To the North (30 page)

“Markie,” she called again, “there’s a pump in here.”

“Do we have to pump it?” he said, suspicious.

“Connie didn’t say so.”

He came in, with his drink and hers, to inspect the pump; he waggled the handle but only a gurgle came.

“Never mind,” she said, “there’s water out in that barrel. Or we can ask the woman to find us some in a well: the kettle’s full, anyway— Why,” she said, looking askance at her glass, “have you given me this?”

“To drink.”

“But I’d rather have tea “

“But it’s long past six.”

“Never mind.” They returned to the parlour, where Emmeline, kneeling, began to puff at the twigs with some wheezy bellows. White ash raced round the hearth; up the chimney Emmeline saw a small patch of sky. Though she discouraged the fire, her air was a wordless magnificat. Markie looked at the parcels, there seemed to be a great many. “What’s this?” he said.

“A ham,” said Emmeline proudly, watching him undo the wrappings.

“But, my dear girl, we can’t eat a ham in two days!”

“I thought we’d be hungry.”

“We’ll have to bury it.”

“In the shop it looked smaller,” she said, discouraged.

“I suppose it’s cooked?”

“Yes, they said so.” Rallying she went on: “When the kettle does boil, let’s run everything into one and have high tea.”

Markie hesitated: he foresaw trouble. “As a matter of fact I thought we might dine in Devizes; I think it might be a good plan. The inn’s quite good; I ate there once.”

“Oh
Markie
… .” She put down the bellows. “I brought Greek honey and biscuits and everything; I brought special coffee for you to make. … It was half the point … I thought it would be such fun.”

“Yes, angel; lovely to-morrow. But tonight I do feel I should like a good plain dinner: I had no breakfast and half a sandwich for lunch. I’m sorry: all men are beasts. But you know we should take half the evening fussing with plates and things and then be half the night clearing away.”

“I meant to have everything lovely. …” She had pictured them at the table between the two windows.

“I know. But I feel,” he said firmly, “dinner might do us good.”

Emmeline said no more; she blinked at the fire; the kettle, now humming, put out a comforting thread of steam. The cottage, the late lovely sense of arrival tugged at her heart. “Here we are,” she had thought, coming in: but she had been wrong, they were not. For ever coming and going, no peace, no peace. What did Markie always want to avoid? She thought of backing the car out again from the lean-to and bumping over those five miles of bye-road to Devizes: she thought of the bald street, the close room, the kind clumsy waiter bumping against her chair. She would not mind, she thought, if this did any
good
: she drooped. “If you’d told me,” she said, “I wouldn’t have brought the ham. I’m so tired, Markie; I’d hate to drive any more.”

“You’re hollow,” said Markie firmly, “that’s what’s the matter with you, my girl. You can’t stuff with cold tinned food at this hour, its horribly indigestible. What you want is a good plain—”

“Yes. But the ham isn’t out of a tin.”

“Pity
I
can’t drive,” he said rather touchily.

Unforgivably, she did not reply. Markie’s conviction that this sort of thing had been bound to occur perhaps precipitated the crisis, for a mild crisis it was. He had an irritated conception of Connie’s circle—which no doubt Emmeline found sympathetic—as sitting round on these rush mats tearing bully beef with their front teeth and talking art. “Of course if you put it that way,” he said in reply to her silence, “we’d better stay here and eat your ham.”

“Oh no … when do we start?”

“You’ll feel better with dinner inside you,” said Markie, cheered. “About seven? Then we’ll come straight back.”

“I’m afraid we are bound to do that,” said Emmeline icily. “There’s nowhere else we could go.”

Wondering whether to shake her, Markie ignored this; no one is so impossible as a hungry woman who does not know what is the matter. Markie was being more tolerant than one might have expected, for which he got little credit.

“I think,” she said, more or less to herself, “I’ll make tea all the same, as the kettle’s boiling: I’d rather like to make tea.” In view of everything else he could not discourage this. So she soon knelt on the hearthrug, chafing her hands round a mug of tea, looking wisely and sadly into the smoke.

Markie did not drive a car because machinery bored him; also on the principle that it is a mistake to do anything anyone else can do for one: he did nothing at which he could not excel. Secure in the prospect of dinner, he roamed round to look amiably at the bookshelves, took out a yellow volume, blew dust from the top and returned with it to the sofa, where he swung his feet up, opened the book at random and read aloud:

“ ‘Quand on aime, à chaque nouvel objet qui frappe les yeux ou la mémoire, serré dans une tribune et attentif à écouter une discussion des chambres ou allant au galop relever une grand’garde sous le feu de l’ennemi, toujours l’on ajoute une nouvelle perfection à l’idée qu’on a de sa maîtresse, ou l’on découvre un nouveau moyen, qui d’abord semble excellent, de s’en faire aimer davantage. Chaque pas de l’imagination est payé par un moment de délices. Il n’est pas étonnant qu’une telle manière d’être soit attachante.

“ ‘À l’instant où naît la jalousie, la même habitude de l’âme reste, mais pour produire un effet contraire. Chaque perfection que vous ajoutez à la couronne de l’objet que vous aimez, et qui peut-être en aime un autre, loin de vous procurer une jouissance céleste, vous retourne un poignard dans le cœur. Une voix vous crie: Ce plaisir si charmant, c’est ton rival qui en jouira.

“ ‘Et les objets qui vous frappent, sans produire ce premier effet, au lieu de vous montrer comme autrefois un nouveau moyen de vous faire aimer, vous font voir un nouvel avantage du rival.

“ ‘Vous rencontrez une jolie femme galopant dans le parc, et le rival est fameux par ses beaux chevaux, qui lui font faire dix mille en cinquante minutes.

“ ‘Dans cet état la fureur naît facilement; l’on ne se rappelle plus qu’en amour
posséder n’est rien, c’est jouir qui fait tout
; l’on s’exagère le bonheur du rival, l’on s’exagère l’insolence que lui donne ce bonheur, et l’on arrive au comble des tourments, c’est-à dire à l’extrême malheur, empoisonné encore d’un reste d’espérance.

“ ‘Le seul remède est peut-être d’observer de très près le bonheur du rival. Souvent vous le verrez s’endormir paisiblement dans le salon où se trouve cette femme, qui, à chaque chapeau qui ressemble au sien et que vous voyez de loin dans la rue, arrête le battement de votre cœur—’

“—Rot,” said Markie, putting the book back.

Emmeline, who though already too familiar with
De L’Amour
, from which Cecilia frequently read aloud, had politely stopped stirring her tea to listen, said: “Why?”

“One’s got no time for all that.”

“Stendhal crossed the Alps with an army with a valise strapped on to his horse,” said Emmeline thoughtfully.

“Oh, no doubt,” said Markie, “he could have driven a car.”

Before they left for Devizes, Emmeline walked down the grassy garden and picked some cornflowers; she said to herself that they would not be long away. Markie came after her; they stood looking back at the cottage, at those funny surprised dormer windows to which the stairs led up. A few posts pegged the garden away from the endless down; nothing else was in sight. A little smoke from their fire dissolved in the clear evening; the downs in their circle lay colourless under the sky. Some childish idea of kind arms deserting her mind, Emmeline said: “How alone we shall be tonight.” Like a presence, this cold stillness touched the idea of their love: would they dissolve like the smoke here, having no bounds? The low roof was comforting, but the cottage door, open, showed darkness where they had been.

At a thought, Markie’s fingers tightened on hers. But he only observed, looking round the skyline, that this did seem a queer place for Connie to keep a harp.

“Feeling better?” he asked. On the whole, they had not done badly, though he looked doubtfully into his coffee-cup. The waiter hovered, anxious to bring the bill: high up some pale electricity lit the ceiling among the pelmet-shadows, but daylight was in the street. A few other people lingered over the crumbs; someone looked hard at Emmeline, who did not notice, and from Emmeline to Markie. Having by now quite lost the thread of her day she sat looking out of the window, making no movement to go home.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I hate your being so tired.”

“I expect dinner was a good plan. You look sleepy, Markie; have you been working late?”

“Some people came in about twelve and stayed all night.”

“Did you have to see them?”

“They never rang up, simply came walking in: like a fool I went to the door.”

“Who?” said Emmeline idly.

“Two men and—oh yes: Daisy.”

“Oh yes,” said Emmeline.

“Of the shop,” said Markie, too easy. “They said they’d just thought they’d look in: nothing would make them go. I was rude enough. The fact was, Daisy was feeling sociable, but didn’t feel quite like coming in on her own.”

“I suppose not. Did they enjoy themselves?”

“I don’t think so; I hope not. They drank a good deal and stood round and said nothing particular; Daisy walked on some records and said what a nice flat I’d got.”

“Hadn’t she seen it before?”

“I suppose she’d forgotten.”

“What’s Daisy like?”

“Oh, very nice. Her uncle’s an archdeacon.”

“Oh, don’t be tiresome, Markie!”

“There’s nothing much else to say. She’s kind-hearted and has a nice complexion: she’s putting on weight. She’s got a hide like an elephant; she’s all right when she doesn’t talk. I should think she’d bore you: she might not.”

“I don’t suppose we shall meet.”

“Her telephone bill’s too big: she can’t bear to wait till anyone rings her up—”

“—Why must you talk like this?”

“Well, you rattle me, angel; sitting there looking like that.”

“Like what?”

“Death.”

“You overrate yourself, Markie,” she said coldly. 254

“Sorry,” he said, stung.

“I love you.”

“Then that’s all right.”

“Does Daisy know all your friends?”

“She knows them; they don’t always know her. I’m sorry, but that’s accurate. Oh yes, she has quite a good time; she gets off, if that’s what you mean. Those two men she brought in last night she’d picked up at a party.”

“Does she miss you?”

“She never lets old friends go.”

“I’m glad she has a nice time. I expect she’s amusing.”

“Oh yes.”

“Do you ever miss her?”

“There’s not much to miss: she’s a nice creature. She’s behaved very well, really.”

“Yes, people do.”

Looking at her oddly and quickly, he said: “Let’s get back to the cottage.”

“Not yet.” Emmeline poured herself out more coffee, clattered her cup about nervously, did not drink. Her look stole his way and retreated under the bronze lashes.

“She was perfectly calm last night,” he said, “if that’s what you want to know. Just a little pathetic, but that was always hei way. In her best days she was always rather like the song about the little church at Eastnor. That’s Daisy’s fun, after all: we all like a bit of sentiment.”

“What did the two men do while she was pathetic?”

“She stayed back while they were starting the car up, to look for her comb.”

“Did she find it?”

“I’ve no idea—no, it’s under my clock.”

“I wish you hadn’t told me,” Emmeline said suddenly, raising her eyes to his.

Markie’s eyebrows twitched up. “What,” he said, “about Daisy stopping?”

Scarlet at the misapprehension, she said quickly: “About her at all.”

Markie, half-way between chagrin—for Emmeline, most unconscious of critics, did not let blunders pass and he could but be conscious of her vibrations of distaste at much that he said and did—between chagrin and natural gratification, said: “How could I know you’d mind?”

“I don’t mind— How could I possibly?”

“All right, then, you don’t, you don’t. There’s no reason why you should. Do be calmer, angel; you’re fussing the waiter— You know you make poor old Daisy sound like a cheap gramophone. And you well know—”

“—You know I don’t want to be told things. Markie: I do not need to be pacified. What things you think! I didn’t want to be prying— Oh darling, what has become of us?”

“Nothing,” he said shortly.

It was the nearest they came to a scene. She said, looking round for her gloves: “The other night, what did you mean by the Alps?”

“Mountains. Now get your things and come home. Yes, it’s all right, I’ve got your gloves: they were under the table. Yes, you look lovely”—for Emmeline, turning round rather wildly, had stared at herself in the sideboard mirror. Excited by some new element in her beauty, he sat repeating: “Lovely,” with rather too pointed calm. “Perhaps just a bit of powder: you didn’t when we came out… . Yes, that’s very good. I’d do anything for you, angel: push the car home if you’re too sleepy to drive. We’d get back about as quickly, along that road— Emmeline, if you keep on looking at me like that I shall scream. What in hell’s the matter?”

“I believe,” said Emmeline, “we forgot to lock up the cottage.”

Someone had done this for them, no one had stolen the harp. The woman who came in had come in, no doubt to see if they wanted anything more. Also, no doubt, said Markie, to find out what they were like. Emmeline reached up to light the lamp; the hanging lamp swung a little, tilting its shadow about the beams. The last light from the downs went out; in lamplight the windows darkened. The brown paper they had left lying was neatly stacked up, flames flickered under fresh logs— all the same, though, the breath of the cottage was cold—the ham had been put away. What the woman thought of their negligence only Connie would know.

“She’s brought eggs,” said Markie, “twelve, in a plate. She must think we’re titans.” He got glasses and put syphons down on the table. Emmeline heard a moth on the window-pane; she caught it and threw it into the dark: it whirled in the light from the window and disappeared. Then she drew the curtains. “Hullo,” she heard Markie saying, “she’s brought a telegram too, or taken one in. Yours, Emmeline: here—”