Kissing Kin (35 page)

But still she clung to him, the rough tweed of his sleeve the only real and stable thing in a world which heaved and swung beneath her like a ship at sea. She kept her head down, in dread of the moment when she must show them her face, white and stiff like a stone, and even while she thought
I
can’t,
she was doing it, and saw in their eyes only concern for her sudden collapse, and not suspicion, nor comprehension—not yet.

“You mustn’t be ill now, Camilla,” Bracken was saying in a practical tone of voice. “You’ve got to come to Cannes with me in the morning.”

“I can’t—go to Cannes,” she said, clinging to Johnny, and felt herself begin to tremble.

“Darling, what is it, you seemed perfectly well till just now.” Dinah was holding her other hand, and patting it briskly. “Have you got a pain?”

Camilla looked round at them helplessly. Johnny’s rough sleeve clutched tight in cold fingers, while the trembling ran all through her so that Johnny felt it too and tightened his arm reassuringly.

“Dinah, you’ve got to help me. You’ll have to say I’m ill, or think of something better. I can’t go to see Sally now.”

“I’m afraid you must go, my dear,” said Bracken, still not comprehending. “You were always her favourite, and you can’t fail her at a time like this. Besides, after Sosthène, you are her sole heir.”

“Oh,
no!
” cried Camilla, shrinking closer against Johnny’s shoulder.

“I’ve known about it for some time because I am named executor,” said Bracken. “The Will is very simple. Everything was to go to Sosthène, for his lifetime. And at his death you were to inherit everything. Elvire to be provided for as long as she lives, but beyond that there are no obligations,
restrictions
, or bequests. It’s a very substantial fortune, even
without
the jewels, which also come to you. The least you can do in the circumstances is to go to her now when she needs you.”

“But—don’t you see—” Camilla began piteously, the tears raining down her face, and they all suddenly caught on, and Bracken said, “Oh, Lord, you and Sosthène? My dear girl, I’m terribly sorry about this, I had no idea.”

Camilla sat there trembling, with Johnny’s arm hard behind her, and her face streaming with tears, and her eyes went slowly from one to another of their three anxious faces.

“I don’t want you to get the wrong impression,” she said
with difficulty. “There wasn’t anything—except that he knew I loved him—ever since that first Christmas at Farthingale. We never—had much time together. There was nothing—to keep from her—except that we loved each other. We tried—not to let her know that. He thought she didn’t. So now you see why I can’t go to Cannes. I can’t face her like this. I should give myself away.”

Nobody said anything. Bracken turned and walked to the window and stood there with his hands in his pockets looking out towards the snow-capped mountains that ringed the horizon.

“It would be a pity,” he said at last, “if anything—untoward should happen now to make her wonder, wouldn’t it.”

“You mean—if I don’t go—she might think—”

“She’d be bound to think it very queer—wouldn’t she,” said Bracken reasonably. “Much queerer than if you broke down and cried at the funeral.”

“I can’t—
I can’t!
” said Camilla, and hid her face against the nearest thing, which happened to be Johnny’s tweed shoulder, and sobbed and trembled and shook—and knew, as they all did, that she would go to Cannes with Bracken in the morning, in order that Sosthène’s flawless kindness and care of Sally should not be wasted now.

Johnny was to drive Dinah and Jeff to Paris by easy stages, while Bracken and Camilla took a train to Cannes. Dimly aware of his abiding surprise, his tactful lack of curiosity, and his sympathetic silence as he sat apparently engrossed in the welter of books and magazines which always accompanied him on even the briefest journey, Camilla stared out of the window of the railway carriage and saw nothing of the spectacular scenery through which they passed on the way to the French border. Her whole being was knotted up in the effort for composure. She had cried herself out during the night, the way Jenny had cried at Farthingale—hopelessly, bitterly, without dignity in her despair. This was what one
got for trying to do the right thing. Wait, Sosthène had said once, as I do. And now it was too late. Too careful even to take what little joy of each other they might have had, now they had lost everything. Had he known, that day in the library at Cannes, that it would be like this? Had he perhaps kept the knowledge to himself, even then, and let her go, perhaps to make it easier for her, just as he had denied
himself
all indulgence in her love, to keep Sally’s world safe for Sally?

I must know how it happened, Camilla thought, staring out blindly at the mountains around Innsbruck. I must know what he said last, where he was, how long it took—they can’t just snatch him away from me like this—he wouldn’t have left any word for me—but if I had been there—oh, no, I couldn’t have been there, that belonged to Sally….

The old savage rebellion against Sally’s unchallenged possession of him rose and overwhelmed her again—it was never jealousy, you couldn’t hate Sally, who was so innocent of being in the way—and you couldn’t blame Sosthène for his tender care of Sally’s peace of mind after all those years together. It was herself who was the interloper, and jealousy of Sally couldn’t come into that, only an angry futile striving against the Way Things Were, no thought of changing them, no plan for circumventing circumstance, no chance for
anything
but patience and an obstinate, nameless, guilty hope that some day Things would be different, not through any careless or desperate act of one’s own, of course, but just with the inevitable passing of time.

And now that hope was dead, along with Sosthène. Staring out of the window, Camilla realized that her cheeks were wet again with the slow, relentless tears which seemed to have no end, and she wiped them away impatiently, and hoped that Bracken had not noticed. She could not behave like this at Cannes. She must find composure somewhere, or everyone who saw her would know. But to enter that house again where all the rooms would seem newly emptied of the quiet,
smiling presence which was a part of them, was an ordeal she still could not face with anything like courage.

Bracken said Sally meant to leave the house to her, and all that went with it, which seemed the final irony. She would never be able to bear the sight of the house, she would have to shut it up, sell it, or give it away, when Sally had finished with it. Perhaps Bracken might like to have it himself, for Jeff. She only wanted to get away from it now, as soon as it was decently possible, back to Paris, back to Kim, and the noisiest, most superficial, fly-by-night crowd she could find.

In her desolation, still resembling anger more than grief, as though a trick had been played on her by something there was no other name for but Life, unless you blamed God Himself, Camilla found herself thinking of Kim, who always knew too much, and guessed the rest, but was on the whole tactful about it, and knew how to make one laugh and feel better. It was for Sally to mourn, even that was denied to herself. And nothing would last very long for Sally now. But if you were thirty-one, you still had a life to live, somehow, with whatever you could find to live it for. You couldn’t just sit around and mope for another thirty years, nor you couldn’t just comfortably die of it, like the Lily Maid of Astolat. Kim would understand about that. I am a fool, she would say to Kim with due humility when she got back to Paris, and I would rather be dead than go on being a fool. Show me, she would say to Kim meekly, how not to go on being a fool. And Kim would laugh, but affectionately, and write her a new song full of deep notes, and find her a new job—and when he made love to her, what would she say now?

Sleepless and white-faced and in a precarious state of
composure
, Camilla entered Sally’s house at Bracken’s side. Sally was in bed, tended by Elvire, whose eyes were red-rimmed but who showed no visible emotion. Sally, with her hair
becomingly
dressed and her
masquillage
in place, wearing a lace bedjacket, received them at once. She lifted her face to
Bracken’s kiss, and held to Camilla’s hand so that it pulled her down on the edge of the bed. Sally in her tearless grief had a pitiful dignity. But she had become very fragile, almost transparent, and her voice, which had always been so rich and young, was as though someone was sleeping nearby.

“It was good of you both to come so fast,” she said, holding to Camilla’s hand, with her eyes fixed on Bracken’s face. “I haven’t much time, and I wanted to see you.” She said it so easily—I haven’t much time—as though she was catching a train. “Bracken, there is a lawyer somewhere in the house, and a couple of doctors—please see them for me, and make them let me alone. You know all about the Will—you can explain that to Camilla later, nothing is changed. I would like to talk to her now.”

Bracken kissed Sally’s cheek again and left the room. Camilla sat still on the edge of the bed, thinking Here it comes, and dreading whatever it was that she must hear.

“If I were you,” Sally was saying in that odd, muted way, as the door closed behind Bracken, “I would prefer just to think of Sosthène as gone away. I would not want to hear the last details, and I would not want to see him as he is now. Although I will tell you at once that it was very quick and easy, and he looks at peace. But it is not Sosthène as you knew him.”

“Perhaps you would rather not talk about it,” Camilla said uncertainly, and Sally replied at once, “It is not what I would rather, Camilla, it is what you wish to carry with you for the rest of your life. As it is now, you can always remember him alive, if you try—there will be no other picture of him in your mind.”

“Yes,” said Camilla after a moment, whispering too, and Sally’s fingers tightened on hers, and somehow it was Sally who was comforting Camilla, and not the other way round. “Perhaps that would be easier.”

“It is the way he meant it to be, for you,” Sally said. “And
I want you to remember me that way too, when the time comes. Let them do what is necessary. Elvire will look after me as she always has. I don’t want you to inherit a lot of ghosts, my dear, along with this house, which has always been a happy place, full of people and music and laughter and love-making. I would like to think that you will keep it like that, when it is yours. Don’t let it pine for us, Camilla. You may not want to live here all the time, as I have done—at least not yet, while you are young. But come back to it now and then and bring friends with you, and keep it company. Will you do that for me?”

“I’ll try,” Camilla promised, clinging to Sally’s fingers, and there went her selfish intention of never setting foot in the place again.

“It is easy to be happy here, you will find—easier than you think now, perhaps,” Sally went on. “Always remember, my darling, that happiness and love need not die till you do—that life renews itself if you allow it to, as surely as the year comes back round to spring after winter. Some years are not so good as others—sometimes you love less, sometimes more—and you can never be sure that the best is not still to come. So many times I have thought This is all—now I have come to the end—now there will be nothing to live for.” Her fingers moved on Camilla’s, caressingly. “So many times I have been wrong. And for me, the best came last. Always remember that.”

“I’ll try,” Camilla promised.

“To love only once in a lifetime because things go wrong is stupid and selfish and shortsighted,” said Sally against her pillows. “It is wilful to waste what happiness
le
bon
Dieu
allows to us and to those we might make happy. It is wilful to wear a blindfold over eyes that can still see, because once they beheld a perfect sunset or a sublime view. The sun will go down on another day—the road will make another turn—one should always be willing to look again. Do you
understand
?”

Their eyes met in a long, wordless intimacy, and Camilla thought,
She
knew,
but there was no guilt, no apology, no embarrassment in that swift conviction, because Sally, knowing also that there was nothing to forgive, had only an immense compassion, without any hurt or resentment. And that was thanks to Sosthène.

“You will not always be happy, my dear, however wise you are—I wasn’t—but always take what comes to you—don’t fight life, Camilla, accept it with grace. Don’t strike attitudes about how brave you are, or how tragic you are, or how hard done by—nobody is looking, unless you are in front of a mirror. Don’t lunge at life and try to bully it into doing things your way—it’s bigger than you are, it will do as it likes with you. Don’t sulk, either, and turn your back on it—it will go on without you. Sit still, Camilla, not facing the light, and always looking your best, and let life come to you—think before you speak—smile when you want to cry—don’t score at someone else’s expense, even if you feel justified, you will lose more sympathy than you will gain satisfaction—never refuse love lightly, and never try to revive it when it fades—and never, never tell Everything to any living soul.”

“I’ll try,” Camilla promised, with a wry little smile.

“Some people there are who would say that is bad advice I give you,” said Sally. “But it is the way I have lived, and I have had in my time everything a woman could ask for. Perhaps it would not do for everybody. But for those of us, like you and me, who set out alone, it works very well, on the whole. Take what comes to you, Camilla—and when you give, use both hands. No man can love a stingy woman, not for ever. It is no disgrace to be humble when you love a man—nor to be grateful to him that he loves you. It is no one’s
birthright
to be loved—so never take it for granted. Sometimes it comes by surprise, but to be kept it must be earned again each day, by kindness and thought and always with tenderness, my dear, little words, little laughters, little glances—do not be
afraid to show him, do not be afraid that someone else will see—let them see—they will only envy you.”