The Beautiful Visit (14 page)

Agnes and Arthur giggled and chattered and provided an enviable contrast to our stilted efforts.

‘Well, we ought to be going,’ said Arthur. He was a fair spry man, very young, with a fresh complexion. We started walking. Agnes told them how she and I had met, and we all laughed
and said how lucky it was. Edward offered me his arm in a friendly manner and I felt gratified that everything was going so well.

We stopped an omnibus and went on top, as the evening continued so finely in our favour. It was cool and refreshing and we admired the Albert Memorial. Edward, becoming more expansive, told me
about Kew Gardens and Richmond, and the fair on Hampstead Heath. Knightsbridge was alive with hansom cabs like upright beetles, trotting towards Piccadilly.

‘I like to see a bit of life,’ said Agnes, and we all agreed with her. Here I was, going to an opera. I had always been promised a Gilbert and Sullivan but the promise had never been
fulfilled and I had no conception of what form the entertainment would take.

We had jostled off the omnibus, nearly too late, and were now walking four abreast. Arthur bought a rose from an old flower seller; and Edward, after a moment’s hesitation, selected a
little bunch of violets and presented them to me. They were soft and cool and smelt faintly of purple mist. From that moment I was really happy. I had never been given flowers, and the violets were
perfect to me. I turned on Edward, stammering with gratitude, and embarrassed the poor man considerably, although the others laughed with pleasure to see me so easily pleased. Edward took my arm
rather more firmly and said it was nothing, nothing at all, and they suited me. ‘You’re rather like a violet yourself, I should say.’ He then choked so badly that he had to use
the purple handkerchief. We arrived at the theatre with time to spare and watched the people pouring into the building. Edward said that you could tell where they would sit by their clothes. Agnes
pointed out real lace and well cut gowns with professional discernment. The carriages drove to the entrance; a footman alighted and let down the steps; the gentlemen, in black and white, sprang out
to assist the ladies, who stepped down, settled themselves on the pavement like birds, and walked proudly in talking and laughing.

‘I should love to go in a carriage like that,’ said Agnes to me. I did not tell her that I had, and that sitting with one’s back to the horse made one feel sick, but enjoyed
the illusion and freedom of the spectacle, leaning on Edward’s arm.

We were seated in the pit. ‘Lovely seats,’ Agnes whispered excitedly to me as we settled ourselves and broke the seals on the two programmes. Edward leaned over me to share mine. Our
shoulders pressed together. Once he looked at me, I smiled, he went on looking, and I felt that he admired me, thought I was pretty. I smiled again recklessly disarming. He leaned over the violets
pinned on my frock. ‘Do they smell?’ I lowered the programme into my lap. He sniffed and murmured something softly that I did not hear. The lights went down and the orchestra struck up
with the overture.

The curtain went up noiselessly and at a tantalizing speed and I heard myself gasp with excitement and delight. Edward covered my hand with his own, large and hard, and irresistibly
comforting.

We took the air in the interval. It was dusky, and we walked in couples, up and down outside the theatre, saying very little. My head was full of tunes, glorious racy tunes, that came to the
expected and desired ending, with pleasing and reassuring certainty. The acting was wonderful. Several times a song had been sung again which made me feel that I had seen the whole act twice.

Agnes and I repaired to a cloak-room to preen. It was crowded and presided over by an old woman who exulted in the overcrowdedness with a blowsy delight. ‘They must think we’re
fairies,’ I heard Agnes say, and we giggled. She lent me some face powder and I returned rejuvenated with gritty eyelashes.

It was unbearable to find the opera at an end, the singers standing in a line, bowing, and giving one a final chance to take an agonized farewell of their charms.

We reeled into the street, discussing what we had liked best, and Edward leading the way to our supper place. Arthur hummed one of the tunes and Agnes supplied the words. ‘For he’s
going to marry Yum-Yum, Yum-Yum.’ We marched in time.

I had not left the theatre, or the scene, the black-haired women with fluttering hands, the large fat man who followed the Mikado himself, the exotic and improbable colour which had pervaded the
whole evening – I was in a dream, with only Edward’s presence between me and reality. He did not talk, and I assumed that his mood was like mine; that our consciousness of each other
was only a recognition of our mutual feeling. I wanted to walk for ever in silence, on his arm. We stopped. I had never been in a public house in my life. Edward pushed open the swing door marked
‘Saloon Bar’, and we entered. It was full of people. Edward spoke to the man behind the counter, who nodded, raised the flap, and ushered us to the back of the room, through a pair of
deep red curtains, into a passage, and finally into a much smaller room, with a table and a large window looking on to the street. ‘They know me here,’ said Edward, and I think we were
all impressed. We sat down. The window had coarse net curtains which showed the dark shapes of people passing in the street. The ceiling was encrusted with a repeated pattern of fruit and flowers
and painted pale green. I sat with my back to a brown marble fireplace, obviously not used as there was a screen of brown paper pasted over the grate. Green paint glistened half-way up the walls,
and above it extended red wallpaper with a frieze of convolvulus and pears round the top. We sat at the table, which was spread with a newly ironed cloth spotted with a few blurred and yellow
stains.

‘And now, said Arthur. ‘Bring on the bubbly.’

‘Oo,’ said Agnes. ‘You do go on.’

What was bubbly? I asked. They shrieked with laughter, tilting back their chairs. It made the evening that I did not know.

A waiter came, a small man, fatherly but obsequious. He carried the menu, a sheet of paper on which was written the choice of food in a large round hand; he could not have written it himself
with those gnarled stubby fingers. Edward studied it very grandly, reading aloud the items. Steak. Fried plaice. He hurried over the half portion of lobster saying it was the wrong month, with a
certain amount of relief. Mixed grill. Saddle of mutton. Cold beef.

‘I’d like a steak,’ said Agnes. ‘I need nourishing.’ I agreed to a steak. I was not hungry and did not care what I ate. ‘Four steaks,’ repeated the
waiter scribbling on his pad. Then cocking his head on one side he remained motionless while the vegetables were discussed. He had waxed whiskers; the shadow of them on the wall was enormous, the
end of one point stabbing a pear on the frieze. Agnes ordered a stout with her food. Edward turned inquiringly to me. After my ignorance about the champagne I could hardly ask for lemonade; I tried
to appear deep in thought. ‘Have a stout?’ suggested Edward and I knew he was not deceived. ‘That’s the ticket,’ cried Arthur. The waiter scudded away and we could
relax. There was a little silence while we smiled vaguely at each other, savouring the evening.

‘Good show that,’ said Arthur.

‘Wonderful,’ I said. It had already slipped into the past. I felt something pressing my foot under the table. Edward caught my eye and smiled, a warm secretive smile. We were both
back in the dark, holding hands, alone together in some magic way, despite the crowds of people round us. A little tremor ran through me.

‘Cold?’ said Edward. His voice was elaborately casual. I shook my head.

The waiter returned with four brimming glasses on a tray. He dusted the table and the liquid swayed in the glasses but did not spill. Three very dark, the colour of a black kitten in the sun,
and one brown for Edward. He set them before us, and murmuring confidentially to Edward that the steaks wouldn’t be long, he disappeared. There was a thin layer of rich froth on top of my
glass. It looked delicious.

‘Here’s to all of us,’ said Arthur, and raised his glass.

I took a gulp and swallowed it quickly. It was horrible.

‘All right?’ asked Edward.

‘Lovely.’ How could anyone like it? How would I even finish it? I determined to watch Agnes and drink when she drank.

‘I knew you’d like it,’ Edward said complacently.

‘What would you like most in the world? asked Agnes dreamily, a moment later gazing into her glass.

‘A motor car,’ said Arthur promptly. ‘With you in it. Driving to Brighton with you.’ She flushed and he took her hand.

‘Clerks’ll never have motor cars,’ said Edward scornfully. ‘Be lucky to drive in a cab.’

‘Everyone’ll have motor cars, you mark my words.’

‘Only the rich,’ said Edward gloomily. Agnes drank again and I raised my glass. There was so much of it.

‘Perhaps I won’t always be a clerk.’

‘Perhaps there’ll be an earthquake and we’ll all have different jobs.’

‘Cheer up, Mr Harris,’ cried Agnes. ‘This is a party, see.’

‘Call me Edward,’ he said, and was friendly again.

‘Well go on, what would you like?’

‘Like?’

‘Most in the world.’

‘Most in the world,’ he repeated slowly looking at me. I buried my face in my glass again. ‘I dunno. I’d like to travel, see things, see if everyone has the same social
system where a quarter of the population are a bit of all right, and the other three-quarters don’t have time to want anything. I’d like to know if it’s reading does the trick; or
I’d like to know if it’s work makes people happy, or if it stops them thinking anything, or knowing what they want. I’d like to find out how many people do what they like; or if
they just think it’s better to do what they don’t like. Smoothes their conscience or something. Things like that.’

‘Gloomy aren’t you?’ said Agnes. ‘There’s ever such a lot of fun if you take it.’

‘I’d like a farm as well.’

‘That’s better,’ said Arthur approvingly. ‘She meant what would you like to
have
.’

‘Who’s she? The cat’s mother?’ We all laughed. Only a quarter of my glass gone.

‘I should like a big house in town and one in the country,’ said Agnes. ‘And a carriage, and black horses, and lots of gentlemen sending me flowers. And a lot of clothes the
latest fashion, from Paris. And a little dog, you know a tiny one that shivers, and furs, and a diamond bracelet, and everyone taking their hats off to me, and a lady’s maid, French, and
I’d send her to the library, for novels, and boxes of chocolates with pink ribbons, and people taking me out to shows every night, and dancing.’ She set down her glass, flushed with
excitement. ‘I’d marry a foreign count in the end, who’d kiss my hand.’

‘Crikey,’ said Arthur. He looked unhappy. She looked at him affectionately.

‘Go on,’ she said. That’s only what I
want
.’

The waiter brought our steaks, pink and golden with dark edges. There was a little watercress on the top of each, and a rich pile of fried chips on each plate. There were a dish of fresh young
beans and two bottles of sauce.

‘Everything all right, sir?’

Edward said it was, and the waiter ran away beaming.

‘What do
you
want?’ said Edward. I had been so fascinated by the others that I had not thought.

I don’t know,’ I said foolishly.

‘Come now,’ they cried, ‘that’s dull, think a bit, you must want something.’

‘Or have you got everything?’ said Edward keenly.

‘Oh no.’ I had not by any means got everything. I wanted so much without knowing precisely what it was. ‘Well, I’d like to write a book,’ I was startled to hear
myself say.

‘She’s always reading,’ Agnes said to the others, showing me off.

They seemed so impressed that I decided to let it stand although I was very much afraid they would ask me what I had written.

‘I want to find out about people; feelings.’ None of the words felt quite right. ‘Living,’ I said. ‘About living. I would like to be famous. At least I would like
to be really well known by someone.’ That was absurd. ‘I would like to be older and well – wiser I suppose. ‘I don’t want things ever to be the same, at least nothing
I know. If I found the right things I’d want them for ever. Really I want to be older and know things. Be absolutely certain of them. Now, I don’t know much, and I try to make it fit
for everything and of course it doesn’t. I’d like to be wise enough for anyone’s size of mind.’ I looked at them, hopelessly incoherent.

‘Your steak’s getting cold,’ said Edward kindly.

‘Anyway you want to write a book,’ said Agnes.

Heavens, she had finished her stout. I took a deep breath and gulped mine down until the glass was empty except for a drift of bubbles slipping down the inside. I felt hot and lightheaded and
the stuff didn’t taste so bad. We ate our meal, Agnes telling stories of die people who came to change their books.

When he saw that I did not eat much, Edward took my knife and fork and insisted on cutting my meat. I flirted with him, and felt Agnes’s approval. She had taken her rose off her dress. The
bud was limp, with one petal curled back. She put it in water. ‘Looks mopey, poor thing,’ she said. ‘I love flowers.’ Her large blue eyes devoured it hungrily.

I could not finish my plateful but the others did not mind, seemed rather to admire it as an evidence of my dainty appetite.

We had cold apple tart; and finally little glasses of port, four brilliant red jewels winking on our empty table. Edward smoked a pipe. Did I mind? Mind! I was fascinated. He puffed away,
content and well fed. We all agreed that it was a nice little place.

‘I wonder what it would be like to be an actress.’

‘Wonderful,’ I said. The port slipped down my throat like burning balm. It was very sweet and sticky and much nicer than stout. Edward offered me another and I accepted.

‘Aren’t you a one!’ said Agnes admiringly. ‘I can’t drink any more. I’ll have a red nose.’ She squinted down it.

‘I shouldn’t like you to be an actress,’ said Arthur firmly.