It is so drab, Laura wrote. As you would say, enormously drab. Everyone said at first, you know, that the war would be over by Christmas. I remember people saying Hitler was a knut and didn’t know what he was doing. But now everything’s so drab after Ireland that you’d think he had won the thing. I haven’t had an egg for months.
And so, for nourishment only, since safety wasn’t in question any more, Laura’s mother sent her to stay again with the Heaslips. Mrs Heaslip had pressed for this, had pressed that Laura’s mother should accompany her.
‘They can’t spare her,’ Laura explained when she arrived, reiterating what her mother had written. ‘She’d really have loved to come.’ The drab austerity was as confining as the war there had been.
For Laura, that summer had the pleasure of familiarity revisited in place of the novelty there had been when she’d first arrived in the town. Mrs Hearne might possibly be pregnant again, Mrs Eldon’s lipstick still generously recreated her lips, Murder from Beyond, with curling, yellowed edges, was still in the window among the nibs and rubber bands.
Margaretta had acquired a bicycle during the year, and the saddle of Mrs Heaslip’s Humber was lowered for Laura. For mile after mile of flat, undramatic landscape they talked, as they cycled, of the past performances at the De Luxe Picture House: Claudette Colbert in Boom Town, William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Shadow of the Thin Man, Ray Milland in The Doctor Takes a Wife. They turned off the tarred roads that were so easy to go fast on and explored countryside that was hilly and more interesting. Eileen made them sandwiches, which they carried in Margaretta’s saddle-bag, and they were given money for lemonade. They usually ate the sandwiches in a field, leaving their bicycles by the roadside and chattering for ages in the sunshine. Once they took their clothes off and bathed in a stream, shrieking because it was so cold. But what they liked best of all was to call in at some cottage and ask for a drink of water. They would be invited into the kitchen and two cups of water would be fetched from a bucket or a pump. On one occasion a very old woman insisted on giving them tea, with boiled eggs and bread, although they kept telling her they’d just eaten a lot of sandwiches. She showed them photographs of her son, who was in Chicago, and made them promise they would call at her cottage again. But even if all they received was the water they asked for there was always the excitement, afterwards, of talking about whoever had given it to them. Scrutinizing people, remembering every word that was spoken and every detail of a kitchen: that became a kind of game. If they were far enough away from the town they called themselves by names that were not their own. ‘Annabella Colman,’ Margaretta replied when asked, and Laura gave the name of a girl she knew in England, Isabel Batchelor-Tate. They were Dublin girls, Margaretta once added, on holiday in Hogan’s Hotel. Her father was a hay merchant and Laura’s a taster of teas. ‘I shouldn’t tell people stuff like that,’ Dr Heaslip reprimanded them one lunchtime. ‘I’m quite well known, you know.’ He went on humming after he’d spoken and they were unable to hide their fiery red faces, made to feel foolish because he had not been cross. Afterwards Mrs Heaslip looked at them amusedly, and suggested they should visit the de Courcys if they were bored.
‘Oh, but we’re not, Mrs Heaslip,’ Laura protested vehemently. ‘Not in the very least.’
‘Take her to the de Courcys, Margaretta. I don’t know what we’ve been thinking of not to introduce Laura to the de Courcys before this.’
‘But, God, they’re miles away.’
‘Do not say “God”, Margaretta. There is an invalid in that house. Of course a visit must be made. Eileen will make you salad sandwiches.’
They went the next morning. They cycled for nine miles and then they turned into an avenue with a gate-lodge from which a man carefully eyed them, from their sandals and white socks to their straw hats. He stood in the doorway, seeming to be listening to their conversation about Wiry Bohan’s courtship of Katie. He was wearing a Guard’s uniform, the coarse navy-blue tunic open at the neck, a cigarette in the middle of his mouth. He had grey hair and a grey, mournful face. When Margaretta said hullo he wagged his head but did not speak. They began to giggle when they’d cycled on a bit.
The avenue was long, its surface badly broken, but pleasantly cool because the trees that lined it kept out the sun. Laura considered it romantic, like the avenue in Rebecca. But Margaretta said that was only Wishful thinking: there hadn’t been an avenue in Rebecca encased with trees and foliage. An argument began, which continued until the pink-washed house appeared, with white hydrangeas on either side of it, and tall windows, and an open hall door. The bicycles crunched over gravel that made cycling difficult. The girls dismounted and walked the last bit.
‘I’m Margaretta Heaslip,’ Margaretta informed a maid who was winding a clock in the hall. ‘We’ve been sent to see the de Courcys.’
The maid stared, appearing to be alarmed. She continued to wind the clock, which was on a table at the bottom of the stairs, and then she closed the glass of its face and put the key on a brass hook in an alcove; the time was half past eleven.
Tapestries hung by the staircase, curving with it as it ascended. Rugs were scattered on the darkly stained boards of the floor, as threadbare as the stair carpet and the tapestries, which were so faded that whatever scenes they depicted had been lost. There was a smell in the hall, as Margaretta said afterwards, of flowers and bacon.
‘Will you tell the de Courcys?’ she suggested to the maid, since the maid appeared hesitant about how to proceed. ‘Just say Margaretta Heaslip and a friend are here.’
‘The de Courcys went up to Punchestown races, miss.’
‘Is Ralph de Courcy here?’
‘He is of course.’
‘Will you tell him then?’
‘He didn’t go up to the races, miss, in case they’d strain him.’
‘Will you tell him Margaretta Heaslip and a friend are here?’
The maid was as young as Katie, but not as pretty. She had protruding teeth and hair that was in disarray beneath her white cap. She hesitated again, and then visibly reached a decision.
‘I’ll tell him so, miss. Will ye sit in the drawing-room?’
She left them where they stood. One door they opened led to a panelled room, too small and businesslike for a drawing-room. Another, with blue blinds pulled down, had dining-chairs arranged around a long table, its other furniture shadowy in the gloom. The drawing-room itself had a fire, although the day was so exceedingly warm that the windows were open. There were vases of flowers on the mantelpiece and on tables and on a grand piano, and family portraits were close to one another on the walls. An old black-and-white dog was lying on the hearthrug and did not move when the girls entered. It was the most beautiful room, Laura considered, she had ever been in.
They sat cautiously on the edge of a sofa that was striped in two shades of faded pink. They spoke in whispers, discussing the maid: would she be keeping company with the uniformed man at the gate-lodge?
‘Will ye wait a while?’ the maid invited, appearing at the door.
Margaretta giggled and put her hand up to her mouth; Laura said they’d wait. ‘I wonder what her name is,’ she added when the maid had gone.
‘Ludmilla, I’d say.’
The giggling began again, the dog snorted in his sleep. Through the open windows came the sound of pigeons.
‘Well, this is an honour,’ a voice said. ‘How do you do?’
He was older than they were by maybe as much as three years. He was pale and dark-haired, his eyes brown. He was dressed in flannel trousers and a green tweed jacket.
‘Margaretta Heaslip,’ he continued, smiling extravagantly. ‘I remember you when you were little.’
He spoke as if she still were, as if they were both not in the least grown up. His manner insisted that he himself belonged to the adult world, that he had long ago passed through theirs.
‘My mother said to call,’ Margaretta explained, disowning responsibility for their presence. ‘To
inquire how you were, and to introduce Laura.’
‘How do you do, Laura?’
He held out a hand, which Laura received, allowing her own to be briefly clasped. His touch was cold. Like marble, she thought.
‘Laura’s English, y’know.’
‘Well now, and whereabouts in England, Laura?’
‘A village called Anstey Rye. In Buckinghamshire.’
‘How attractive that sounds!’
‘Dead as old mutton, Laura says. The war, y’know.’
‘Ah, yes. The horrible war. But at least the Allies won. You’re pleased, Laura?’
He had a precise way of speaking, his Irish accent drawling out his sentences, a smile rarely absent from his face. Set in hollows, his dark eyes were fixed on Laura’s, insistent that his interest in all she had to say was genuine.
‘Well yes, I am pleased.’
‘I used to listen to Lord Haw-Haw. He’s most amusing.’
The maid returned with a tray of teacups, a teapot and biscuits on a plate.
‘Thank you, Mary.’
As he spoke, Margaretta put her hand up to her face. But already he had noticed.
‘What’s the joke?’ he politely inquired.
The maid left the room, and because she knew that she, too, would begin to giggle if she did not speak Laura said:
‘Margaretta thought her name was Ludmilla.’
‘Ludmilla?’
It wasn’t funny any more, as it hadn’t been when Dr Heaslip had not been cross. Politely, Ralph de Courcy handed them their cups of tea. He was right: they were children and he was not.
‘Have a Marietta biscuit?’
They each took one. They felt silly and ashamed. Margaretta said:
‘Are you feeling better these days?’
‘I never feel ill at all.’ He turned to Laura. ‘My heart was weakened when I stupidly caught rheumatic fever as a boy. I’m meant to go carefully in case I die.’
They wanted to gasp in wonder at this reference to death, but they did not do so. Margaretta said:
‘Are you getting better all the time?’
‘Indubitably. I’m reading Thomas Mann. Buddenbrooks. Do you like Thomas Mann?’
They had never heard of this German author. Vaguely, they shook their heads. They had not yet read, Laura admitted, the book called Buddenbrooks:
‘Shall I show you about the garden when you’ve finished your Marietta biscuits?’
‘Yes, please,’ Laura said. ‘If you don’t think the strain –’
‘Strain is just a word they use. Your father came here once or twice, Margaretta, when I was at death’s door – called in to offer a second opinion. It wasn’t as disagreeable as it sounds, you know, being at death’s door. Though nicer, perhaps, to be a few footsteps further off.’
His conversation was extraordinary, Laura considered. In a way everything about him was extraordinary, not least his detached smile and his eyes. His eyes did not flit about. They were the steadiest eyes she had ever seen, especially when he spoke of death.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘they make a frightful fuss. Do you play tennis? You could stay to lunch and then we might play tennis.’
‘But surely –’ Margaretta began.
‘I may play a little tennis. If I agree, and promise, not to sit about afterwards without a sweater and a blazer, then I may play a little tennis. Or at least that’s what I say.’
Suppose he dies? Laura thought. Suppose he falls down on the tennis court and is unable to get up again? Imagine having to tell about that! Imagine Dr Heaslip saying nothing, but thinking what fools they were and how much they were to blame!
He took them to the garden. He didn’t appear to know the names of any plants or flowers, but with his pale, cold hands he pointed about. He led them through a glasshouse full of tomatoes and out the other end. He pointed again: peaches flourished on a brick-lined wall. ‘A la Dean Swift,’ he said: they’d no idea what, he was talking about.
He sat between them on a wooden seat. A lawn stretched all around, bounded by white hydrangeas in front of towering cedar trees. Another dog, a brown spaniel, ambled from some corner and sat with them. Margaretta said the garden was beautiful.
‘Sergeant Barry does it. Did you see Sergeant Barry by the gate-lodge?’
They said they had.
‘He resigned from the force because he couldn’t learn the Irish. He feared they might demote him and he couldn’t bear the thought of that. So he resigned as sergeant.’
In the drawing-room, when she’d brought the tea and biscuits, he’d told the maid that they would stay to lunch. They hadn’t dared to say that there were salad sandwiches in Margaretta’s saddle-bag.
‘You must be starving,’ he said now, ‘after such a journey. Heaven knows what they’ve managed to scrape together. Shall we go and see?’
He led the way back to the house and to the dining-room. The blinds had been raised, and places laid at the table. He pulled at a bell in the wall and some minutes later the maid brought in three soup plates on a tray.
‘Crosse and Blackwell’s,’ he said. ‘Leave it if you don’t like kidneys.’
All through the meal he asked questions, about Buckinghamshire and Anstey Rye, and if bombs had fallen near by; about the De Luxe Picture House, which he had been to once. There was a larger town, nearer to the de Courcys’ house than their own, which had a cinema called the Palace, with Western Electric Sound. He’d seen Gone with the Wind there, which he described as ‘light’. He’d like to see some German films, which he’d read about, but he doubted that they’d ever come to the Palace or the De Luxe. He related the plot of one, to do with the crimes committed by a man who was not sane, and enthusiastically they both said it sounded interesting. Perhaps now that the war was over these German films might be on in England, Laura added, and he agreed that that might be so. Then, quite abruptly, when they had all three finished their sago and stewed gooseberries, he said he was feeling a little tired. His smile continued. He was supposed to rest after lunch, he explained. It would perhaps be asking for trouble not to, today.
They stood up. They thanked him and hoped he would be completely better soon. It was as though tennis had never been mentioned; it was as though he had never said that people made a fuss. He did not move from where he sat at the head of the long table, but said that he had enjoyed their visit, that they were good to come all this way to bore themselves with the company of an invalid. Would they come again? he almost meekly asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ Laura replied, her assurance only moments ahead of Margaretta’s.
‘Please be careful,’ Margaretta said. ‘Please take a good rest.’
They rode in silence down the avenue, past the gate-lodge, where Sergeant Barry was reading a newspaper in his garden. He looked up from it to scrutinize them, another cigarette in the middle of his mouth. Again he wagged his head at them but did not attempt to speak.
‘God!’ Margaretta said when they were out of earshot. ‘God, did you ever!’
‘I hope we didn’t cause a strain.’
‘God, I know! I thought of that.’
When they next saw Dr Heaslip they asked him. ‘Oh no, no,’ he said. ‘Company probably does the poor fellow good.’ But neither Laura nor Margaretta could think of Ralph de Courcy as a poor fellow. A fortnight later they rode over to the de Courcys’ house again, and Sergeant Barry, apprehending them as they turned into the avenue, told them the de Courcys were all away in Dublin.
‘When will they be back?’ Margaretta asked.
‘Ah, not for a while. Not till the end of the month.’
A week later Laura returned to England. This time among the images she carried with her were ones of the hours they had spent in the de Courcys’ house and in their garden. The indistinct tapestries, the key of the clock hanging in the alcove in the hall, the black-and-white dog asleep on the hearthrug: such images came and went in her mind, giving way to the face of the maid, and the sergeant at the g
ate-lodge, and Ralph de Courcy in his flannels and green tweed jacket. She dreamed that she and Margaretta walked among the white hydrangeas and the cedar trees, that they sat again on the pink-striped sofa. In her dream the hands fell off the clock in the hall, which Dr Heaslip said sometimes happened, owing to strain.
Margaretta wrote to say that the de Courcys had returned from Dublin, so she’d heard, but on her own she naturally hadn’t had the nerve to cycle over. The De Luxe had at last acquired Western Electric Sound and the difference was tremendous. Wiry Bohan had been to the house to see about marrying Katie, and when Mrs Heaslip suggested that they should wait a little longer he’d gone red in the face and said he thought waiting wasn’t a good idea. Mr Hearne was dealing in black-market sugar and tea, making more than he’d ever made out of meat. But soon, so people said, he’d be arrested.