The Diamond Waterfall (47 page)

“You're staying with the Hawksworths, Mr. Scarfe? Well”—she surprised herself by the sharpness of her voice—“you must ask Edie for a dance.”

He said, still smiling, “I shall do my duty.” Then just as he left her: “My dear girl,” he said, “people come to parties to enjoy themselves. God knows our generation have earned it.” But she saw that he moved across to Edie.

During supper, when she sat with Bertie, Reggie came and sat on the other side. He paid little attention to his own partner but kept staring at Sylvia. She was embarrassed, but Bertie, who had a good appetite, was busy and seemed not to notice.

Immediately after:

“You promised
me
the supper dance,” Reggie said. When she denied it (where had he got that idea?) she felt her arm suddenly grasped. “Dance with me now.
Please.”

She felt angry and thought, I don't
have
to. She thought of Mother's maid, Grierson, waiting, and how she might go home if she wished.

Waltzing was difficult. He seemed to sway to one side. But his manner was affable again.

“Your hair—Sylvia. Awfully good you don't bob. I'm old-fashioned, you see. Pin-ups, Kirchner girls, when I was out in France—girls with lots of hair. My mother had lovely hair, lovely. Haven't drunk all evening, haven't had a drop, you know. Don't go in for it much, don't need it …”

He seemed to be talking to himself. At the end of the record she made an excuse and went upstairs to the room set aside by Mrs. Fisher. Her face was very pale and she pinched her cheeks, high up, then bit her lips so that the blood rushed to them. Her hair felt heavy and she thought, Perhaps I might get it bobbed. To bob or not to bob, that is the question. But then she remembered: Daddy likes it, he praises it often. And he may not have so very long to live.

Looking over the banisters, she saw Reggie in the hall. At first she hesitated, thought of going back—but then he turned, and saw her.

At the foot of the stairs, he said, “Miss Firth—Sylvia. Need to speak to you. Urgently.”

“Of course.” She waited.

“Not here.” He looked behind him to a half-open door. “Think that's empty.” Perhaps he noticed her reluctance because he went on, “Shan't
shut
the bally door if that's what's worrying you. Trust Reggie, can't you?”

They went into the room. Small, with a sofa and two armchairs. He showed her to the sofa and then sat opposite on one of the chairs.

“Would it bore you pallid to marry me?”

She was completely taken aback. Her voice a little shaky, she said, “It's
very kind of you—you're very kind, Captain Gilmartin … Reggie … but I …”

“Would
bore you pallid—that's it, isn't it?”

“No, no. No, of course not. It's just—surely you see you've taken me by surprise?” Then, gently: “Thank you very much, but no.”

“Offer declined, eh? Not wanted on voyage …?”

She said, “No, no. Really, I didn't mean … It's … I barely know you …”

“Hasn't stopped chaps from proposing before. If a chap doesn't when he has the chance, another chap comes along. Asks first. I wanted … If you can't say yes now, would you make a fellow happy by
thinking
about it, eh, Sylvia?”

She wondered again if he had been drinking. She thought she smelled it. She felt suddenly more than ever sorry for him. The useless sleeve hanging …

“Had it in mind to come up and see your pater. The family heiress—he'd want to know a chap was all right. Then thought—better find out where I stand—if it's to be
aurev
or
adieu.”

He added rather pathetically, “There's a title in the family. Second cousin. Through my mother, you know.”

She thought, He hasn't said “I love you,” or any of the things they say in books. It can't be meant to be like this.

“If you're wondering about my settling down … got a pension, of course. Off at the shoulder, you know, the arm. Can't have a hook. But mean to work. Back in '13 I'd a year, year and a half in a shipping office. Family connection, that sort of thing. But jobs now—'22, not exactly waiting for a chap. I've got business talent. Certain of that. Just need to get started, you know. Have someone, and something, behind me.”

Oh, but it was amazing. And alarming. She thought she would never get away. When she did at last, she found that she'd promised him she'd think about it.

She went home soon after that. Mother wasn't up, and her light out, otherwise she might have told her about Reggie. She went to sleep at once, but only to dream. It was frightening. She dreamed about Teddy. Teddy and the new doctor. They sat in a tea shop and talked about her. She knew something was very wrong, and that she must help. She could not shift this sadness, which sat on her almost physically. “You are in danger,” she called out to them as they sat over the teacups. “Terrible, terrible danger.”

“I hate you,” Teddy said. “It's the most delicious sensation.”

She looked at him. George Andrew Sainthill. Gib's friend, Saint.

They were eating outside, in a restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne.
Quenelles
just served, piping hot. She burned a finger now, touching the edge of the plate.

“What were your ancestors up to, Saint?
Someone
must have been pious, holy …”

“Own that you like me, just as I am.”

She wrinkled her nose, mocking distaste. It came over her in a wave that she was bored. Worse still, perhaps, was herself boring? And no amount of badinage between her and Saint, no amount of eating at amusing little places could fill up that quite terrifying emptiness—the cavern yawning beneath.

Or was it simply length of days? Life stretching before her, interminably. Over before it had begun. (“Poor little girlie, poor lass,” they said. “She'll wed again.” But why? Why bother? Unless it is to have a child.)

Teddy does just as she likes, goes where she likes, is quite, quite free.
Teddy Nicolson. Mrs. Gilbert Nicolson. It is that wonderful, much-to-be-envied Mrs. which separates me from those of my age, and older. That is what marriage and widowhood have done for me. I am at liberty to dine in a Paris restaurant, on this September evening of 1922, alone with a man. It is not even necessary to explain what it is I am doing in Paris. I can travel. I have money. Although I take care to give no details of its origin. (If I hadn't confronted Mother with the
facts,
what convoluted version of the truth might she not have given me? Something probably like the vaguenesses which seem to have satisfied not only Sylvia but everyone else too. But at least I know now why Father has never liked me.)

“I hate you, Saint.” She broke her bread roll. “You shouldn't tease me so. I do have feelings.”

“And I tread on them. And you don't mind—or why else would you hang around Paris with me? Answer that, now.” Triumphantly, looking at her over his wineglass.

When Gib had spoken of this friend, this far-back-in-time Cambridge friend (and was not 1909 and all that so far away as to be another world?) it had always been with amusement, affection.

“We never kept up as we should have done,” he'd said. “A few visits to his home when we were first down, then … I'm not sure. Letters, yes. Then I ran into him after Gallipoli—as if it had been yesterday. He was always charming—the secret perhaps those few drops of Irish blood.”

She had bothered to look out the group photographs from Cambridge days, and seen him smiling there. He could not have changed at all for she had had no trouble in recognizing him when he had called, on leave from the Navy, not long after they had had news of Gib's capture.

It was he who had written to her after Gib's death, in those first blank days of shock and anticlimax. “I have heard the dreadful news. What can I say? I would like to see you.” It had been apparent to her at once that he needed, very much, to talk to someone who had known his friend. That they should share a common pain.

And friendship, of an easy sort. Renewed in Paris, earlier this year— when they had become lovers. It was only gradually that this tone had crept into their relations, a tone that was now the everyday mood.

Outside on the grass, among the strung lights, two children chased each other down among the tables, unsupervised. The younger ran too fast for his short legs and fell headlong, and at once set up a howling. She thought of moving but saw that an elderly woman had already pushed aside her chair.

“I had a letter from Sylvia. A
very
long one.” She reached for her handbag, fiddled with the clasp, brought out some crumpled pages.

“The Baby Sister—”

“The Baby Sister. And would you believe it, she's had the most amazing and unexpected proposal—” “Decent, indecent?”

“Saint! Proposal of
marriage.
Captain Reginald Gilmartin, late of the Artillery … one-armed …”

“I see. She refused him?” A waiter was filling his glass.

“Of course. She can do much better. And he is only the first—she isn't out yet. Mother plans quite a sensation for her. She has looks. Capital L.”

“She has Looks, and you have—”

“Style. No, but she—Sylvia is beautiful. Perhaps she will be the one in the family to get it right.”

“Get what right?” He looked amused, but puzzled.

She said a little sadly, “Just—get it right.”

“If you mean our present way of life, our liaison …”

She fingered the tablecloth. “Partly, yes. Possibly …”

“At least you are independent. Even if I wished it, my means would not stretch to a
femme entretenue.”

“Ah, forget it,” she said impatiently, always wanting to be done with it as soon as it arose, any discussion about their life together.

“Actually, the letter's quite amusing. A dreadfully funny account of the
Fisher dance. Mrs. F too frightful—and son Bertram. Gentle Sylvia—sometimes pen in hand she can be quite wicked. Though not of course like you, Saint, when you take it up—and wield it like a sword.”

“You're referring to my journalism?”

“Yes. It's better than your painting.”

“For those few kind words—”

“I'm glad you enjoyed them.” Opening her bag again, bringing out the lighter, the cigarette case.

“Is there one for me?”

“They're Virgins—”

“No matter,” he said, “they're cigarettes not women. Seeing you light up even in the middle of an excellent meal—I
need
one.” “You're all the same, you ex-service—”

“I smoked right through. Wardroom, night watch. Can't imagine life without.”

She said, “If that's the only effect the war had—then count yourself lucky.”

“I do. I do. Though you wrong me. The horrors were not
all
on land. And as a corollary, at sea too there was something … a
camaraderie …
I tried to convey it in my
Compensatio Belli, Notes for a Dialogue.”

She said dully, “It's out of fashion, all that now. There's a new Edith Wharton novel, set here in wartime. Even that, I wonder …” She shrugged her shoulders. “All these people with something to say and no one to listen. But our ears ache. We don't want to hear …”

“The time will come …”

“Perhaps.” She felt suddenly very, very tired. They finished the meal in semisilence. Waiting while Saint called a cab, she thought she could smell autumn, overlaying the summer evening. Autumn and the death of the year. Death.

Saint's studio. It was very large, very airy—made into rooms, it would have housed a small family.

She began at once to undress.

“Are we?”

She nodded. “Yes. I supposed that was why you brought the cab here. I'd have gone happily to the hotel—”

“Get into the bed then, sweetheart. Warm it up for me.”

A few moments. He put on a bathrobe, went and stood out on the balcony, smoked a last cigarette. She lay between the sheets, the blankets thrown back. She, too, smoked as she waited.

He climbed in beside her, enclosed her in his arms, pulled her head down onto his chest. His arms tightened, then one hand wandering, explored, stroking
her buttocks, pinching, pummeling. He whispered in her ear, then with a quick movement he pulled her legs apart.

Now it begins, she thought. All over again. Now it begins.

I am in love, in love, in love! I am sixteen and it is the autumn of 1916, and this wonderful, wonderful thing has happened to me. It doesn't matter if nothing comes of it, it is enough that I
am
and he
is.
Suddenly, I cannot understand why everyone does not feel the same: if all one must do is grow old enough to fall in love. The only other thing I cannot understand—that I have not loved him always, always.

Except that I must have. Surely I felt for him something special, and
did not know it.
For he was always there. Always coming to The Towers, to be shut up there with Alice, talking photographs, taking photographs. Then taller, older, always towering above me—now he's Hal's tutor. He has no mother, I have to remember that. Once I heard
my
mother say, “Really, that friendship has brought out the best in Alice—she is positively motherly towards him.” But that was before they were engaged. Before I, or anyone knew about it (and all the complications and difficulties that were to beset it —until, in the end, it was not meant to be. I know, and must tell myself over and over again,
it was not meant to be).

He liked me. Oh, how fond he was of me. Fat Teddy. My Fat Teddy Bear. He loved my dancing, my singing. “Come here, Alice—watch Teddy, she has a new dance.” I treated him with such ease, such familiarity, pulling at him, dragging him by the lapels, not just to hear me sing, but to sing with me. I liked to make up the words, but he could not or would not. Except nonsense rhymes …