Juliet?’ exclaimed Mrs Massey, more sharply than she intended. ‘You’re surely not thinking—’

  ‘She’s going to live with us, isn’t she, Frank?’ Clemence said bravely. This was what she feared most, and she thought it best to get the statement of her fear over.

  ‘Live with you? Are you serious?’ Mrs Massey put down an egg spoon with deliberation. ‘Do you mean to tell me – is she serious?’ looking at Frank.

  ‘Perfectly,’ he answered coolly. ‘It was Juliet – in a way – who made me ask Clem to marry me.’

  Clemence darted him a look bright with love.

  ‘It was Juliet – what are you—? Have you both taken leave of your senses?’

  Mrs Massey fumbled in her bag for her spectacles, which she only put on in rare moments of agitation. ‘You’d better tell me exactly what happened.’

  That we won’t, said two pairs of eyes, exchanging glances.

  ‘It’s perfectly simple, Grandmamma. Frank was worried about what’s going to happen to Juliet. She’s . . . so brilliant and so odd. We feel someone has to look after her.’

  ‘She has a perfectly good mother, from what I hear, and twenty thousand pounds – what else does she want?’

  ‘Love,’ Frank said, and Mrs Massey made a sound as near to a sniff as a perfectly behaved, gracious and tactful being can produce.

  ‘Does she, indeed. Well with no looks and no figure and no manners, she isn’t likely to get it.’

  Frank considered explaining that he had not meant that kind of love, but decided that no explanation of his could satisfy Mrs Massey’s complete incomprehension, while Clemence felt uneasily that her grandmother was only taking the common-sense view.

  ‘We shall have to see how it works out,’ Frank said dismissively. ‘Certainly, it’s settled. She’s coming to us. So there’s no point in discussing it, is there – Grandmamma?’ He smiled at the self-willed, pretty old face, and hurried on before she had time to speak. ‘Any ideas about the ring, dear?’ to Clemence.

  ‘Oh . . . well, I’d like to go to that shop in the cathedral precinct that sells old jewellery. I’d like a Victorian one, I think, if we can find it.’

  ‘Of course – I’d like that too. How soon can you be ready?’

  ‘Oh – twenty minutes – but it’s only half-past seven. The shops won’t be open.’

  ‘We’ll have a little tour round the lanes – I’ll pick you up at eight. Goodbye for now, love. Goodbye, Grandmamma,’ with a mischievous smile.

  He was gone and Mrs Massey instantly leant towards Clemence with drama: ‘My dear! Of course you aren’t serious? You’ll talk him out of it.’

  ‘Indeed I shan’t, Grandmamma. If I try, I’ll talk myself out of marrying him.’

  ‘But I never heard of anything so – so insane. It isn’t even as if she were an ordinary pretty girl who was sure to marry. You’ll be lumbered with her for life. Suppose he falls in love with her?’

  ‘Oh Grandmamma . . .’

  ‘Or she with him, which would be worse. She’s such a cunning little creature . . .’

  ‘Oh, not cunning. Half the time she isn’t thinking about what she’s doing, I’m sure.’

  ‘Then she’s half dotty, which is worse. Really, my poor Clem, I do beg you to think very, very seriously before you take her on. It may ruin your entire married life.’

  Clemence suddenly tired of her grandmother’s company. She stood up, and saying: ‘I must go and telephone Edward,’ went out of the room. Mingled with her feeling of solid content, there was an increasing determination not to let anything – shame, embarrassment, or Grandmamma’s interfering – not anything spoil her happiness.

  And especially not Juliet. Oh never, never Juliet.

  18

  Juliet slept.

  The death of Miss Pennecuick, the utterance of that clearly articulated and clearly heard sentence, the funeral, and the announcement of her own inheritance, had drawn nervous energy even from her.

  She had slept deeply for nine hours, without stirring, lying on her back amid unruffled bedclothes and outspread hair, and now the rays of the early June sun bathed her in their full light, and she began to dream.

  She was moving swiftly through a vast forest of immensely tall trees, drifting effortlessly past massive trunks, visible in a remote filtered light. There was no undergrowth, only an endless carpet of dully tinted leaves that swirled up in clouds about her feet as she went; and sometimes, between the unchanging vista of silvery holes, she caught a glimpse of low hills of a tender blue, giving an impression of heat. Occasionally, across her path, there drifted slowly down a ghostly leaf.

  The place seemed beautiful to her; she was almost content to be there, alone, and moving through the dim silence. Yet something was lacking. Ah, the question was still there: formless in her dream, yet moving beside and within her, asking, demanding. And how could she feel fully content, and find the forest completely beautiful, while that continued to go with her?

  She sighed, and looked around at the ghostly trees and down at the delicate leaf shapes rising about her feet, and then away at the hills that seemed – like all hills except the great mountains – to beckon. At last she looked upward. And the leaves on those majestic trees were dead; skeletons, pale and transparent against the pale sky, sapless and colourless and dead.

  She cried out, and woke with the tears streaming down.

  Her tears were not accompanied by any feeling of sorrow. She sat up and wiped them away with the sheet, and wondered why she should be crying, and thought: What a funny dream.

  She ran downstairs ten minutes later, feeling hungry. The dream had faded, its original strength depleted into a memory. The dining-room was empty, and no places were set. Juliet, irritated at this break with custom, hurried to the kitchen. The house was silent.

  Pilar was there with Sarah, sitting at the table. Sarah was holding a copy of the Daily Mirror, and scolding Pilar. ‘Hullo, Juliet. Enjoyed your lie-in?’ she said spitefully.

  ‘Can I have my breakfast, please,’ to Pilar.

  ‘What you like? Weetabix? Or sausage?’ enquired Pilar, lazy voiced and not moving. A more imaginative spectator than Juliet would have felt that the machinery organizing the big house had run down almost to a stop.

  ‘Sausage’ll do me.’

  Suddenly she wanted a sausage as she seldom wanted food: a brown, tasty sausage, shining with the fat it had exuded in the pan. The thought of it successfully banished the last of another thought – those skeletal leaves outlined against the dead sky.

  ‘I fix you two. I think you might want. They are in the oven. Keep them hot. Because I think you hungry after all the kerfuffle yesterday.’

  Pilar got up unhurriedly and crossed to the Aga.

  ‘All the what?’ asked Juliet.

  ‘Ought to be ashamed, calling Miss Adelaide’s funeral by a low word,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Isn’t a low word. It means a disturbance. Maria’s boyfriend teaches it to me. He is university student.’ Pilar handed Juliet two sausages o
n a warmed plate.

  Juliet paused to pour tea from a new-fangled pot which retained its heat, from which Sarah and Pilar had evidently been helping themselves. She snatched up a tray from the dresser, loaded it, and was at the door when a sound came out of the kitchen. It was a loud sob. Sarah was saying something unintelligible into the hands covering her face. Pilar made to go to her.

  ‘Oh leave her alone – she’s got to get used to it,’ said Juliet over her shoulder. ‘Where’s the others?’

  ‘They sit in our rooms. I come to sit wiz her because she is sad. I sink,’ Pilar lowered her voice, ‘she be the next one to go. These old ones, they get a bad shock, and they die soon. There was Senora Elvirez in our village, I remember—’

  ‘Yes, well, cheerio.’ And Juliet was gone.

  She ate her breakfast greedily, and when she had sucked down the last of the strong tea, put her elbows on the table and sat staring at the sun-rays driving in between the half-drawn curtains.

  The house’s stopped like – like some clock, thought Juliet, with uncharacteristic fancifulness. I might phone Mum. . .

  Her unconscious wish for human company was satisfied by the distant sound of a car, and, after a pause, voices in the hall. The door opened. ‘Hullo,’ said Frank, coming in followed by Clemence, who went straight across to the windows and drew back the curtains.

  ‘Oh – hullo. Hullo,’ said Juliet to Clemence, who turned, nodded and smiled. ‘I say, what’s going to happen? I mean, am I staying here, or what?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’ve come to see about,’ Frank said.

  (And done me out of our little tour round the lanes. Here it begins, Clemence thought.)

  ‘You see, Miss Massey and I are going to be married.’

  ‘Oh. Congratulations and all that . . . That’s what they say, isn’t it?’

  ‘That, as you put it, is what they say, and thank you, Juliet.’ (A silent smile from Clemence.) ‘No, of course you aren’t staying here, and I take it that you don’t want to go home?’