Читать книгу Two Black Sheep - Warwick Deeping - Страница 17

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Elsie had finished her packing, and two red labels were attached to the green fibre trunk, for someone had told her that two labels were safer when travelling abroad. The portable typewriter shared the interior of a suit-case with a small collection of books, some of which were to be used in the education of Miss Sylvia Pym. The suit-case also had its two labels, and on these two red tabs Mary Summerhays had printed her daughter’s name and address: “E. M. Summerhays. Hotel Continental. Paris.”

Elsie stood at the window and looked at the oblong strip of ground that was separated from two other such strips by yellow brick walls stained almost black by the sooty atmosphere. She saw a small lawn surrounded by a gravel path, and two narrow borders full of the sword-shaped leaves of Iris Germanica, and at the end of the garden an old pear tree whose leaves were the colour of wine.

The last day in the old home.

She remembered the picture and its title, the flimsy fool of the family holding up his glass of red wine to the light, the bright eyes of the boy, the tragic and helpless faces of the two women. Men were carrying out furniture, and to-morrow men would be carrying the furniture out of No. 7, Spellwood Terrace. She was going to join Mrs. Pym at Victoria Station; and her mother would be left alone in a Pulteney Street bed-sitting-room.

Elsie realized that this strip of garden had been intimately hers, and as familiar as a picture at which one ceases to look with any conscious appreciation of its details, but on this October day it became for her strangely and definitely real. In looking at it for the last time she seemed to see it afresh; the thin grass, the sooty soil, the leaves of the tree like wine, both amber and red. A robin was singing, and its little scattering of song sounded chilly and plaintive. All this was ceasing. She was going away with Mrs. Pym, and Mrs. Pym puzzled her not a little.

Adventure? But was it not right that she should feel sad, and that her emotions should be as vividly coloured as the leaves of the pear tree? Hers was to be a bright, new world, Italy and sunlight, while over the London window of her mother’s world curtains seemed to be closing. The Fulham Road all dingy and grey, November fog, drizzle, slimy pavements, a little walk to hire a twopenny novel from a circulating library, boiled eggs, coal carefully extracted from a lodging-house scuttle. She was conscious of a thickness in her throat. Her mother was a pathetic figure, a little faded shape moving in a kind of shabby twilight. She felt suddenly very tender towards this other woman.

For a moment her mood was one of self-accusation. Ought she to go? Surely youth could be very selfish! And then she heard her mother’s voice calling to her from below.

“Elsie. Tea.”

She closed the bedroom door and went downstairs. Her mother was seated at the table, and in the act of pouring out tea, and to Elsie’s eyes her mother’s figure had a strangeness, just as the familiar garden had seemed strange. A sudden thought assailed her. “Supposing anything should happen while I am away? Supposing—?” She sat down opposite her mother. Her mood was Cassandra’s.

Six slices of bread and butter on a dish, the same old white dish with a blue border. A wedge of very yellow cake—grocer’s cake. Her mother passed her her cup, and as she put out a hand to take it she was conscious of an inward tremor. The tremor spread to her fingers, and the teaspoon gave out a little metallic shiver in the saucer.

“Sorry.”

But her hand was so unsteady that in setting the cup down she slopped some of the tea into the saucer. She felt ashamed of showing her emotion, and instantly she was questioning this shame. Was it that she felt things more acutely than other people, or was she less modern in her cult of the art of self-repression? She could not make a joke of life, or persuade herself to treat it as musical comedy.

Mrs. Mary’s grey eyes had rested for a moment on the palsied cup. Yes, Elsie took life so seriously, and Mrs. Mary was reminded of the occasion when Elsie had gone away for the first time to a boarding-school with a tremulous lip and tragic eyes.

She said: “I’m glad you are taking the typewriter. I should keep on working at your stories.”

Elsie passed her the bread and butter.

“I wish I wasn’t going.”

“But it’s a great opportunity. I’m glad you are going.”

She spoke with calmness, and her hand was much steadier than her daughter’s, for she knew things that Elsie did not know, how age seems to muffle the sounds of life, and how the impact of emotion becomes less poignant. Some old people grow extraordinarily callous. You do not burn your fingers at the fire. A kind of gentle apathy descends, and you call it resignation.

Elsie was eating bread and butter as though she had a train to catch.

“It seems so unfair.”

“What, my dear?”

“That I should be going to all these lovely places. I wouldn’t mind so much if you—”

Mrs. Summerhays spoke gently.

“There is something you don’t realize. I’m glad for you to go. I’d much rather you went than I did. I don’t think that I should want to go. I’m too old to be moved, dear. Some of us don’t transplant well after sixty. You mustn’t worry about me.”

Elsie’s glance was poignant.

“But Pulteney Street!”

She saw her mother smile, and she wondered at it. Her mother had always been an adept at keeping up appearances.

“I shall fit quite well into Pulteney Street. Don’t think yourself into me. I’ll tell you a secret. There comes a time when one likes to sit in a chair and look out of a window. One doesn’t ask for adventure. One—potters. One’s content with quite silly little things.”

Elsie cut the cake.

“Mumsie, you’re pretending.”

“I’m not. Pulteney Street is just far enough for me, but it’s not far enough for you. Or—it shouldn’t be. As for this little old house, well—”

She became silent, and if her silence was both enigmatic and eloquent, it had a tranquil, autumn stealth.

“You’ll understand—some day. Or perhaps you won’t. It will all depend—Yes, I think I’ll have some cake. Though—that’s another point—one hasn’t the same appetite for cake.”

She ended on a note of gaiety.

“You’ll be back in the spring. We shall see the tulips out in the park. One ought to be able to enjoy looking at things without being too sentimental about them.”

Elsie stared at her teacup.

“I think I must be sentimental. It’s quite out of fashion, too. I don’t bustle and stride. I don’t play any games, or only a little very bad tennis. Yes, probably—being on my own will do me good.”

Mrs. Summerhays cut her cake into neat little cubes.

“Stand up to the Pym woman. Don’t be too generous with yourself. One has to learn to say no.”

“But, mumsie, you’ve always—”

“Yes, perhaps, but your father never quite grew up. He was made that way. Life isn’t so simple as sewing on buttons, and some people’s buttons never stay put.”