Westwood (27 page)

He began by thinking her delightful; as the winter wore on, the frankness which at first he had smiled at and hardly believed in gradually grew to have for him a strong attraction. But of course he could not accept it as mere frankness; he thought up all sorts of explanations to account for it, and studied Hilda’s every word and action in order to fathom her true character, which he was certain would one day pop out and give her away. As the weeks passed, and they continued to dine together or to meet sometimes on Sunday afternoons in Kenwood to exercise Hilda’s dog, and Hilda remained unchanged and no dramatic popping-out occurred, he was at last forced to accept the surprising conclusion that, as he saw her, so she was – and also the painful conclusion that she had no intention of giving him any more than a brief touch of her fresh mouth when they said good night. But when the spring came, he planned to take her one afternoon to Kew Gardens (which was a favourite haunt of his because its landscapes contained both the exotic and the formal) and there, amidst the flowering magnolia and azalea bushes, he would dazzle her by
revealing his fame and ask for her love. He looked forward to the day with longing, imagining the scene; with the white and cream and pale magenta cups of the flowers making a stain of colour above themselves in the clear spring air, and in the distance the fresh ripple of the river, and near at hand the pear trees smothered in blossom rising into the blue sky, and breathing over all the scene – the conservatories, the sloping lawns, the expanses of water covered in lily leaves – the fragrance of April.

Yes, in April he would take her there, and tell her of his love; or perhaps in late March, for April was so far away!

Meanwhile, Hilda had had a talk with her mother about Mr Marcus, and they had decided that as he really seemed to admire Hilda in a nice way and to mean no harm, she should continue to go out with him. Mrs Wilson, who sometimes had plans which Hilda did not suspect, pointed out that Hilda only found Mr Marcus dull because she had never had an elderly admirer, and reminded her of Auntie Freda’s Mr Rodney, a widower in the building trade who had been very much in love with Auntie Freda when she was Hilda’s age, and had taken her out to quiet, really good places for lunch and to poultry shows at the Crystal Palace, and
that
had ended in a proposal. Of course Auntie Freda hadn’t had him, because there were thirty years between them, but that was what it had all led up to. Hilda said that Marcus had better not try taking
her
to poultry shows, and if he was leading up to a proposal, he had a hope, and Mrs Wilson suggested once more that he should be asked round to tea one Sunday, and on Hilda’s saying, ‘It’s no use, Mum, he won’t come,’ the subject was dropped.

Hilda was mildly interested in the aroma of an unfamiliar way of living and feeling that clung about Mr Challis; she liked his gentleness and courtesy, and she mildly pitied his state, which was perfectly plain to her. But one day I’ll get browned-off with him altogether, she thought. He’s a bit of a bind.

Every few days he telephoned to her at the Town Hall, his light, beautiful speaking voice causing something of a flutter amongst her fellow workers.

‘Hild, it’s your B.B.C boy!’ someone would whisper with popping eyes, handing over the receiver. ‘Oo, he does sound lovely! Aren’t you lucky!’

‘He
sounds
all right,’ Hilda would say cryptically, not wishing to encourage the suspicion that she was flirting above her station. ‘Do not judge the contents by the picture on the sound-box.’

As the evenings of February lengthened and the snowdrops bloomed, Margaret and Hilda saw even less of one another. Margaret’s time was fully occupied with school work and visits to Westwood or to theatres and concerts with Zita, and Hilda, quite aware that she was being supplanted, concealed her natural feelings and even made excuses for her friend, reminding herself that Mutt had always been highbrow and now had found someone to share her tastes. Hilda had that impenetrable reserve which frequently accompanies a sunny temperament; her dislike of displaying her deeper feelings was almost neurotic, and when one of the young men with whom she went about was killed, she would fly into a rage, weep furious tears for a quarter of an hour, and then never mention his name again; hardly ever think of him; thrust the pain and anger deep, deep into the recesses of her mind and forget it.

On the rare occasions when Margaret telephoned to her or dropped in at the Wilsons’, Hilda’s manner was unchanged, but she herself never went to Margaret’s home unless she were invited, and when she and Margaret met they only exchanged their usual affectionate banter and Margaret found it increasingly difficult to speak to her friend of the change that had taken place in her nature since Zita had opened to her the world of music and the doors of Westwood. I am so much happier, she would think, but she was compelled to admit that the ecstasy with which she listened
to music and the thrill she experienced at a distant glimpse of Gerard Challis were too intense to be happiness.

During February she was annoyed by her mother’s efforts to drag Mr Fletcher into the family circle. He had been given a standing invitation to Highgate for every Saturday afternoon and most irritatingly accepted it, and might be seen in the garden in his shirtsleeves, digging in company with Mr Steggles.

If Mrs Steggles had hoped to reform Mr Steggles by getting him to take an interest in the garden she was disappointed. Mr Steggles was bored with the garden and did not like real flowers, preferring velvet ones smelling of Californian Poppy, and he only put in an appearance in the garden out of affection for poor old Dick, who genuinely seemed to like gardening. How thankfully did Mr Steggles hear the summons to tea at five o’clock! and with what even deeper gratitude did he push aside his empty cup after listening to the six o’clock news, and suggest to old Dick that they should go out and have one at The Woodcutter! Usually they went on to a game of poker with mutual friends in London which lasted until Mr Steggles caught the last train home.

When Saturday afternoon was fine, and sometimes when it was not but stopped short of actual rain, Margaret was told by her mother that she must go out and entertain Mr Fletcher and help Dad. Usually she firmly refused on the excuse of exercise-books to correct, but on one occasion she did step out into the little square of earth, damp and desolate under the cloudy February sky, and picked up the smaller spade and turned up a spit or so while she addressed remarks to Dick Fletcher, who was digging away steadily with a red face and his sleeves rolled up. The wet clay clung to her shoes and the handle of the spade blistered her palms and she was bored by gardening and wanted to get back to a quiet room and an open book lying on a table. Dick Fletcher, too, was paying so little attention to what she said that she had the added annoyance of feeling she was wasting her time, but she kept on:

‘Can you understand people getting utterly absorbed in gardening the way they do, Mr Fletcher?’

He made some inarticulate reply.

‘It seems to me it’s a whole-time job, not a hobby. You can’t just say, “I’ll go out and do half an hour’s gardening,” and then go back into the house and get on with something else; you find yourself having to spend half a day –’

He suddenly stopped digging and turned on her a heated face:

‘If you’re going to dig,
dig
, and don’t talk. I can’t do both!’ he snapped, and drove the spade into the earth again.

Margaret was very surprised, and also experienced that shock which we feel from a gross and uncalled-for rudeness. She was about to retire in offended dignity when he glanced up again, this time with a smile.

‘Go on, jump to it!’ he said. ‘Bet you a shilling you haven’t finished that bed by tea-time!’

‘You’ve won,’ she said, leaning the spade against a tree and dusting her smarting hands. ‘It’s too much like work.’

He did not answer, and she stayed for a moment to look up at the tree under which they were standing. It was a tall young willow with a full shapely head now covered in swelling buds of silvery green flushed with pink, and the lingering spring light seemed caught in its airy mesh. Not another bud was to be seen in the garden, but the freshly dug earth smelled sweet and the mildness of the air was entirely different from that of autumn.

‘You don’t often see that pink kind,’ he said, resting on his spade and also looking up at the
tree.

‘No – isn’t it lovely.’

He nodded and smiled, but without any look of pleasure, and took up the spade and began to dig again. Margaret changed her mind about returning to the house, and began to pull up armfuls of fluffy grey golden-rod.

‘Hullo, Margaret, given up already?’ called her father from the far end of the garden.

‘I’m doing this.’ She held up the golden-rod. ‘It ought to have come up last autumn. We’ll never get this place looking decent for the summer.’

‘I’m not trying to,’ muttered Mr Steggles, straightening his back.

‘I’d like to see it looking nice,’ said Margaret suddenly, standing with her arms full of the eldrich seeding plant, her dark head lifted eagerly against the sky, ‘only I wish we needn’t have a lawn with flowers round it. Everybody has that. I’d like something more unusual.’

‘You would, eh?’ Dick Fletcher glanced up and laughed. ‘Why not have the grass round the edges and the flowers in the middle?’

‘Well, why not?’ she cried, ‘Tudor gardens were like that.’

‘Were they?’ he said wearily, resting again and wiping his forehead. He looked at his watch.

‘Yes, that’s just exactly what I was thinking,’ said Mr Steggles, throwing down his spade without reluctance. ‘And here’s Mabel, just at the right moment.’

Mrs Steggles was standing at the French windows of the drawing-room and indicating that tea was ready.

At tea they all agreed that the garden did begin to look better, and Mr Steggles heard with dismay that now they had made a start on it they would have to keep on; a full programme for the coming months was unfolded by Mrs Steggles which included spraying the greenfly and applying lawn sand.

‘Oh, there’s always something to do in a garden,’ she ended cheerfully. ‘It’s like a house in that way. More cake, Dick? You look better for the fresh air.’

‘I feel it,’ he said, and Margaret thought that he meant what he said. ‘I look forward to coming up here every week,’ he added, but whether he meant that or not, she could not be sure.

‘It’s a pity you can’t come for a whole week-end, and really get the benefit,’ said Mrs Steggles.

‘It’s very kind of you, but I’m afraid I can’t; my Sundays are always engaged.’

‘Oh, Sunday! Yes, we mustn’t ask you to give up Sundays! I quite forgot!’

Mr Fletcher looked both ill-at-ease and annoyed, and Margaret wondered that a man of his age and experience should show so much embarrassment over a commonplace situation.

After the men had gone, she went out into the dusk and finished pulling up the golden-rod. The grass scattered cold dew on her ankles, and her wrists were scratched by the long stiff stems. The air was deliciously fresh, and over her head the young willow tree held a crescent moon among its branches. While she worked, not thinking of anything except the scents and pleasures by which she was surrounded, there came a far-off faint piping high overhead, and across the sky swept five ducks with necks outstretched, that were outlined for an instant against the clouded moon and the budding tree and then were gone. She followed their flight until they vanished in the direction of Kenwood, then let her gaze linger on Westwood, high on its hill.

‘What do you suppose Mr Fletcher does on Sundays?’ said Mrs Steggles, when they were seated at supper.

‘It’s rather obvious, isn’t it,’ replied Margaret, not pleased at the reopening of the subject.

‘Oh, there’s a lady in the case, of course. But why should he want to keep it so dark?’

Margaret was silent, thinking that her mother’s mind was more ingenuous than her own.

‘There’s no reason why he shouldn’t marry again if he wants to,’ pursued Mrs Steggles. ‘He wasn’t the guilty party.’

‘Perhaps the “lady” isn’t free,’ said Margaret, trying to put her suspicions as delicately as possible.

‘Married, you mean? Oh, I hope not. I don’t like to think of him carrying on with somebody like that.’

Margaret thought that the conversation was straying towards a dangerous area, and tried to change it by saying that she had enjoyed her gardening.

‘Yes, it will do you good, you don’t get enough fresh air, stuck in school all day and sitting up half the night. I like Dick, and I’d like to see him settled with some nice girl. Don’t you?’

‘Like him? Yes, more than I did. I don’t think he’s easy to get on with.’

‘Well, neither are you, Margaret. He thinks
you’re
standoffish.’

‘How on earth do you know, Mother? Did he say so?’

‘Of course not. He’s always most polite. But I can see, I’m not blind. He’d be friendly enough if you’d let him.’

‘Do you mean he likes me?’ Margaret was irritated to feel herself colour, but it was only at the memory of her mother’s interference in her first love affair.

‘Not in that way, Margaret. I’m afraid you aren’t the type that attracts men, so we’d better face it. But he’d find it easier to be pleasant if
you’d
talk more and not be so stiff.’

‘Well, I must try,’ said Margaret amiably, with no intention of doing so, but anxious to end the conversation. She herself thought that Dick Fletcher was too far gone in disappointment for any friendliness of hers, or of anyone’s, to make much difference to him. She pitied him, because that lingering youthfulness of colouring and occasionally of manner suggested that he had once been an ardent and a happy man. But some spring had dried up in him, and she had neither the inclination – nor the power (she felt) – to set it flowing again.