Читать книгу The Willow Cabin - Pamela Frankau - Страница 7

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The lounge of the Rufford Hotel was decorated in lush taste. It reminded Caroline of an hotel in Paris. There were tapestry curtains, gilded and padded furniture, a dark red carpet and two crystal chandeliers. At each end of the room there was a marble mantelpiece. There was nobody here and she could pace undisturbed. She walked backwards and forwards, trying not to look at the fat French clock on the farther mantelpiece. She did not really need to look at it. She knew that the time was past midnight and that he might not come.

In the outer hall she heard the night-porter lock the doors; then he went back to his small office behind the glass screen. She was straining her ears because the switchboard was in the office and if a call came through she would hear the whirring buzz and the night-porter replying in his sing-song voice, “Rufford Hotel.” This had happened twice; the first time the porter had said, “He’s not back, I’m sorry,” and the second whir had been made by somebody calling down from one of the rooms to ask for some cigarettes.

Caroline was light-headed with hunger; she had not dined before to-night’s performance and she had hurried back here to await the telephone-call. The porter, she was sure, would be able to make her some sandwiches; but she seemed to be shut up in the mood of impatience, denied all action except this steady pacing, incapable of communication with the world outside. She lit another cigarette and drew the letter from her pocket; it was the only solace for the moment and she had read it so many times that the words ran ahead in her mind before she turned the brown pages.

“When you know me better—as I hope that you will—you’ll become acquainted with my habit of writing letters. It is a vice with me, particularly when, as now, I cannot sleep.

“I loved our interlude. A little of you has gone about with me for forty-eight hours. It is good company, bless it, but my sense of middle-aged guilt predominates to-night; and I sit here thinking that I had no right to talk to you as I did. It is, in any case (and according to the book of clichés), idle for the not-so-young to try to impart tabloid wisdom to the young; who must discover and prove the formulæ for themselves. Is that too pompous for you? Anyhow, please believe that most of my wisdom has been acquired unsuitably, and I haven’t yet learned to be wise when I meet somebody as young and as heartbreakingly lovely as you.

“I read these lines lately and they seem to be yours:

“ ‘To be young is to have expectation, to await.

There is no gift like that gift afterwards.’

“Do wait. Don’t marry the ‘chap who wants to marry you’ as a means of escape from that grim home of yours. And don’t hurry your decision to leave it. That is where I feel most guilty, not because I think that it would be bad for you to go, but because timing these things comes naturally; you will know when it’s time to be going. Nobody else can tell you, least of all I.

“Incidentally I leave for the North to-morrow (only it’s to-day) by a horribly early train to perform an operation on a rich, frightened gentleman who will soon be feeling much better and regretting my fee. I shall be back Friday afternoon and will telephone at the week-end to suggest a meeting.

“Blessings,

“Michael”

Caroline looked at the fat clock. Twenty minutes past twelve. The secretary had sounded fluting and refined. She had said, “Mr. Knowle went straight to an appointment at the hospital as soon as he got here. I will give him your message.”

“She must have gone long ago. Perhaps she forgot to leave this number. Then he would ring me at home. That is what has happened. I wonder what Mother said to him. ‘Caroline walked out yesterday afternoon.’ Not she.”

For a moment her thoughts were deflected as she tried again to realise that the thing was done; that she was in fact alone and free. But that was impossible to realise. The walls of the house were still there, shutting her in; there was still the panting urgency of escape and the knowledge that she never could escape, the foolish prisoner who sat in her cell and pitied the warder. “Stop this. Don’t look back. It is over; you’re out; you have got away.”

There was only one authority who could tell her whether she had done right or wrong; whose sanction she needed now. “Why do I still think that he will come? Because I cannot imagine that he would ever fail me or hurt me.”

She threw away the cigarette half-smoked; it joined the other half-smoked cigarettes, in the august steel grate below the marble mantelpiece.

The porter came into the lounge. He had taken off his jacket and he was pushing a vacuum-cleaner. He smiled at her. He said, “I have to do a bit of cleaning up now. Anything you’ll be wanting, Madam?”

She shook her head. She wanted to say, “Oh, do stay by the switchboard.”

“I’ll start in the bar,” he said and pushed the glass door open and was gone. She heard the faint roaring of the vacuum-cleaner begin behind the door. “Now if the telephone does ring, he will not hear it at all and I haven’t the least idea how to work a switchboard and while I am fetching him Michael will get tired of waiting and hang up.”

A bell rang; a low, purring bell. She stopped in her pacing. While she hesitated, wondering whether the porter could hear it, whether it were the front-door bell, it rang again. She went into the hall. She shot back the two bolts on the door and unlatched it. Michael Knowle was standing on the step. He wore a light overcoat, no hat, a black silk scarf folded under his chin. Her first thought was that he looked tired to death. Then he smiled at her and the reassurance of the smile was still there.

“Are you acting night-porter?” he asked.

“N-no.” She had never stammered before. “Th-there is one. But at this time of n-night, he appears to take the vacuum-cleaner down to the other end of the lounge.”

“How purposeful that sounds; as though he had his way with it when he got there,” said Michael Knowle.

Caroline giggled. He came into the hall and took off his overcoat and scarf. She saw that he was wearing a dark blue suit, a light blue shirt and a bow tie; unexpected brown suede shoes. These things were very important. He passed his hands over his hair.

“I am sorry to be so late. To-night was full of trouble.” He fished in a pocket, found his wrist-watch and put it on his wrist. Again she noticed the shape of his hands.

They went into the lounge. Here he stared at her medically under the light from the chandeliers.

“My child, you look as pale as a ghost; no, paler; the ghost of somebody’s ghost. What is that about?”

“I’m hungry,” said Caroline, “I didn’t have any dinner or any supper and my stomach is touching my spine.”

“Then we had better go out and get some supper. Or can your porter find us some food?”

“I should think he can. I’ll go and ask him.”

“You will not.”

He pushed her gently into a chair. She sat still, with her head in her hands. Michael came back; she felt his hand on her shoulder. “What have they been doing to you?” the caressing voice asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” She raised her head and saw him seating himself in the opposite chair, crossing his knees, folding his arms. “That is how he would sit in his consulting-room.” She felt like a patient. The porter came from the bar, carrying a tray with a bottle of whisky and a siphon of soda-water. He said, “Just be a few minutes cutting the sandwiches, sir.”

“All right. Thanks very much. I’ll pour these.” The porter set the tray on one of the small, marble-topped tables. “Don’t drink it all at once,” Michael said, as he put the glass into her hand. He stood looking down at her.

“Is it awful of me to drag you here at this time of night?”

“You didn’t drag me; I wanted to come.” He went back to his chair. “Just drink that and be quiet for a minute.”

“I don’t want to be quiet. I have to explain.”

“You needn’t explain anything.”

“I believe that’s true. I don’t believe you’d ever require it. Which is one of the things that I like.” She said, “But you’re the only person I can talk to; if you say it’s all right, I shall stop feeling guilty.”

He looked at her affectionately. “What have you to feel guilty about?”

“Running away.”

“Yes; I thought it might be that.”

“I tried to discuss it with my mother, but it wasn’t any good; so I thought it was better to stop talking and go.”

He was silent.

“I had made up my mind before I got your letter. I see what you meant, about not wanting me to do it because of you. But,”—she stared at the floor, “I’m afraid the letter only made me more positive that it must be done.”

“Somebody ought to cure me of writing letters,” he said.

“Why? It was a lovely letter. It was the nicest letter I ever had from anybody.”

The porter returned with a small mountain of sandwiches on a plate. “Those aren’t all for you, so don’t you think it,” Michael said. “I did dine, but it seems a very long time ago.” For a few minutes Caroline found herself entirely concerned with the food, posting down one sandwich after another; then she became aware of his eyes; their expression was rueful and tender.

“Why do you look at me like that?”

“All the appetites,” he quoted.

“Yes, well....”

“At least you begin to look a little better. Tell me, do you propose to live here?”

“I thought I would. It only costs four guineas a week; and I didn’t want a squalid bed-sitting room. Nobody but me seems to know about St. James’s Place. I found it on Tuesday, all by myself.”

“You won’t be lonely?”

“I don’t think so. I have always been alone a lot. That is why I talk to myself.” She stretched her arms and said, “Oh, this is lovely.”

“Euphoria,” said Michael, “the result of sandwiches and whisky.”

“You’re different to-night.”

“I know I am.”

“Do you not think it’s all right? Would you rather I had stayed at home?”

He said, “Is my approval so important?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, I think you had to do it. But I feel a little as though I were standing on a railway-platform seeing you off on a journey that you aren’t really fit to take. I don’t know yet why they had such a violent effect on you; your mother and your stepfather. But they have done your nervous system a damage.”

“Have they? What have they done to it? Do you think I am queer in the head?”

“No, darling. But I think you’ll take a little time to readjust. And possibly living alone in an hotel isn’t the best regime for you. Do I sound like a Spoiler-of-the-Fun?”

“You remembered that. You? You’re less a Spoiler-of-the-Fun than anybody I ever met.” She set her chin in her hands and stared at him, learning the face by heart. He took his cigarette-case out of his pocket. She said, “That’s a different one, isn’t it.”

“Different from what?”

“Different from the one you had on Friday.” She leaned towards the flame of the lighter.

“Do you always notice details with such alarming attention?”

“Usually I do. Look—I’ll be all right if I can go on seeing you occasionally; I promise not to become a nuisance.” Her heart had begun to beat violently. “You see——” she stopped.

“Go on.” For the first time, the note in his voice was rough; he looked heavy and solemn.

“Well, I know that ladies should not make declarations unasked, but it isn’t any good my trying to be reticent; I never can keep that sort up for long.” She turned the glass in her hands.

“Don’t try, then.” The voice was gentler now. She went on turning the glass and looking into it.

She said, “I haven’t thought about anything but you for six days. And if I hadn’t seen you to-night, I think I should have died. I felt as though I were dying while I waited for you. And please don’t say that was because of not having had anything to eat.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort.”

She said, “I have fallen in love with you.”

He got up and bent over her, holding her close to him. He kissed her forehead. After a moment he sighed and let her go. He wandered away from the circle made by their two chairs and the table. She watched him, afraid of his silence and of the words when they should come. He stood in front of the marble mantelpiece.

“When one is handed a gift like that,” he said, “however old and capable one may have thought oneself, one goes straight back to school.”

He sounded so solemn that she said, “Yes, Michael,” lightly and obligingly.

“Caroline, I am serious. I want you to listen to me—I can give you nothing.”

“I don’t expect you to give me things.”

“Hush. So, I have no right in the world to take your gift. I am hopelessly involved; I can never be free. And I am approaching forty and you’re twenty-two; you haven’t begun to breathe yet. You’re a very young twenty-two, despite your efforts to appear a sophisticated person.”

“Please,” she said. “I knew you’d talk about our ages and I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Be quiet. I haven’t many morals, but I have a very decided opinion of married, middle-aged gentlemen who go about making love to young women; and a very rude word for them.”

“You needn’t get a conscience about me. I have had a lover already.”

The expression of his face was baffling; he might have been shocked or relieved. She seemed to have silenced him. She said, “Look; it wasn’t important. It was done partly out of curiosity and partly as a gesture against my mother. I suppose that does sound very low. Do I disgust you?”

“No.”

“I only told you so that you wouldn’t have a conscience.”

He was still silent.

“Oh, dear, now you’re cross.”

“I am not in the least cross. I am wondering just how completely they’ve succeeded in setting you against all rules; all standards.”

“I would take rules and standards from you. You wouldn’t make them into restrictions.”

He said, “Will you please answer me one question and answer truthfully. Would you have run away if we hadn’t met?”

Caroline frowned over it. “I don’t think that’s a fair one; or an easy one. Obviously it would have happened sooner or later.” She looked up at him. “Oh, all right, the answer’s No,” she said, “I wouldn’t. You decided me. But that doesn’t make me your responsibility.”

“It’s a responsibility I should like very much.”

“Are you being polite?”

It was surprising to see him look helpless. He shook his head. She said, “If you want to know, I decided to run away at the exact moment when I fell in love with you; which I clearly remember. It was when I’d just told you I was a bastard; and you said that you hoped Leonard didn’t make me feel that it was generous of him to keep me in the house.”

He said, “Why did that please you so much?”

“Because it was grown-up and kind and it sounded as though you cared about me.”

He came over to her chair, pulled her out of it and stood holding her hands.

“If I were really grown-up now, I should say good-bye to you and walk out of your life. And yet I cannot bear to go. And, oh Caroline, I would give my soul to be twenty-two again, d’you see?”

She put her arms round his neck. He said with his mouth above hers, “I will always look after you. I will always be there. I can’t love you your way. Do you think that you can ever be content with mine?”

She said, “Now and forever.”