The Beautiful Visit (42 page)

‘I don’t think it is. Why not Elinor? Why not Maria?’

‘Maria died of tuberculosis nearly two years ago. It’s all right,’ he continued, as I was about to interrupt. ‘It was probably the best thing that could have happened to
her. She could never have gone back to her family, and she was the kind of woman who loved the kind of man who left her. She found someone else about four months after I joined up. She would have
been all right until she had begun to get fat, and then she would have had a bad time. Her family would never have taken her back after the wine importer, as she would no longer have been
marriageable.’

I remembered Maria, and how much she had loved Rupert, and how much he had loved, or seemed to love, her; and suddenly felt frightened. But I said nothing.

‘Elinor? Well not Elinor, because she would marry anyone who asked her. I should not feel that she had any particular feeling for me.’

‘I think that is how I feel.’ I was almost surprised at the boldness of my own voice.

‘There is one other point,’ he said, as though he had not heard me. ‘And that is
your
position. You don’t like living with your family . . . I take it that you
have not changed in this respect?’

‘I have not changed,’ I answered steadily.

‘You have made several abortive attempts to get away from them. I remember you once wrote to me from Sussex where you were being companion to some boring old woman. You have not discovered
some great career for yourself?’

‘No.’

‘Well, here I am, offering you a peaceful life, independent of your family.’

‘But you used to be so much against marriage.’

‘You do remember things, don’t you? I was. I was against marriage, against democracy, and I did not believe in God. That is all very well until one is, say, twenty-five or thirty.
One can seriously imagine that there are better alternatives to all three propositions until then. Until then, living is rather like beginning to learn a foreign language. It is exciting, and not
nearly so difficult as one imagined; and then, quite suddenly, one either has to go and live in the country where the language is spoken, or one has to sweat for hours, learning declensions of
verbs until one is blind with fatigue, and knowledge of the language seems hopelessly unattainable. I prefer to live in the country. That is to say, I prefer to marry, in a church, and become a
Liberal.’

There was a silence, which he broke by saying: ‘But
you
were not against marriage?’

‘No. But I never thought of marrying someone I didn’t love.’

‘I was waiting for that. I know you do not love me.’

‘More than that, you do not love me.’

‘Really, I think I am the best judge of that.’

‘I think
I
am the best judge of it.’

‘You attract me,’ he said angrily, ‘and I like talking to you. Also, I’ve told you, I don’t know what you are thinking all the time, and with most women, one knows
exactly what they are thinking. I
want
to marry you. I tell you it would be a success.’

‘Not unless I felt at least some of those things for you.’

‘Don’t you? Don’t you feel any of them?’

‘None of them,’ I said.

‘Why did you run away to my studio then?’

‘Really, your own opinions have changed so much since then, that you can hardly blame me for any alteration in mine. Besides, I had nowhere else to go.’

‘I think you would have married me then. If I had swept you into my arms, and said “Darling be mine”, you would have been mine.’

‘I was seventeen then. And I had never been in love.’

‘Are you in love now?’ he asked quickly, and I saw he flushed.

‘No.’

‘But you have been in love. Poor thing. Did it all end badly?’ He was eager and gentle now. I did not reply. ‘Well, could you not accept me as a second best?’ he said,
and for the first time it occurred to me that he really did badly want to marry me.

‘I am afraid I could not do it in such very cold blood.’

He winced at this, but continued: ‘A great many marriages start like this. More than you would think. It is not necessarily a bad way to begin. We are both honest with one another. We
neither of us have any very brilliant alternative . . .’

‘I am sorry, Rupert, but I could not do it. I do not want to marry you.’

We had been sitting opposite one another over the table of untouched food, and now he slumped on his stool a little. I thought he had accepted my refusal, but after a moment he drew a deep
breath, and said: ‘Look here. I am serious about this. If you like, I didn’t know how serious I was until just now. Also, if you like (and this is very honest of me), I did not expect
you to refuse me. Will you think it over? Perhaps you have not thought seriously about it, and really need more time. I’ll ask you again in London.’

‘I do not want to be asked again, in London or anywhere else.’

‘But damn it, I love you! I’ve banked everything on your marrying me! I’ve thought of very little else since we have been here!’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Well what do you expect me to do? It is no good my making violent love to you. I should think you would be awfully difficult to make love to . . .’

‘It would not make the slightest difference,’ I said, quite uncertain what difference it would make.

‘Of course it would make a difference, but the wrong kind, I thought, with you. What
do
you want? Would you marry me if I remained a painter, and lived in disreputable
squalor?’

‘No.’

‘Would you simply live with me in disreputable squalor?’

I shook my head. I could think of nothing more to say.

‘I suppose I’ve done this very badly,’ he said. ‘There must be
some
way of proposing to you which you would feel constrained to accept.’

‘If I loved you, it wouldn’t matter much what you said; and as I don’t love you, it doesn’t matter what you say either.’ But I could see that he did not really
believe I should refuse him in all circumstances; that he was still considerably startled at my refusing him at all. The picture he had drawn of my life was certainly accurate, but the idea that I
would marry him simply because I could think of nothing better to do, touched my pride, and I resolved, there and then, that I
would
find something to do. Anything, I reiterated to
myself.

‘Are you having to determine not to marry me?’ asked Rupert.

‘I was determining something else. I think I will go now.’

‘May I say, gratuitously, that you look positively enchanting in that frock?’ I did not reply. Then he said: ‘By the way, do you remember my rich friend Ian? He asked after
you, when we were at camp together. You know he was killed of course.’

I rose to my feet. ‘I read it in the newspaper.’

‘The title has gone to his rather unpleasant cousin. All the best people were killed. You know you will eventually have to make do with some realistic chap like me.’

I was sure that he knew something and hated him, but his face was expressionless. He, too, rose to his feet. I turned to the door.

‘No, don’t go yet,’ he murmured, and seized my arm. I knew that he desperately wanted to kiss me; remembered Deb’s envious romantic plans for us, and was suddenly filled
with extreme revulsion, partly because of her, and partly because I was certain that he had meant to probe me about Ian. We stared at each other, until he dropped my arm and said: ‘I am very
sorry. That was unpardonable of me. Please stay and have supper with me. I won’t talk any more about it . . .’

‘I’d rather go.’

He watched me for a minute, and then stooped, picked up our two glasses, and flung them into the grate.

‘Most people get more out of their first champagne,’ he said.

I left the room.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Two days later I left the Lancings, and went back to London alone. They were very kind to me right up to the end, although I think they had begun to sense that I was not one of
them or ever likely to be. I told them I had to go because of the imminent arrival of my younger brother. I put the lovely dress back in Deb’s room, with a note thanking her. She gave no sign
afterwards that she had received it, and her behaviour to me was utterly commonplace. Mrs Lancing asked me to come again. Lucy begged me not to go. Rupert wavered between extreme silence in my
company (arguing embarrassment or hostility), and various efforts to secure it. He repeated his intention of again asking me to marry him when in London.

Lucy and Elinor accompanied me to the station.

‘There is a compartment with a woman in it,’ said Elinor as the train drew in.

Lucy flung her arms round me with anxious vehemence. I knew we were both thinking of her revelations in the wood, that she wanted to ask me for the last time to tell no one, that I wanted to
assure her I would not; but we neither of us said anything.

‘Do come back. Or it would be lovely to see you in London. Come every year,’ she said, and I answered: ‘Thank you. You have been very kind and I’ve enjoyed myself
tremendously.’

In the train I waved to both of them until the train had begun to hurry and they had begun to turn away.

And that was the end of my second visit.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

My mother opened the door to me and said: ‘Well, darling?’

And that was only the beginning of it; I did not immediately perceive what she meant, but five minutes with my sister left me in no doubt. (I escaped my sister in rather less than five minutes,
unable to bear the exasperating vulgarity of her inquisition.) They had both clearly been certain that Rupert had carried me off for Christmas with the express intention of proposing to me. The
worst of it was that they were right. It was the kind of point on which I was very bad at deceiving them, although I did what I could. I wrote to Rupert asking him never to arrive in my home,
particularly without warning. I quelled my poor mother by preserving an obstinate and forbidding silence on the subject of my visit. I think she was rendered more sympathetically silent by my
sister’s persistent and increasingly hostile curiosity. My sister, I reflected, after three days of unrequited tension, was certainly very odd about the whole affair. She followed me about
the house, appearing suddenly in my room for no ostensible reason; her conversation at these and other times consisting in discourses alternatively on her hard life, and my selfish ingratitude and
want of confidence in those nearest me. As we none of us had anything whatever to do, she had ample opportunity for this kind of thing. In front of our mother she contented herself with a series of
repetitive and double-edged remarks about marriage, and other peoples’ friends.

For about a week I racked my brains for something to do. Eventually I hit upon the not very brilliant notion of part copying for orchestras. I told my mother that I was going to do this; she
looked at me sadly and acquiesced. ‘Don’t try your eyes, darling,’ was all she said.

The work, with my father’s connections, was easy to acquire. I copied slowly, but with extreme neatness: however, people underpaid me, and were satisfied.

Two weeks after I had begun this work I received a letter from Rupert. I came in and found it lying on the hall table. It suggested that we meet somewhere and ‘discuss matters’. I
was reading it in my room, when, without any warning, my sister entered.

‘You have had a letter from him!’ she cried. ‘He never comes here, but you meet him, and he writes to you!’ She was panting as though she were hardly able to breathe, and
as she finished speaking she put one hand to her side.

I stared at her in some astonishment.

‘What has it to do with you?’

‘Why don’t you tell us about him?’

‘Do you mean whether he asked me to marry him?’

She nodded, but her eyes never left my face.

‘I do not understand . . .’ I began.

But she interrupted me: ‘You go off with him to those people at a moment’s warning, leaving me here doing what I can to make poor Mother’s Christmas brighter for her, and then
you come back without saying one word. It’s
awful
for her. Simply selfish and unkind. I know you meet him. This copying you do is just a blind. You’re too jealous to have him
here. Afraid of what he might think. It’s wicked of you. We all go on day after day as though nothing were happening, and it
is
. . . it must be, only you won’t say. How can you
be so deceitful!’

‘He has asked me to marry him,’ I said. I was very angry. ‘I have refused him. I have asked him not to come here because I don’t like it.’

‘But he has asked you to meet him elsewhere!’

‘Did you open this letter?’

She stared at me without replying, but a slow painful colour suffused her neck and then her face.

‘You opened my letter?’ Suddenly I was so angry that I could not see her standing in front of me. I lunged forward. I think I must have struck her. I realized that my hand hurt and I
could see her fallen back upon the door, supporting herself by its handle. There was a broad white mark across her face; she seemed scarcely to breathe at all, and the letter lay on the floor
between us.

Before I could say anything, she began talking, so quietly that at first I could hardly hear her. I don’t think she cared whether I heard, it was simply her own mind let loose, she barely
knew herself what she said.

‘I thought when he came, that he would want to marry you. He sat in Father’s chair with his poor leg, and I felt so sorry for him. You went away with him, and I steeled myself to
face your coming back . . . engaged. I am older than you, and Mother has no one. If you married and went away I should be left. Then I thought that he might have friends and, and . . . but if you
do not marry him you’ve no right to prevent me from doing so. I’ve nothing to look forward to now my war work has ended. If
you
married, you would go away and leave us; but if I
married, I should take Mother with me and it would all be exactly the same as before. It would be so much more . . .
sensible
if I married.’ She rambled on, explaining herself, and
giving herself away, unconscious of her dishevelled unattractive appearance, which had never, perhaps, been so dishevelled before.