Loving, Living, Party Going (68 page)

'Then I shan't go,' he said, turning away and going back to the window.

She did not take much notice of this. 'But, darling,' she said, 'you can't just leave them like that when you asked them.'

'I can. I've given old Evelyn the tickets. It's arranged.'

'But you can't, they're your guests. You mustn't be so independent. I won't let you. Think what they'll say.'

'I don't care.'

'Oh, yes, you do, you must care. The whole thing's absurd,' and, forgetting she had just said she was not coming, 'it's absurd,' she said, 'you say we can't go because Richard is in the hotel and travelling on the same train.'

They did not either of them notice the slip she had made.

'How d'you know?' he said, turning round.

'I don't know,' she said, looking at him, 'only he said he would be here and when he says he will be somewhere, I believe him more than when you tell me the same thing.'

'You've seen him?'

'Max, darling, don't be so ridiculous. I haven't set eyes on him since last night. He might be in Timbuctoo for all I care and anyway I don't know, darling. I must say, my dear, you don't seem very upset at my not coming.'

'If you don't come, then I don't.'

'Why must you be like this? I tell you you can't behave like that. You'll never be able to get anyone to go abroad with you again.'

'I don't care.' There was a pause. 'In any case,' he said, 'I wasn't going to go.'

'Then why did you say what you did when you rang me up the last time?'

'Because,' he said, finding it at last, 'because I saw with all this fog I might be with them for hours as the trains weren't running. I had to see them off, you know.' He came up to her smiling.

'No, keep away,' she said, 'I've got to think this out.' He's such an awful liar, she thought, but already everything seemed different. 'No, I don't believe it,' she said and began to hope.

'It's true,' he said and then she knew he was lying and did not care. All she wanted from him was something reasonable like a password which would take her along without humiliation past frontiers and into that smiling country their journey together would open in their hearts as she hoped, the promised land. Not of marriage but of any kind of happiness, not for ever but while it lasted. She knew better than to want too much of any situation and marriage she had never wanted, though often imagined, after the first three weeks. It would have been better with almost anyone else but there it was, he fascinated her and so it was for her to fascinate him.

'Well then, supposing I did,' she said.

'You really are going to come?'

'I might.'

'That's good.'

'Is that all you are going to say about it?'

'It's marvellous,' he said. They kissed again. Some little time later it was he who drew away.

'Where's Embassy Richard going?'

She lay back irritated that he had left her.

'How should I know?'

'I suppose that party business was too much for him. London's getting too hot to hold him,' he said.

'You know if I'm really going to go away with you you've got to be nice to me,' she said.

'What d'you mean?'

'No tricks with the other girls, mind, or I'll be off home again.'

'If you do,' he said, 'I'll go back with you.'

'I shan't let you.'

'I know more than to let you go off alone.'

'That's being too silly for words,' she said. 'Why did you stop kissing me like that? And anyway, how many of those others have you kissed up here this afternoon?'

'Now it's you are being ridiculous.'

'Not as I know you, my dear. Oh, well, go on then and kiss them. Who cares?'

'I don't kiss them.'

'I suppose I'm being tiresome again, darling, am I? Never mind. Let's have a rest. No, don't kiss me again, please not, give my complexion a rest. Sit down here. I'll put my head on your shoulder and have a sleep.' She yawned and settled herself down, shifted round a little, shut her eyes, breathed deeply twice and went off at once. She always could whenever she wanted.

As he sat there he realized he did not know if she was going to come or not. And if she did come out he did not know if she would stay or when she would get it into her head to start home which she might at any time. He realized without putting it into words he did not even know if he was glad she was going to come or sorry she was going to stay at home, he only knew that now she was here he would probably have to be with her wherever she made up her mind to be.

She lay on his shoulder in this ugly room, folded up with almost imperceptible breathing like seagulls settled on the water cock over
gentle waves. Looking at her head and body, richer far than her rare fur coat, holding as he did to these skins which enfolded what ruled him, her arms and shoulders, everything, looking down on her face which ever since he had first seen it had been his library, his gallery, his palace, and his wooded fields he began at last to feel content and almost that he owned her.

Lying in his arms, her long eyelashes down along her cheeks, her hair tumbled and waved, her hands drifted to rest like white doves drowned on peat water, he marvelled again he should ever dream of leaving her who seemed to him then his reason for living as he made himself breathe with her breathing as he always did when she was in his arms to try and be more with her.

It was so luxurious he nodded, perhaps it was also what she had put on her hair, very likely it may have been her sleep reaching out over him, but anyway he felt so right he slipped into it too and dropped off on those outspread wings into her sleep with his, like two soft evenings meeting.

They slept and then a huge wild roar broke from the crowd outside. They were beginning to adjust that board indicating times of trains which had stood all of two hours behind where it had reached when first the fog came down. This woke him so that he started and this in turn woke her.

Like someone who is lost she did not know where she had been and in the same way neither of them knew how long they had been asleep so that when, after stretching and asking him where she might be, she found she was in this hotel she thought they had slept much longer than they had. She told him they must get down to join the others. She laughed. 'They would never believe if we told them we had been asleep wrapped up in our clothes like babes in the wood,' she said.

He wondered what it would be like to have Julia here in his arms to sleep on his shoulder for if he had only slept five minutes it was as though he had travelled miles. His sleep had made him forget the urgency of what Amabel had been.

'Yes,' he said, 'we've got to go.'

'What's the hurry?' she said, noticing at once how he had changed, 'they've waited all this time they can wait a bit longer.'

But now he had become silent again and paid no attention to her. He smoothed down his clothes and straightened his tie while she lay
back watching him. When he was done he came up to her politely smiling, took hold of her wrists and pulled her up. He did not kiss her, even when her coat fell open.

'There are times I hate you,' she said.

Alex had been left alone again with Miss Crevy when Amabel had changed into her fur coat to lie in wait for Max to take him off upstairs. If all this delay had tried the crowd beneath he now found it intolerable and he suspected she was doing no more than bide her time until Max should come back to take a look at her again. He found that when Max was not there to look she lost interest and would hardly bother to answer him when he complained of how he felt. And when people paid no attention to his feelings this made him talk of these the more, so much so it was like a man whose hand trembles trying to pour red wine into a jug, he misses it and that wine falling on the table, shows red no more but is like water.

Pouring himself out as he did then, and faster because he was missing and more wildly he was so upset her jug was dry he got to such a pitch he stopped, humiliated, and wondered if she had even noticed, if he had even splashed some in. She gave no sign so that when Claire and Evelyn came back he began at once on them but this time he went further, he emptied all he had at once, and then more than he really had in mind. He tried to make Claire agree to give up the idea of going at any rate for today and, aiming better this time, went for her through her aunt.

'I must say, darling,' he said, 'I don't see very well how you can leave her even if she is much better as you say.'

'I'm not the only one to say so,' she explained, 'Evelyn, you thought her ever so much better, didn't you, darling?'

'Really she's almost all right to look after herself. As a matter of fact' Evelyn said, and here she knew she was lying, 'you said didn't you, darling, that you thought it silly of thinking to stay behind for her.' Now Miss Henderson had never said this. It was true she had nearly said it. It was true she very much wanted to go today and that she was afraid if Claire had to stay that she would make her stay with her to have company when she was able to travel. You could make Robert Hignam do some things, he would carry messages, but they knew he would never stay behind because his wife had to. But Evelyn had never actually said it, at least she did not
think she had because she had been too conscientious, too genuinely sorry for Miss Fellowes. Now Claire held the cup out for her to drink it was too much and she said 'Yes, darling.'

'Well, you know best,' he said, 'though I must say this, I'd think twice myself of leaving her to the tender mercies of those two old ghouls. And anyway, her companion or her nurse, or whatever she is, has fits, hasn't she?'

'My dear, what on earth has that to do with it?'

'Nothing I know. I remember calling on her once, I can't imagine why, and she practically had one on the doormat in front of me. I was just drawing a deep breath to scream for help when your aunt came out and whisked her away.'

'How awkward for you,' Miss Crevy said.

'Yes, wasn't it? But you see what I feel about all this is that it's too insane to stay here and the only thing to do is to go back home, unpack all over again and forget until to-morrow morning that we ever thought of going abroad to-day.'

'But, good heavens!' Evelyna said, 'what about the tickets?'

'Well, if Max wants us to come he can send us some more. We might just as well face it,' he said, 'we shall never see either of them again this evening, they're making whatever it is up upstairs and it will take hours. It's hopeless now, I know it is. And then half the suburbs are stranded down below. As things are now and with the government we have to-day, don't laugh, it's a serious thing, they are bound to evacuate them before they run our boat train.'

'Alex,' said Evelyn, 'you're being absurd.'

'But are you comfortable here?' he said, 'have you ever in your life known such a frightful afternoon? We ought to be at Calais by now you know. And by the way, Where's Julia?'

'She's upstairs with Max, isn't she?' said Miss Crevy.

'No,' she said, 'Amabel's with him.'

'Well, couldn't they both be there?'

'Not possibly,' he said.

'Well, all I know is Am went in there,' she said, pointing to that bedroom door, 'and I know she's still there.'

'She went in to change into her fur coat and then they both went up. Evelyn and I saw them,' said Claire. 'I don't know where Julia can have got to.'

'I don't care where anyone is,' Alex said, 'what I want is to go home.'

'Then why don't you go?' Miss Crevy said.

'I can't, can I? Here are all you girls with no one to look after you, Robert is always in the bar; I can't possibly go,' he said, and smiled, amused. 'What would you do without me?'

'Really, Alex,' Claire said, 'you must be more careful. Why are you in such a state? And that's no reason for you to be rude.'

'I'm sorry if I was, but don't you see there's no point in just one of us having enough and going off, we want to make a gesture and all go home and enjoy ourselves for a bit after the frightful time we've had.'

Miss Crevy said: 'You mean no one would miss you if you went alone.'

'If you like, if you like,' said he. 'No, what I want is that we should make a demonstration.'

'And what's the use of that?' Miss Henderson said, and turning out an enormous handbag she began counting over their tickets and reservations.

'You've got the tickets?' he said. 'Why didn't you tell me? Why then the whole thing's simple, all we've got to do is to take them with us wherever we go to have a party, because we must have one to make up for all this, and make them come to us instead of waiting endlessly for them.'

'I can't do it,' said Claire. 'I couldn't go away and leave my poor Auntie May.'

'Really, Claire, that's fabulous,' he said. ''First you want to leave her behind when she's got no one but you and a maid who has fits, and then when it's a question of our all dropping her home you say you couldn't leave her.'

'Alex, you're being impossible, darling.'

'No, but why not do as I say and we'll all take her back.'

'She's too ill to be moved,' Miss Henderson said.

'Well, then leave her here then as you said at first. I take back what I said about those two old ghouls though they do sit like vultures round the dying—'

'Alex!'

'All right, I'm sorry—'

'No, Alex, it's not enough.'

'All right—'

'Not enough to just say you're sorry every time.'

'Well then,' he said, raising his voice. 'What do you want to do?'

'Where is Robert?' said Claire.

'What we want is,' said Miss Crevy, 'is for you to leave us alone.'

'Even so you can't want to stay here.'

'I don't know why not.'

'Oh come on,' he said to Claire, 'it's a bad business all round, but don't let's suffer it in silence or in this sort of discomfort.'

'I'm sorry, Alex, but I can't do anything.'

'Evelyn,' he said, about to appeal to Miss Henderson when Julia came in looking rather mad.

'My dears,' she said panting, 'they've broken in below, isn't it too awful?'

Alex laughed. 'It would be too late,' he said. Everyone else asked questions together.