Читать книгу The Blind Man's House. A Quiet Story - Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole - Страница 9

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She was frightened. The fear was as sudden and, in one sense, as unexpected as an unheralded sharp stab in the breast. And yet not unexpected, because it had been hovering near her, almost out of her consciousness but not quite, for many weeks.

They were at the Cross-roads. Pelynt Cross. She knew where they were, for Julius had told her and in her hands was a map. The Cross-roads. Pelynt Cross. You can smell the sea here, Julius said. She sniffed through the open window. Yes, she could smell it. On a clear day you could catch a glimpse of the sea from the Cross, which stood naked and bare on the edge of the Moor. But today you could not see far because of the summer honey haze which veiled the world in trembling heat.

The car had stopped for a moment while Curtis hesitated. Then he saw the finger—'Garth in Roselands 1-½ M.—Rafiel 10 M.' To the left of them ran Pelynt Moor for miles and miles. The light enwrapped it and struck at fragments of quartz, at rough white stones. It seemed to shake with voluptuous pleasure at being thus enwrapped. The air through the window smelt of honey and gorse.

The car went on. She had taken off her hat, and the short curls of her dark hair moved in the breeze. She had thrown back her coat, and her body drank in the heat. She loved, she loved the sun! She looked quickly across to Julius and then quickly back again. Was he asleep? Who could tell? His eyes were closed, but that meant nothing at all. She had been married to him for six months, and yet about a matter like that she could not be certain. His big body sprawled against the corner of the car. He too had taken off his hat, and his hair, so fair a yellow that in certain lights it seemed white, moved a little against his forehead.

His face, which she loved so dearly, was composed and calm. Why had she been frightened? Was it because she was coming to a new place? No. She was never frightened of a new place. She loved new places and new people because she always conquered them with her charm. She did not pride herself on her charm. She had no conceit. But she was pleased, as anyone would be, with its effects.

Was it because her new home was his old home that she was frightened? No. Anything that was his was hers. He gave her everything freely, abundantly, completely. She would never feel a stranger where he was.

Was it because of herself that she was frightened? She sat up very straight and looked out of the window, shaking her little head as though she would have the sun penetrate and enrich the curls.

Well, what about herself? For six months she had made Julius so happy that he told her he was 'mad' with happiness. She had behaved well. She had lost her temper only twice, once with that silly old Mrs. Gayner, the housekeeper whom Julius adored so. Only once had she broken something and then it was only a glass—old it was, but you could always find another like it. She had forgotten engagements scarcely at all and had shown impatience with tiresome visitors very seldom. She could not help it if she showed her feelings clearly. That was her character. After all, she loved people twice as often as she hated them. She had tried in every way to make herself a good wife and she had succeeded.

Was she frightened because he was fifteen years older than she? The husband ought to be older than the wife. When Julius was sixty she would be forty-five, an old, old woman.

Was she frightened because he had been married before? Oh, these were ancient questions! She had asked them before and found happy answers to all of them. Wasn't Julius the kindest, noblest, most loving, most tender, most unselfish of men? Didn't she look up to him and admire him dreadfully, and didn't she, in spite of that admiration, find him a friend and a companion? Was he ever a bore? No. Never, never! Never a bore. But ...

Yes, now they were coming down the hill, and that lovely wood, sparkling like a dark fire, must be the Well. Julius had told her about the Well. It was the most famous wood in all Glebeshire for primroses. They left the wood and climbed the hill, and now the salt wind from the sea really met them, fresh and taut and vigorous in spite of the blazing heat of the summer afternoon. Into endless distance now stretched the Moor. You could hear the telegraph wires singing.

No. Julius was never a bore, but ...

She heard him move, push out his great chest as though he would drink in the sea air, put his hand to his hair. His blue eyes were wide open. He smiled.

She knew why she was frightened.

On the left of them now was the square, sturdy, solitary little church, Sizyn Church, that contained the wonderful window, the 'Hawthorn Window' that people came from miles to see. Julius had told her that when he was a child at Garth in Roselands it was almost the first thing that his mother had taken him to see. He described the window to her: the masses of hawthorn blossom, the two priests, the patient donkey with the silver bells, the inscription to the dead Prior of the Franciscans. (She had said 'Abbot' and Julius had corrected her. The Franciscans had Priors.)

This window had been placed in the church in the early years of Elizabeth. There had been a Trenchard in Garth House even then. That Tudor house had been burned down in the eighteenth century. She was thinking of all these things, trying to arrange them in her disorderly mind, when, with a consciousness of that guilt for something neglected that was always with her, she remembered how she had promised Julius to tell him when they were passing Sizyn Church.

It was already out of sight, but he wouldn't know that, so she tugged at his sleeve.

'The Church, Julius! The Hawthorn Church! We're just passing it! You told me to tell you.'

He turned upon her his sightless blue eyes.

'We have passed it, darling! We are going downhill again. Did you see it, take a good look at it?'

She was beginning to be aware, ever more and more, of her uncertainty as to the sharpness of his senses. His sense of touch, his sense of smell, his sense of hearing. These were all so far stronger than her own that always when she was with him she felt as though her hands were muffled, her nose blocked, her ears dimmed. Should he ever use those senses against her ...

As it was now he put out his big strong hand and caught her little one. She thought that she had fallen in love with him partly because of his hands. Large though they were, they were most beautifully shaped. They were a man's hands. You could feel the bones, strong and supple beneath the smooth fine skin. His nails were especially beautiful. From the very beginning she had thought it remarkable that a blind man should have such beautiful nails, so perfect in colour and shape and yet a man's nails, beautiful by nature and not by artifice.

And now as his hand held hers and his wide, staring blue eyes gazed at her, through her, beyond her, as he drew her towards him, closer and closer until her cheek and ear rested against his side and she heard his heart claiming her with its steady possessive beat, she murmured, 'Oliphant!'

Oliphant was Julius' valet, that small, active, devoted, aloof man who, as yet, knew so much more about Julius than she did. He was seated, very straight, beside Curtis the chauffeur.

Julius laughed.

'Oliphant is part of myself—like my waistcoat buttons.' He bent down and kissed her warm sun-drenched cheek.

'Did you see the Church? Do you remember what I told you—about the window and everything?'

'Of course I remember.'

His strong hand moved about her body. Because his blindness strengthened incredibly his sense of touch she felt an especial significance when he touched her. His hand now pressed her breast through her coat, and that pressure was so strong, so certain, that she was divided, as all women of character are when a man possesses them, between joyous resignation and irritated rebellion.

They were going down the hill and very soon they would be in Garth. She would not ride into their own village for all the villagers to see her for the first time, lying publicly in his embrace.

'Garth in Roselands! Garth in Roselands!' he was murmuring into her ear. 'Isn't it the loveliest of names? Haven't I repeated it to myself over and over again all these years I've been away.'

She gave an impatient push and separated herself from him.

'I can't be driven into Garth for the first time in my life lying in your arms. I'm sure people are watching from every window!'

He laughed. He was so happy, and she adored him to be happy. So, at this moment, as they rode down the hill and then passed the alms-houses into Garth, she adored him because he was happy. She was to remember this at a later time. Nevertheless he held her hand tightly.

'It is too fine an afternoon for them to be bothering. All the same the Rectory drawing-room windows look on to the village green, so there may be ...' He stared through the window as though he could see. 'When I was a boy at Catsholt there used to be Trenchards at the House. There were Trenchards there for centuries. It seems a shame that now it should be us. But we never knew the Trenchards. He was a fine man—quite famous in his day—wrote books about the English Poets. But she was a bit of a Tartar, I believe, and had some sort of row with my father.... Ah, now, now! Soon we will be turning up the drive! In a minute we will be there! Hold my hand tight. I am so excited that I can scarcely breathe!'

Before the car turned from the green towards the drive beyond the little street it was held for a moment by a big dray. While it was so held the ladies in the Rectory drawing-room had a fine free look and made the very most of it.

There were four of them: Miss Vergil, Mrs. Lamplough, Miss Phyllis Lock, and Mrs. Ironing. They were gathered there for the Ladies' Sewing Meeting. Now so very often, in English novels and plays, have the Sewing Meetings of English country towns and villages been made a mock, a sport, a derision, that there shall be no derision here. To tell the truth, on this especial afternoon very little sewing had been done, and that was partly because Mrs. Brennan, the Rector's wife, was absent in London. It was also because, for the last hour, these ladies had been expecting the arrival of Mr. Julius Cromwell and his wife, and had been eagerly on the look-out for it. It was an event of great, even supreme importance in the village of Garth in Roselands, and lest that should seem an old-fashioned sentence that might have come straight from the pages of one of Mrs. Gaskell's delightful fragrant novels, let it be said at once that not telegraphs, telephones, wireless telegraphy, motor-cars, or aeroplanes have made the very slightest difference to the excited interest that ladies of an English village feel concerning their neighbours.

Although Mr. and Mrs. Cromwell arrived in a motor-car it was exactly, in so far as excitement obtained, as though they had arrived a hundred and fifty years earlier in a barouche, except that they were, physically, less visible.

Of the four ladies Miss Vergil was the eldest and most cynical, Miss Phyllis Lock the youngest and gayest. Miss Vergil had short cropped hair, wore a hat like a gamekeeper's, a short brown jacket, a waistcoat with brass buttons, and a short rough skirt. Her legs were strong and shapeless, and in her hat there was fastened a bright green and crimson fly such as fisherman use.

Miss Phyllis Lock was auburn-haired, inclining to the plump, and dressed in so flimsy a dress that even in these days it was not quite respectable. But then Miss Lock did not care at all about being respectable. She lived with her old mother at the end of the village, drove her own car, went frequently into Polchester for parties, and was supposed to 'send men mad.' She appeared to be of a type only too frequent both in novels and real life. She was not, however, quite what she appeared.

Mrs. Lamplough looked an old dear. She was short and plump, very like Queen Victoria in appearance, and wore bonnets and shawls. She had a soft, purring voice and was always leading people into corners for confidences.

Mrs. Ironing was the stupid member of the party. She might be said to be passing through life without understanding anything about it at all. She was a widow with a comfortable income which was managed for her by her brother, Fred Ironing, who lived on her most cheerfully and was considered by everyone to be a good, jolly fellow, and remarkably patient. He said that he had known his sister so long that he had never expected her to be anything but what she was, and that she was a lot deeper than people gave her credit for. Gladys Ironing was a tall, thin woman with a face like an enquiring sheep's.

These ladies were good ladies and only one of the four had any malice in her. They were in the position of many English ladies during this period of history between 1920 and 1940. Because investments were continually going down and because they were unfit (owing to their excellent English education) for any useful job in the world, they collected in little groups in London or provincial towns or villages and made life as interesting as possible by taking in one another's social washing.

It is true that, in this present instance, both Mrs. Lamplough and Mrs. Ironing had ample means, but Mrs. Lamplough was not imaginatively generous and Mrs. Ironing was not imaginatively clever, so they stayed where they were and found it good. Miss Vergil had barely enough to pay her bills but paid them all the same—she had an English gentleman's sense of honour. Miss Lock and her mother were moderately comfortable. These ladies, then, formed a kind of guard of honour to Mrs. Brennan, a superb woman whom they were lucky to find in a simple little village like Garth. Having found her they treated her like a queen, as indeed she deserved to be treated.

And now the four ladies looked out of the broad windows of the Rectory, saw the Cromwell car held for a moment by the dray, saw within the car the dark curly hair of Mrs. Cromwell, the light-golden head of Mr. Cromwell, the fine chauffeur and the neat little man beside him.

'You'd never think he was blind!' Phyllis Lock said as they turned away from the window.

Celia Cromwell saw the house in front of her like a ship sailing through golden mist. Everything was light—even the thick, dark rhododendrons were penetrated with light, the lawn shone like glass and the giant oak at the end of it was illuminated, every leaf a thin gold plate and the great trunk dark with splendour. Excitement always rose in her very swiftly. She passed from mood to mood like a child. Now, as she stepped from the car, she thought like a child: 'Oh, I will be good! I will make them all love me! I'll never lose my temper, I'll be wise and quiet and so very happy!'

She moved forward to help Julius, but Oliphant, as always, was in front of her. Julius stood for a moment breathing in the air, which was scented with hay, carnations, roses, and a salt tang of the sea. His hand groped for hers. She caught it. He bent down and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

'Welcome home, my darling,' he said, and they went into the house together.

The hall was long and, even on this summer's day, dark. There was a large oak chest opposite the door and beside it a staircase with a lovely black twisted balustrade. Mrs. Gayner, the housekeeper, stood there. She was a little, plump woman some sixty years of age, incredibly neat, her grey hair sleek and charming, a gold brooch fastened on to her black dress. She had been with Julius for ten years.

'How are you, Mrs. Gayner?' Celia said. Mrs. Gayner had come ahead of them to see that everything was right, to engage the maids.

'Very well, thank you, ma'am.'

'That's good. Isn't it a lovely day?'

'It is indeed, ma'am. I hope you had a pleasant journey.'

'Lovely! What good luck that I should see everything for the first time in such lovely weather!'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'Is everything all right?'

'Quite all right, ma'am. I've got two maids and the cook is from Polchester. She's a nice woman and a good cook—at least, she promises to be.'

'That's grand.'

But she noticed that Mrs. Gayner's eyes looked beyond her towards her husband. That had irritated her before. It irritated her now. It was natural that Mrs. Gayner, Curtis, Oliphant, who had all been with her husband for a long time, served him, loved him, should consider him always, but was not she someone too?

'Is that Mrs. Gayner?' Julius' voice was full of happiness and joy.

'Yes, sir.'

He stretched out his hand and caught Mrs. Gayner's plump one.

'Everything all right?'

'Oh yes, sir. Very satisfactory indeed.'

He turned to his wife, who was close to him, put his arm around her waist and began slowly to mount the stairs.

'I was only in this house once. I came with my mother one time. I was about ten. Yet I remember it all. Is that oak chest still there? They told me a story that someone was caught in it once and couldn't get out. One of those stories. It's Italian. I told them to buy some of the old things that had belonged to the Trenchards, but for the most part you'll find everything you had at Bramgrove, darling. And of course you can arrange things just as you please. The drawing-room, now. It's here on the left. Everything ought to be just as it was at Bramgrove. Only of course the room isn't quite the same shape.'

They stood in the drawing-room. It was flooded with sunlight. Celia gave a little cry, for the view from the windows was enchanting. Beyond the old stone wall that bordered the garden, fields ran down the hill to a straggling wood, then slightly up again to a level horizon, and above this was a line of sea, now one stroke of trembling gold. In the fields were old trees, set deep into the soil, and under their cool soft shadow cows were lying. The windows were open and the sea breeze blew, very delicately, the fawn-coloured curtains.

All the Bramgrove things were here: the water-colours that her father had collected—Wilson and Cotman and David Cox, the sofa chairs with their pale primrose chintz, the piano, the oil-painting of Julius as a young soldier just before he went to the war where he was blinded.

She raised herself a little, caught Julius around the neck and kissed him again and again.

'Oh, Julius, we're going to be happy here! I know we are. It's a lovely house! I'll do everything—everything!'

She was crying. He felt the salt on her cheek as he kissed it.

Afterwards they went together to their bedroom. There was nothing that she loved better than this leading him through strange places. She felt now his utter dependence upon her. He leant against her, holding her tightly to him. His blue eyes stared without winking, and he moved, step after step, rather as a walker on a tight-rope does. She felt then that his whole body belonged to her. It was as though she, little though she was, surrounded his great girth and breadth. He was naked in her hands and she could do what she would with him. And all that she wanted to do was to love him!

They stood in the bedroom enwrapped in one another's arms, the sunlight bathing them.

There was a knock on the door. It was Curtis in his chauffeur's uniform, looking so smart, so official, so impersonal that Celia turned away. Curtis was all right, but just then she didn't want to see him. And of course there was already something important that Julius must go and settle. They had not been in the house five minutes. It was always so.

'Come down as soon as you've washed, darling, and we'll have tea in the garden. Under the oak.'

He put his hand through Curtis' arm and they went away.

She had told him that she wanted their bedroom to be exactly as it was at Bramgrove. Yes. Perfect. The twin beds, the long mirror, his dressing-room to the left, the same glorious view as the drawing-room's (this was better, far, far better than Bramgrove), two pictures by Russell Flint of people bathing, their own bathroom to the right, everything fresh, cool, fragrant.

She looked at herself in the glass. Very small she was, but her figure, for her size, was perfect. She looked like a boy in girl's clothes, perhaps—but no, her colouring, her small breasts, her beautiful arms and hands could never belong to a boy. She raised her arms above her head, breathing with happiness and pleasure. She began to dance about the room, moving most gracefully in the sunlight, and the room reflected her in her pale dress, with her dark hair, her big excited eyes.

'This will do! This will do! The loveliest place I've ever known.'

There was again a knock on the door. The maid came in, a pretty, tall girl with brown hair.

'I've come, ma'am, to unpack.'

'Oh yes—but never mind just now. I'm going down to tea. You can unpack then.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'What's your name?'

'Violet.'

'Violet. That's a nice name. Where do you come from?'

'Oh, I was born in London, ma'am. But five years ago I went to service with Mrs. Ironing—Mrs. Ironing of Cumberleigh, ma'am.'

'Oh yes. And Mrs. Gayner stole you from her?'

'Oh no, ma'am. There were reasons—I had left——'

'I see. I'm sure we will be friends.'

Celia smiled and Violet smiled too. They were friends already.

Violet departed.

Celia looked out of the window and saw tea being laid under the oak tree.

When she was ready to go she knelt down beside the bed and prayed. She didn't know whether she believed in prayers, but they gave you a comfortable feeling as though someone very strong put his arm around you and told you you need not fear.

Why had she been afraid in the car? She had forgotten why. How foolish! There was indeed no reason for any fear.

She rushed down the stairs, crying out: 'Julius! Julius!'

The light had mellowed across the village green, sinking deeply into every blade of grass, then soaking the soil like wine. The sky above Mr. Boss the butcher, Mrs. Irwin, post-mistress, Teak, stationer and bookseller, and the Methodist Chapel, was of a blue so magnificently self-satisfied that only one small ragged cloud, urchin and homeless, dared to cock at it a streaming finger.

The four ladies were gathered about the table.

Mrs. Ironing smiled brightly about her. It was one of her irritating traits that she should be so bright as well as so stupid, for this lent weight to the theory, very prevalent during these years in England, that if you had any brains you must be a cynic. To think well of life meant simply that you were Shakespeare's Idiot's Tale, signifying nothing as indeed Mrs. Ironing did.

She said now, with a kind of gurgle because she was biting her thread:

'I expect there are compensations in being blind.'

'Oh yes, Gladys dear,' Miss Vergil in her deep, booming voice replied. 'Just as it is the best luck in the world to have no roof to your mouth, and there's nothing so lucky as being born with one leg shorter than the other!'

'Oh, do you think so?' said Mrs. Ironing happily. 'I should regard it as most unfortunate to have no roof——'

'Hell!' Miss Vergil cried, abruptly rising. 'I can't stand this any longer. To be blind! My God! And to come back to the very place you were in as a boy when you could see.'

'At any rate,' Mrs. Lamplough murmured, purring like a little kettle, 'he's got a young wife—years younger than himself—to lead him about. I hear from someone who lived quite near their place in Wiltshire that she's very undependable.'

'What do you mean, Alice?' Miss Vergil said sharply. 'Undependable?'

'Oh, I don't mean anything except that she's very young for her years and loses her temper in public and then apologizes in public too, which is so very embarrassing. Then she's fifteen years younger than her husband, which is quite a lot. They say she likes young men's company, and that, after all, is quite natural.'

'Certainly,' said Gladys Ironing. 'I like young men much better than old ones, just as Fred likes young girls——'

This was interrupted by hearty laughter from everybody, and Gladys opened her mouth and stared and rubbed her nose and said:

'Well, I really don't know what I've said ...'

Ten minutes later May Vergil and Phyllis Lock were alone in the room. They moved towards the door.

'I meant what I said,' May Vergil said. 'To be blind—in this weather. To be married to someone years younger—Isn't life awful, Phil? Intolerable! Oh no, of course you don't find it so. There are always men around, aren't there? Men! What a lot! However, I won't start that again.' She put her hand for a moment on Phyllis' sleeve, then quickly removed it.

'Did you see her?' Phyllis Lock asked. 'In the car, I mean. Wasn't she lovely? With that dark curly head? Isn't it funny to think he's never seen her? Held her in his arms and all that, but never seen her? He can't really know what she's like, however often he's told. And she's so lovely—with a head like a Greek statue.'

The village green enjoyed a space and time of absolute peace and tranquillity. Two seagulls, after circling the roofs and screaming their eager, scornful contempt, settled down upon the sun-warmed grass, and moved, raising at a moment their blood-stained beaks to heaven, deliberately—arrogant owners of this lovely world.