The Beautiful Visit (40 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

At dinner, Rupert sat next to me, but I could think of nothing to say to him. Mrs Lancing asked whether the babies’ stockings had been filled, and Aubrey answered, No,
they were not quite finished.

After dinner someone suggested that we play a game in the dark. Mr and Mrs Lancing agreed to being shut in Mr Lancing’s study for the evening, in order that all lights on the ground floor
might be turned out. The game, which was so complicated that no one really understood the rules, was then inadequately explained by several people at once, who did not appear to agree with one
another, and the lights were turned out. I was rather afraid of the dark, and having no idea of what I was supposed to do, groped and crept my way to the library.

The door of the room was wide open, and after entering I stretched out to shut it and thus cut myself off from the rest of the party, when my hand struck someone, who must have been standing
stiff and motionless behind the door. I gave a little gasp of terror, and the next moment I was seized, felt arms thrown round me, and was passionately kissed on my mouth. The kiss continued until
I had ceased to be terrified; indeed the dark, the man’s suddenness and intensity shocked me into a kind of irresponsible excitement. For seconds I clung to the unknown, as though he were the
most dearly loved and desirable creature in the world. Then, with an abrupt movement, he disengaged me. I thought he had stepped backwards, but he cannot have done so, as when I instinctively
stretched out my hands, I felt nothing but the smooth leather spines of the books on the shelves.

As soon as I realized that he had left me, I began to wonder who he was, and then, who he thought
I
was. It could not be Rupert, I realized, as he was incapable of such silent mobility. I
decided to retreat from the library altogether. If I was not to know who had been standing behind the door (almost as though he had been waiting for someone), then I would not give myself away by
remaining foolishly for everyone to see when the lights were turned up.

So I left, encountering nobody else; nor, at the end of the game, could I determine who it had been. We were supposed to give some account of our movements; but no one, man or woman, admitted to
having been in the library, and I followed suit. The game appeared not to have been a success, and we did not play it again. After a little desultory conversation (among the men the topic was where
they had all been in 1914, and among the women what they were going to wear for the Christmas dance), we broke up. Elspeth and Deb, Lucy and even Elinor, it appeared, all had new confections for
the occasion; but when I was asked, I was forced to admit that I had only the blue dress they had already seen.

It was no use caring, I reflected drearily in my room: I would somehow never achieve their easy innocent glamour. It would take very much more than a Christmas dance in the country to transform
me. I fell asleep, wondering what it would take. It is curious that I should have wondered that: I certainly had no idea of how to set about procuring the circumstances necessary to effect the
transformation, although I had some dim idea that I should, by now, know something of the ingredients. However, beyond the fact that they must be new, I had no very clear thought. Perhaps they must
simply be new, I concluded, very drowsy.

Christmas was spent in the traditional manner; we were exhausted with presents before midday, and exhausted with food after it. The tree stood mysterious and glittering in the hall; the
dining-room was littered with red ribbon and crumpled tissue paper; and secrets exploded all over the house, with little shrieks of delight and excitement. Charles was given a stuffed monkey which
plainly frightened him even more than Mr Lancing impersonating a lion; but otherwise there were no regrets. They were very kind to me.

After lunch we walked. I wanted to walk with Elspeth, but she was so hemmed in by her men and her Alsatian that I soon gave up the attempt. She was always friendly, but, unlike the others, did
not seem to recall my previous visit, and behaved all the time as though she were someone else, almost as though she were playing some part for the benefit of the Lancings – as though
anywhere else she would be really quite different.

I had avoided Deb as much as possible since overhearing her, but she seemed almost to be seeking my company; she spoke to me more often – once, even, asked my opinion.

After an early tea, embellished only by the Christmas cake, which defied description, in its icy unapproachable magnificence, we retired, as I remembered we had done before, to our rooms, to
rest and then to dress.

I was interrupted by a hurried tap on my door, which opened to reveal Deb. She
did
know I was here last night, I thought, with a sinking heart. She was very pale.

‘Will you come to my room?’ she began, and then added nervously, ‘Do come.’

I followed her along the landing to her room. It was empty. She motioned me to the chaise-longue before the fire.

‘I wanted to ask you something extraordinary . . .’ she said, and then stopped. She was standing before me, twisting the heavy gold wedding ring round and round her finger. She did
not look at me.

‘Yes?’ I stared at her timidly.

‘Don’t think that I am being patronizing or anything so absurd,’ she began again in an arrogant manner, and then, catching my eye, she smiled, and slipped, with a rustling
movement, on to her knees. ‘Will you promise to do something for me? And will you promise now, before I tell you what it is?’

‘But it might be something I could not possibly promise.’

‘Against your principles? You look so serious that I always imagine you to have principles.
I
have none. I was not sneering at you. I am sure you think I was, but I was not. One
must make some impression on everybody. But this is for your good. To help you. It is nothing really, the smallest thing . . .’

‘You said it was extraordinary . . .’ I interrupted.

‘Extraordinary for me to ask, but nothing for you to promise. Don’t you trust me? Do you think that I dislike you?’

‘I did not think that you liked me very much,’ I said.

‘I suppose not. I feel as though I don’t
know
anybody you know, and that makes it difficult to like them. Or perhaps as though I knew everyone, but no one very well. I even
know what I am going to do, so I find myself monotonous. Nothing ages women like monotony you know.’ She delivered the last remark like someone in a play, who did not really believe what was
said. I realized that she was saying anything that came into her head, in order to put off revealing what it was I had to promise. ‘You always sound as though you have a very dull life. I am
really sorry. I know what a dull life means, and I also know how little one can do about it. Now do you see that it cannot possibly harm you to promise?’

I promised.

‘You said last night that you had only your old blue dress to wear tonight. Well, now you are to wear this.’

She rose to her feet, went to her wardrobe and drew out of it the most extraordinary dress. It is impossible to describe the very few garments one ever comes across that suit one. It was
certainly not fashionable, but I knew instantly, as Deb held it before me, that dressed in it I should become more myself than I had ever been.

‘I have never worn it, and I think it will become you,’ she was saying.

‘Were you not going to wear it tonight?’

‘Oh no. I am wearing my wedding dress. It has been altered slightly, so that everyone will know it is my wedding dress which has been altered slightly. Will you put this on? The bodice
will be very tight. I have lengthened the sleeves for you. You see now, why it was better to promise.’

‘Yes, I do see.’

To my astonishment the dress fitted well. I looked remarkable in it. I really did: I think even Deb was surprised.

‘It is extraordinary what a difference clothes make,’ she said, ‘but I cannot wear that colour. Your complexion is just right.’

There was a pause, a slight feeling of anti-climax while we surveyed me in the dress. Then she began unfastening it. Why was she doing it, I wondered, why should she care in the least what I
wore for the dance? She seemed to think it very important, but why? I felt I must know why.

‘Don’t you think it is important?’ she countered.

‘I cannot see why it should be so for you.’

‘Sometimes one knows when certain occasions are going to be significant,’ she said. ‘One cannot prepare when one does not know, but this is different.’ I stared at her.
‘Of course it is. You know perfectly well what I mean. But when I was in your position, nobody knew but I, and there was nothing I could do. Aubrey proposed to me in the waiting-room of a
railway station. We were both afraid my train was leaving without me, and the whole thing was hurried. No point in caring about the accessories. But this is different I thought I would help to make
it a wonderful time.’

I started to speak, but she interrupted me. ‘That is not all. I am afraid you must think very poorly of me. I am sorry. There is something, perverse, I suppose, about me, that cannot bear
the steady arrangements, the forgone conclusions. I want to alter things; then I know I can’t really, and wish that I had not tried. But I have not really tried to take him away from you. I
have made no difference at all. I think I minded that. I thought it meant that nobody would ever care for me, but I was wrong. It is simply that life stops when one is married, and one ought to
take care that it stops in a very good place. I thought perhaps that the least I could do was to help make it perfect for you. I thought perhaps this would help. You are too serious to consider
such aspects; it takes frivolous people like me to do this sort of thing well.’ She was very breathless, and stopped speaking suddenly, not as though she had finished, but as though she could
not bear to go on talking, uninterrupted.

‘Did Rupert tell you he wanted to marry me?’

‘No, no, he didn’t say anything about it.’

Deliberately, in order to gain time, I resumed my seat. ‘Why do you think that he wants to marry me?’

‘Oh don’t be so tiresome! He brought you down here. It is obvious.’ She was standing by the fire, her arm on the mantelpiece, and now she kicked a red coal as she spoke:
‘I knew it the first day that you arrived.’

‘But not that I wanted to marry him.’

She swung round, genuinely startled. ‘But you
must
want to marry him . . . You must!’

‘Why?’

‘He cares for you. He needs someone who understands about his being a painter. You surely know about that. He will want to lead an adventurous life, and one cannot do that successfully
alone. At least men cannot. He has had a bad time, I think, but he is awfully talented and all that sort of thing, and you could probably make him a tremendous success. He needs that. I thought
perhaps you met many people like him, but you don’t, do you? He is the only one. Heavens, if it is obvious to me, of all people . . . Anyway, what will happen to you, if you don’t marry
him? You surely do not intend spending the rest of your life doing those dreary jobs, do you? With all your family. Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about that.’

I had
not
thought much about it, but it was useless to say so, and in any case I immediately began thinking about it. ‘I cannot understand why you should so much want us to
marry.’

She made a gesture of indifference, but there was something strained about it. ‘Of course I do not care what you do. But if you
are
going to marry him I thought . . .’ Her
voice tailed away.

‘Yes?’

‘That it ought to be,’ she searched for a word, ‘well, that it should matter very much. That it should be memorable. Aubrey said . . .’ She cleared her throat.
‘Aubrey said that I did not care for other people. He meant that I didn’t care for him, that I was heartless. And there is nothing I can do about it. I only care for things that people
do not think important. Doing the small things really well; the things most people think are not worth doing at all.’ She stopped.

‘Does Aubrey know about this?’ I indicated the dress hanging beside her.

‘Of course not. No one knows. Naturally I should not have made you promise to wear it if anyone knew.’

‘Are you very unhappy?’ I asked.

She turned her head towards me quickly, as though she hated me. Her eyes were full of tears. ‘Why do you ask that?’

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘No, I am not unhappy, or happy. I am nothing at all . . .’ A pulse in her throat began to beat violently. She seized the dress from its hanger and crammed it into my arms.

‘Take the dress, take it. That is why I wanted to see you. Take it now. No one knows that I have it. I shall hate you, if you tell them. I shall hate you,’ she repeated.

At last I began to understand her. I took the dress without a word, as I knew she wanted it taken, and fled from the room. I just heard the gentle subsidence of her skirt sinking to the floor as
I shut myself out.

I had no sooner reached my room than the dressing bell sounded. I laid the dress on my bed, and then sat beside it in an agony of indecision. I had tried to pretend that I knew what I should say
to Rupert; but Deb, unwittingly, had shaken up the inertia of my mind on this point, until it was now a shattering, urgent uncertainty. I felt my life depended on it, but for the life of me I did
not know what to say. It seemed useless to pretend any longer that Rupert was
not
going to ask me to marry him. Wrong though Deb was about some things, I felt she was right about this. I
began feverishly to count the times when Rupert had shown the slightest sign of preferring me to anyone else. I gathered these up like a few little bare bones, and I thought I could remember them
all. He had sought me out, brought me here, had said that I was not dull; and several times I had caught him looking at me, with tired watchful eyes, as though he had wanted (but not very much) to
know what I was thinking. That was all, and really it did not argue any very pronounced attachment. But perhaps he was reserving his feelings for this evening.