A Proper Marriage (14 page)

But he misunderstood her indignation, and said, laughing, ‘After all, Matty, since most of the people who get married get married because they have to …’

She laughed, but she was very uneasy.

Again she forgot about it, until there was a letter from her mother, which immediately caught her attention because of its casual tone. At the end of it was an inquiry as to how she
felt. Again she burned with indignation - there was a conspiracy against her!

For some days, there was no reason to think of it; then she got a charming letter from Mrs Talbot, which had the same hurried apologetic manner as her speech. She asked why Matty did not drop in to see her one morning, she would so like to have a proper talk.

The letters were always on thick white paper, in a fine-pointed black hand; they gave an impression of casual elegance which made Martha curious, for never had she known anyone whose letters were not utilitarian. The letters, like Mrs Talbot herself, spoke of an existence altogether remote from this colonial town. But what was this life which Mrs Talbot seemed so anxious Martha should share? And what was this proper talk?

‘We have supper or spend the evening with them at least two or three times a week,’ Martha pointed out to Douglas, quite bewildered.

‘Oh, go and see her, Matty, she’ll be pleased.’

Martha had discovered that Mrs Talbot was not, as one might infer from her appearance, about thirty-five, but over sixty; she was very rich, but in a way seemed to apologize for the unpleasant fact that there was such a thing as money in the world at all. During those evenings, she would take Douglas – apologizing first – into an inner room, and they would discuss investments and properties. ‘There are no flies on Mrs Talbot,’ he said appreciatively. And then, always: ‘She’s an absolute marvel, a wonder! Why, Matty, would you think she was a day over thirty. Isn’t she terrific?’

‘But Elaine …” pointed out Martha jealously.

‘Oh, Elaine’s all right, she’s a nice kid,’ said Douglas, dismissing her.

That Elaine should be thought of as a nice kid made Martha laugh - it was easier to tolerate the amazing Mrs Talbot. For at the bottom of an uneasy disapproval of that lady was Martha’s physical arrogance - the pride of the very young.
She
was young and whole and comely; secretly she felt a fierce, shuddering repulsion for the old and unsightly. For a brief ten years - she was convinced that thirty was the
end of youth and good looks - she was allowed by nature to be young and attractive. For Mrs Talbot to be beautiful at sixty was not fair.

‘She
can’t
be sixty,’ she had protested hopefully. But she was.

Martha told Douglas that she didn’t want to have a proper talk with Mrs Talbot; but on the morning after getting the letter she found herself disinclined for that ‘work’, and set off on impulse for Mrs Talbot’s house. It was half past nine; the morning was well advanced for a society which began work at eight. Martha walked through the park and along the avenues: the house was one of the delightful houses of the older town. It was almost hidden from the street by trees and flowering bushes. The door opened immediately from the garden path, and not off a wide veranda. The house had an introspective, inward-turning look because of this discreet black door with its shining door knocker. Mrs Talbot’s house, like herself, could not help suggesting the England one knew from novels. The door might be flanked on either side by poinsettias, ragged pointed scraps of scarlet silk fluttering on naked, shining silken stems, but one felt they were there only to suggest an ironical contrast.

Martha rang, and was admitted by a native servant, and shown into a small side room kept for just this purpose. She summoned her memories of what she had read, and then saw, as she had expected, a tray on a stand, littered with visiting cards. At this it occurred to her that the phrase ‘dropping in’ might have a different meaning to Mrs Talbot than it had for herself and her friends. Before she could recover herself, Mr Talbot came in. She had seen very little of him; he went to the Club in the evenings when his wife entertained. He was wearing a dark silk dressing gown, was tall and heavily built, with a dark, heavy face, and he came stooping forward with his hand outstretched, apologizing for his dressing gown. She was embarrassed because of her thoughts about him: She did not like him. She did not like the way he would come into his wife’s drawing room, on his way out, a man paying forced tribute to women’s amusements; besides, he suggested a spy - his look at Mrs Talbot
always made her uncomfortable. Finally, he was an old man, and distasteful because he had a sardonic, intimate manner with her that made it impossible to dismiss him so easily. He was forcing her now to think of him as a man, and she stammered a little as she said she had come to see Mrs Talbot. He said very politely that he didn’t think his wife was up yet, but that Martha might care to wait?

She said at once, no - of course not; she was only on a walk, and she would come up another time.

He held her eyes with his while he inquired if she would like to see Elaine.

Martha said yes, she would like to very much.

Mr Talbot stood aside for her to precede him out of the door, and she felt uncomfortable as she passed him, as if he might suddenly put out his hands and grasp her. In the passage, he indicated the drawing-room door, and apologized again for his dressing gown. Then he opened another door; Martha caught a glimpse of a large brown-leather chair, a pipe smoking on a small table, a litter of newspapers; he went inside, having held her eyes again in another direct glance.

She went into the drawing room, feeling its contrast with the brown masculine study he had gone into. It was large, low-ceilinged, rather dim. It was carpeted from wall to wall with a deep rosy, flowing softness that gave under her feet. It was full of furniture that Martha instinctively described as antiques. It was a charming room, it was like an Edwardian novel; and one could not be in it without thinking of the savage country outside. Martha kept looking out of the windows which were veiled in thin pale stuffs, as if to assure herself this was in fact Africa. It might have vanished, she felt, so strong was the power of this room to destroy other realities.

Elaine came forward, from a small sunny veranda enclosed by glass and filled with plants in such a way that it suggested a conservatory. Elaine was wearing a loose linen smock, and she was doing the flowers.

She asked Martha, with charming formality, if she would like to come to the sun porch, and Martha followed her.
There was a small grass chair, and Martha sat on it and watched Elaine fitting pink and mauve sweet peas into narrow silver vases like small fluted trumpets.

Elaine said that her mother was never up before eleven, and accompanied this remark by a small smile which did not invite shared amusement, but rather expressed an anxious desire that no one should find it remarkable. Elaine, standing by her trestle, with her copper jugs of water, her shears, her rows of sweet peas and roses, her heavy gauntlets, had the air of a fragile but devoted handmaid to her mother’s way of life. Martha watched her and found herself feeling protective. This girl should be spared any unpleasantness which might occur outside the shining glass walls of the sun porch. Her fragility, her air of fatigue, the blue shadows under her eyes, removed her completely from any possibility of being treated by Martha as an equal. Martha found herself censoring her speech; in a few minutes they were making conversation about gardening. Then a bell shrilled from close by, and Elaine hastily excused herself, laid down her flowers, and went to a door which led to Mrs Talbot’s bedroom.

In a few minutes she came back to say that her mother was awake and was delighted to hear that Martha had come to see her. If dear Matty did not mind being treated so informally - and here Elaine again offered a small anxious smile, as if acknowledging at least the possibility of amusement - would she like to come into the bedroom? Martha went to the door, expecting Elaine to come with her; but Elaine remained with her flowers, a pale effaced figure in her yellow smock, drenched in the sunlight that was concentrated through the blazing glass of the sun porch.

Martha’s eyes were full of sunlight, and in this room it was nearly dark. She stood blinded just inside the door, and heard Mrs Talbot murmuring affectionate greetings from the shadows. She stumbled forward, sat on a chair that was pushed under her, and then saw that Mrs Talbot was up and in a dressing gown, a dim figure agitated by the delight this visit gave her, but even more agitated by apologies because she was not dressed.

‘If I’d known you were coming, Matty darling … But I’m so terribly lazy, I simply can’t get out of bed before twelve. It was so sweet of you to come so soon when I asked you - but we old women must be allowed our weaknesses …’

Martha was astounded by that ‘old women’; but there was no suggestion of coyness in it. She tried to peer through the dark, for she was longing to see how Mrs Talbot must look before she had created herself for her public. All she could see was a slender figure in an insinuating rustle of silks, perched on the bed. Mrs Talbot lit a cigarette; almost at once the red spark was crushed out again; Martha saw that this flutter was due simply to a routine being upset.

‘I rang up my hairdresser when I heard your voice, I told him not to come this morning. I’m sure it won’t hurt me to show an inch or so of grey just for once. When you reach the age of going grey, Matty darling, don’t be silly and dye your hair. It’s an absolute martyrdom. If I had only known …’

Martha was now able to see better. Mrs Talbot’s face came out of the shadow in a splash of white. It was some kind of a face mask. ‘Shall I go out till you are dressed?’ she suggested awkwardly.

But Mrs Talbot rose with a swirl of silk and said, ‘If you don’t mind it all, Matty, I’d adore you to stay.’ There was a nervous gasp of laughter; she was peering forward to see Martha, to find out her reaction. It occurred to Martha that the apology, the deference, was quite sincere and not a pose, as she had assumed. Mrs Talbot’s nervousness was that of a duchess who had survived the French Revolution and timidly continued to wear powdered curls in the privacy of her bedroom because she did not feel herself in the new fashions.

Martha saw the slight figure rise, go to the window, and tug at a cord. At once the room was shot with hazy yellow light. Mrs Talbot was wearing a shimmering grey garment with full flounced sleeves; she was covered in stark-white paste from collarbones to hairline, and from this mask her small eyes glimmered out through black holes. Her pale smooth hair was looped loosely on her neck; there was no sign of grey. She sat before a large dressing table and dabbed
carefully at her face with tufts of cotton wool. The room was long, low, subdued, with shell-coloured curtains, dove-grey carpet, and furniture of light, gleaming wood which looked as if it had been embroidered; it had a look of chaste withdrawal from the world; and Mrs Talbot was a light, cool, uncommitted figure, even when she was poised thus on her stool, leaning forward into her mirror, her submissive charm momentarily lost in a focus of keen concentration. Her skin was emerging patchily from under the white paste, and she muttered, ‘In a minute, Matty.’

Soon she rose and went to an old-fashioned washstand, where a graceful ewer stood in a shining rose-patterned basin. It was clear that taps running hot and cold would be too much of a modern note in this altar to the past. Mrs Talbot splashed water vigorously over her face, while the air was pervaded by the odour of violets. In the meantime Martha, still examining every detail of the room, had noticed the bed. It was very big - too big, she thought involuntarily, for Mrs Talbot. Then she saw it was a double bed, with two sets of pillows. She must readmit Mr Talbot, whom she had again forgotten. This bed, untidy and sprawling, gave Martha the most uncomfortable feeling of something unseemly: it was, she saw, because a man’s pyjamas lay where they had been flung off, on the pillow. There were of maroon-striped silk, and strongly suggested the person of Mr Talbot, as did a jar of pipes on the bed table. So uncomfortable did this make Martha that she turned away from the bed, feeling her face hot. Mrs Talbot, however, returning from her ablutions, could not be aware of how Martha was feeling, for she carelessly rolled these pyjamas together and tucked them under the pillow, observing, ‘Men are always so untidy.’ Then she sat herself on the edge of the bed, with the air of one prepared to devote any amount of time to friendship.

And now they must talk. There would follow the proper talk. Martha saw the gleam of affection in Mrs Talbot’s eyes and was asking herself, Does she really like me? If so, why? But Mrs Talbot was talking about Douglas: how he was such a dear boy, how he was always so clever and helpful, and with such a sense for these horrid, horrid financial things;
and then - impulsively - how lovely it was that he had married such a sweet girl. At this Martha involuntarily laughed; and was sorry when she saw the look of surprise on this delightful lady’s face. She rose from her chair and began walking about the room, touching the curtains, which slipped like thick silken skin through her fingers, laying a curious finger on the wood of the dressing table, which had such a gleaming softness that it was strange it should oppose her flesh with the hardness of real wood. Mrs Talbot watched without moving. There was a small, shrewd smile on her lips.

‘Are you shocked, Matty, at all this fuss?’ she asked a little plaintively; and when Martha turned quickly to see what she could mean, she continued quickly, ‘I know it all looks so awful until it’s tidied up; Elaine is so sweet, she comes in and tidies everything for me, and then this is a lovely room, but I know it must look horrid now, with face creams and cotton wool everywhere. The trouble is …’ Here she tailed off, with a helpless shrug which suggested that there was nothing she would like better than to relapse into the comfortable condition of being an old woman, if only she knew how. Martha involuntarily glanced at Mr Talbot’s side of the bed and then blushed as she guiltily caught Mrs Talbot’s eyes. But it was clear that this was one thing she could not understand in Martha; she looked puzzled.