Knight Without Armour (36 page)

The convoy set off at eleven o’clock through lanes full of
wildflowers and spattered with sunshine from a dappled sky. The harbour,
reaching out into the long narrow inlet, gleamed like a sword-blade; the
hills were purple-grey and a little hazy in the distance. He passed some
merely polite remark about the weather, and the girl answered him in the same
key. But the woman, seizing the opportunity, began to talk. She talked in a
strong, copious stream, with never-flagging zest and ever-increasing
emphasis. Wasn’t Ireland lovely?—had he visited
Killarney?—had he been on the lake and un to the Gap of Dunloe?
They
had—a most beautiful and romantic excursion, but the flies
had been a nuisance during the picnic-lunch, and the food from the hotel had
been just
awful
. It was a curious thing, but the hotels over this side
seemed to have no idea…etc.,
etc
.

He listened, occasionally venturing some remark. He said, in response to
questioning, that he had never been to America, but had travelled a little in
Europe. That opened further flood-gates. He received a full and detailed
account of the Consett odyssey from the very day it had begun at
Philadelphia. Paris, Interlaken, the Rhine, Münich, Innsbruck, Rome, Algiers,
Seville (for Easter), Biarritz, Lourdes, Chartres, Ostend, the battlefields,
London, Oxford, Cambridge, Stratford-on-Avon, Dublin…how much they had
seen, even if how little! They had loved it all, of course, and Mrs. Consett
added, across the girl, as it were: “Mary is just eighteen, you see,
and it is
such
an impressionable age, I think, and I
do
so want
her to see the world when she is young, because later on, you know, one can
never be sure of getting such chances—in America so many women live
narrow, self- centred lives after they marry—they think they’re
seeing the world if they spend a week in New York. My own brothers and
sisters, for instance, who live in Colorado, have
never
travelled
further than Los Angeles, and even
I
never saw Europe till Mary and I
landed last fail. And now, though I’m
terribly
ashamed to think
of what I’d missed for so long, Vet I’m just glad to now that
Mary’s seeing all these marvellous places at an age when everything
means most—the Coliseum at Rome, for instance, and Westminster Abbey,
and Shakespeare’s
dear
little house, and those
quaint
little jaunting-cars they have at Killarney—have you been on them? We
had a most amusing driver to take us—so amusingly Irish—I quite
intended to make notes of some of his remarks when I got back to the hotel,
but I was just
too
tired after the long drive, and it was
such
a beautiful drive—rather like parts of Virginia…” And so on,
and so on.

They reached the hermitage about noon; it was a collection of ruins on an
island off the shore of a lake—the latter overshadowed by gloomy
mountains and reached by a narrow, twisting road over a high pass. The island
was still a place of pilgrimage, and many of the arched cells in which the
hermits had lived were littered with tawdry votive offerings—beads,
buttons, lead-pencils, pieces of ribbon—a quaint miscellany for the
rains and winds to disintegrate. The tourists made the usual vague inspection
and turned with relief to the more exciting business of finding a place for
lunch. Fothergill still remained with the Consetts; indeed, rather to his
private amusement, he realised that it would have been difficult to be rid of
them in any case. Mrs. Consett had by that time given him the almost complete
history of her family and was engaged on a minute explanation of the way in
which her husband had made money out of steam-laundries. From that, as the
picnic-lunch progressed, she passed on to a sententious discussion of family
life in general and of the upbringing of children in particular. At this
point a sudden commotion amongst the rest of the party gave the girl an
excuse to move away, for which Fothergill did not blame her, though it left
him rather unhappily at the mercy of Mrs. Consett. Soon, however, an
opportunity arose for himself also; the men of the party began to pack up the
hampers and carry them to the cars. He attached himself to their enterprise
for a sufficiently reasonable time, and then strolled off on his own,
deliberately oblivious of the fact that Mrs. Consett was waiting for him to
resume his rôle of listener. He walked towards the lake and across the
causeway to the island—a curious place, of interest to him because,
with its childlike testimonies of faith, it reminded him of things he had
seen in Russia. Was it too fanciful, he wondered, to imagine a spiritual
kinship between the countries? He was thus reflecting when he saw the open
doors of a small modern chapel built amidst a grove of trees; and inside the
building, which was scarcely bigger than the room of a small house, he caught
sight of the girl. She heard his footsteps and turned round, smiling
slightly.

“I didn’t notice this place when we first went round,”
he remarked, approaching.

“Neither did I. It’s really so tiny, isn’t
it?—quite the tiniest I’ve ever seen. And isn’t it terribly
ugly?”

It was—garishly so in a style which again reminded him of Russia.
The comparison was so much on his mind that without any ulterior motive he
added: “I’ve seen the same sort of thing abroad—especially
in Russia. Simple people always love crude colours and too much
ornament.”

She seized on that one vital word. “You know Russia,
then?”

“Fairly well. I used to live there.”

“Did you like it?”

“Very much, in some ways.”

“I wish mother and I could have gone there, but I suppose it
isn’t really safe for tourists yet.”

“I daresay it would be safe enough, but I should think it would
hardly be comfortable.”

“Oh, then it wouldn’t do at all.” She laughed in a way
which Fothergill liked instantly and exceedingly—a deep fresh laugh as
from some spring-like fountain of humour. “Mother hates hotels where
you don’t get a private bathroom next to your bedroom.”

“She can’t be very keen on Roone’s, then.”

“I don’t think she is, but I just love it. I’d hate to
find everything exactly like the Plaza at New York. Besides, I don’t
think it
really
matters if you miss the morning bath once now and
again.”

“No, I don’t think it really does.” And they smiled at
each other, sharing their first confidence.

As they left the chapel he was surprised to see her genuflect; so she was
a Catholic, then. That set him thinking of the profound reasonableness of
Catholics in holding their faith in reverence while at the same time being
free to call one of their churches ugly if it
were
ugly; and that, in
turn, set him thinking of the reasonableness of Father Farington, and of that
long conversation in London before he left…

She was saying: “What
is
your name, by the way?”

“Fothergill.”

“Ours is Consett. I don’t know whether you knew.”

“I did, as a matter of fact. I overheard you asking for letters last
night.”

“Oh, did you? That must have been before you passed us on the
verandah, then? I noticed you particularly because—I daresay
you’ll smile at this—you looked what in America we should call
‘typically English.’”

“‘Typically English,’ eh?” And for the first time
for some years he was thoroughly astonished. To be called
that
, of all
things!

She said: “The quiet way, I suppose, that Englishmen have—a
sort of look of being rather bored by everything, though really they’re
not bored at all. Perhaps I oughtn’t to have said it, though—you
don’t look very complimented.”

He smiled. “’Would
you
be complimented if I were to
describe you as ’typically American?”

She paused a moment and then gave him a look of amused candour.
“That’s rather clever of you, because I wouldn’t. And,
anyhow, in my own case—” She stopped hurriedly, and he said,
holding open the wicket-gate for her to pass from the island on to the
causeway: “Yes, what were you about to say?”

“I was really going to say that I’m not an American at
all.”

“Oh?”

There was rather a long interval .until she went on: “It’s
queer to be telling you all this after knowing you for about five
minutes—I don’t know what mother would think. But, as it happens,
you once lived in Russia, so perhaps that’s an excuse. I’m
Russian.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. I came over with the refugees in 1919. That sounds a bit like
coming over with the Pilgrim Fathers, doesn’t it, but it’s really
not quite so illustrious. There were just a few hundred refugee orphans who
were allowed into America before the government woke up and decided it
didn’t want any more of them. They were all adopted into families in
various parts of the country. I was six when I came over.”

“That makes you how old now?”

“Just eighteen.”

“I don’t suppose you remember much of your life in
Russia.”

“Hardly anything. Sometimes I dream of things which I think might
have something to do with it. I wonder if that’s possible?”

“It might be.”

“Here comes mother to meet us. I think I’d better tell her how
much I’ve told you.”

The confession was made, and Mrs. Consett, after hearing all the
circumstances, bestowed her magnanimous approval. It enabled her to continue
the conversation with Fothergill on rather more intimate lines, and this she
did all the way during the drive back to Roone’s. “So curious
that we should all be learning about one another so quickly, isn’t it?
But there, I always think that one should take all the chances one can of
making friends wherever one goes—I’m sure Mary and I have already
met some
charming
people during our trip—there was a most
delightful
man in the hotel at Naples—a Swiss—only a
commercial traveller, I surmised—but still, who are we to be snobbish?
I’m sure I never try to conceal the fact that my husband made his money
out of other people’s washing. But this Swiss man, as I was saying, was
such a pleasant companion—he went to Pompeii with us to see those
wonderful Roman ruins—and lie was most helpful, too, when we wanted to
buy anything in the shops. I should think he saved us quite a lot of money,
for, as you know, the Italians think every American must be a millionaire,
though, as a matter of fact, we’re not really very well-
off—we’ve been saving up for this trip for quite a time,
haven’t we, Mary?” And so on.

When they all reached Roone’s again it was quite settled that they
should arrange with the waiter to have a larger table, so that they could
take meals together. They dined that night, the three of them, by the side of
the large window, through which the harbour burned with little dark specks on
it that were the row-boats bringing the fishermen ashore by dusk. After the
out- door air and the long drive over the mountains he felt tired, yet in a
way that gave him a certain rich serenity, breaking only into fitful
astonishment that she should be there, that he should have found and spoken
with her after so many years. But it was she herself who astonished him most
of all. The lamplight touched the ivory white of her face with a glow of
amber, and there were five lamps, hung on chains from the ceiling, making
islands of light in the huge dark room. Her eyes were like pools that might
have been in a forest, and the creamy sweep of her neck against that
background reminded him of some old brown Vandyke painting. Contentment
closed over him as he looked at her; Mrs. Consett’s continual talking
echoed in his ears, yet somehow was not heard; all about the room was
chatter, rising to the roof and hovering there, yet to him it was no more
than a murmur—as if, he thought fantastically, some monster choir at an
immense distance were intoning Latin genitive plurals.

So began a week of purest holiday. The Consetts, it appeared, had no
definite plans; they just stayed in one place as long as they liked, and
Roone’s was apparently suiting them, despite the lack of private
bathrooms. The weather, too, held out in a blaze of splendour just beginning
to be autumnal; every morning when Fothergill rose and saw through his window
the grey-green mountains across the harbour he felt a surge of happiness that
reminded him, not of his own childhood, but of some remoter and more
marvellously recollected childhood of the world. Then after breakfast came
plans for the day—delightful arguments in the verandah-lounge, while
Mrs. Roone was packing sandwiches for them, and Roone was tapping the
barometer and prophesying fine weather. It was always Mrs. Consett who seemed
to make the plans, yet always Fothergill who did the real work of
organising—finding the route on road-maps, seeing that food was
sufficient, arranging terms with motor-drivers. Then they would set out under
the long avenue of just fading leaves, swing down the winding hill through
the village, and up the further hill to the mountains. He felt the years
falling away from him as he rose into that zestful air, and when they halted
for picnic- lunch at some lonely vantage-point, with the valleys like clouds
beneath them, he was a child again in his enjoyment. He loved the fire-making
routine—the collecting of sticks on the hillsides, with the girl but
calling distance away from him, and her mother dozing in the car a hundred
feet below; the finding of large stones to build a hearth; the careful
watching till the kettle boiled at last. Once, tempted by a glorious sunset,
they stayed late round a fire they had made at tea-time and talked till the
flames seemed to bring all the darkness suddenly over their heads. As she
stirred the fire to a last blaze before they left it, the girl remarked on
the heat of the big stones, and he said: “If I were going to camp here
for the night I should wrap one of those stones in a piece of blanket and use
it instead of a hot- water bottle. That’s always a good dodge if
you’re sleeping out.”