The New Moon with the Old (34 page)

‘Excuse me, I have to go out,’ he said curtly and brushed past them both. He heard Violet wail: ‘Richard, is something wrong? Do come back!’ But he strode along the drive at a terrific pace, turned away from the village and started to climb the hill. He was annoyed and hoped he’d made it plain.

By the time he reached the hill top, the annoyance was directed towards himself. What a ridiculous display of temper – and without real justification! Why shouldn’t they have taken a trip to London? His irritation was really due to the fact that he had been missing Violet. He would go back and make his peace with them … But not just yet.

He leaned against the signpost and looked down at his home. Under a heavily overcast sky, the dome was coldly grey; the surrounding trees were on their way towards wintry bareness. Whatever the time of year he liked this view. And as a rule, seeing the house from above made him feel pleasantly detached, even a little Godlike. He had no such feelings today and he knew they would not come to him. No view could engender any kind of philosophic peace in a mind as restless as his was now.

He would walk home along the field path, which meant sticking to the road for nearly a mile before turning into the fields behind Dome House. He remembered taking this walk with Merry on a very similar sunless afternoon when a mist – as now – was rising. It was then that she had told him about her ‘programme’ for the second movement of the Beethoven quartet he had been playing when she returned home with flaming hair and false bust. According to her, the music portrayed a lost traveller wandering through dense mist, conscious of surrounding menace. ‘He’s in a land of giants and enchanters, and castles where it would be safer not to shelter. But he never sees anything, just knows the
menace is there, and sometimes he hears satiric laughter – only it’s alluring laughter, too.’ For Richard music never represented anything but itself and to invent stories about it was reprehensible, but she had created her menace-filled mist unforgettably and the memory of it haunted him as he walked across the fields.

Merry was so much in his mind that when he heard someone call his name he at first thought she must have come home. But when the voice called again he recognized it as Violet’s. He called in answer and then left the path and climbed up on a nearby gate. From there he could see her crossing a stubble field. He called again and hurried towards her.

She came running to him. ‘Oh, darling, I saw you from my window and came to meet you. And then the beastly mist came rolling at me, and I had a free fight getting through a hedge. And this stubble, if that’s what it’s called, is hell to walk on …’

‘You should have stuck to the path,’ he told her.

‘I didn’t find any path. Can we sit down and talk?’

‘Well, it’s pretty damp. Let’s talk at home.’

‘No, someone will interrupt there. And I must sit down. I’m exhausted, trying to walk in these wretched low-heeled country shoes I bought – it’s like running down a hill backwards.’ She sat down just where she was, then looked resentfully at the stubble. ‘Oh, I do hate the country.’

He sat down beside her. ‘Then why did you come here?’

‘You know why I came. You must by now, even if you didn’t at first. Oh, darling, are you angry with me?’

He assured her he wasn’t. ‘And I’m sorry I was so rude just now, dashing away like that. I ought to have got your trunk out of the car for you.’

‘Oh, that can wait till tomorrow. But
why
were you so cross?’

‘It was just that … Oh, never mind. If you want to talk, talk.’

She looked at him reproachfully. ‘I do think that’s a putting-off thing to say. Why can’t you be a better guesser?’

‘Because there’s too damn much to guess. Hadn’t you better clear things up once and for all, Violet dear?’

‘All right. I want to, really. I came because I liked you. I did the very first time we met. And I liked you much more when you came to see if your father had provided for me. That was sweet of you, Richard. And you’d have felt very snubbed if I’d told you he never had provided for me. I’ve never needed providing for. I’ve money of my own as well as a nice lump my first husband left me. Your father was … well, just a good friend.’

‘Do you mean there was never anything between you?’

She was silent for several seconds. Then she said loudly:

‘Nothing whatever. You just imagined it.’

He felt sure she was lying. ‘Then why was he staying at your flat that first time I came there?’

‘He wasn’t. Oh, well, he just may have been. Perhaps his own flat was being re-decorated or something. Anyway, I often ask people for weekends – it’s my form of entertaining and, believe me, weekends in London can be much more fun than weekends in the boring country. You must try them. Darling, I’m sorry I told you lies, but if I’d let you know I was well-off how could I have come down here and asked you to take me in? And, oh, Richard, I’m so in love with you. There! Am I forgiven?’

He said: ‘You would be, if you’d stop lying.’

‘But I have, truly! I absolutely swear it.’

Well, why not let himself believe her, as he longed to? He had been stirred by her declaration. And never had he seen her look so beautiful. Against the dark green of her jacket, her pale skin had an almost snowy purity. Her silky black hair was less tidy than usual and particularly becoming. And her long legs, though stuck straight out in front of her most
ungracefully, were such very nice legs; the fact that she had laddered both her superfine stockings – presumably when fighting the hedge – somehow added a touch of appeal.

He moved closer to her and put a comforting arm round her shoulders. Immediately, she executed an agile swivelling movement, at the same time flinging both her arms round his neck and pulling him downwards, with the net result that she was flat on her back and he was sprawling beside her.

‘Stop it,’ he said, disentangling himself. ‘We’re in full view of a public footpath.’ He struggled to his feet and pulled her to hers.

She looked wistfully towards a ditch. ‘We’d be out of sight down there.’

‘We’d also be in a couple of feet of water. Anyway, when and if we do go to bed together, it’s going to be in a bed.’

‘Well, I’ve nothing against beds except that they’re so often not around when needed. Let’s make plans. Sit down again – just for a minute.’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘You keep on your feet. The trouble with you is that you’re far too conscious of the pull of gravity.’

She laughed. ‘What a funny name for it.’

Richard laughed too, and began to feel cheerful. He could now have looked Drew in the face and said he liked her. ‘You come on home,’ he told her and steered her towards the path.

In a few minutes they were out of the dense patch of mist and Dome House was visible.

‘Stop clinging to me,’ said Richard. ‘Someone may be looking out of a window.’

‘No, they won’t. Your aunt’s taking a nap, and Jane and the maids won’t be in yet.’ Violet continued to cling. ‘Has Jane told you she wants to fill your house with schoolteachers?’

‘Yes, but who told you?’ he said, astonished.

‘I heard the maids talking. Well, why not let her? Just hand the house over and come to London with me. You can’t
live with a pack of giggling females. They’ll accuse you of assaulting them. And we can have such fun in London.’

He stopped dead, in the lane outside the back garden. ‘Violet, are you seriously suggesting that I come and live with you?’

‘Why not? We might even get married. I’d just have to divorce my second husband but it wouldn’t take long. Let’s go to your music room and talk it all out.’

‘Not now,’ said Richard. ‘You’ve got to let me do some thinking. And I’m sorry if I seem brutal but could you, from now on, leave the initiative to me?’

‘Well, of course I’d adore to – if you’ll promise to take it.’

‘All I promise is that I
won’t
take it if you don’t lay off for a while. Now pull yourself together. Here are the maids coming home. Hello, Burly boy!’

‘Oh, blast Burly boy!’ said Violet. She opened the garden gate, banged it behind her and ran towards the house.

Richard waited for the maids. Surely they were back earlier than usual? He saw that Burly’s ear was bleeding.

‘That black brute at the Swan bit him,’ said Edith. ‘So we downed tools and brought him home.’

‘Always shut up, that dog was, when Burly went there as a paying customer,’ said Cook. ‘Oh, Mr Richard, have you heard from Drew yet – if he thinks it would be all right for you to let the rooms?’

He noted that, though he was ‘Mr Richard’, Drew was still ‘Drew’, and would remain so until he was twenty-one, when the maids would insist on using the prefix.

‘Not yet,’ he told them. ‘But there may be something by the afternoon post. Cheer up, Burly.’

‘He’s a tired old dog,’ said Cook.

‘And we’re tired old women,’ said Edith.

He put his arm through theirs and walked them back to the house.

He found two letters waiting for him: one from Drew and one, a very bulky one, from Merry. He opened Merry’s first, thinking it might contain an enclosure for Lord Crestover, but saw only a wad of closely written pages which he set aside to read later. Drew, in quite a short letter, gave full approval of Jane’s scheme, said he saw no likelihood of needing his own room and would be able to keep Merry with him. ‘Everyone loves her and she has agreed to try a school run by Mrs Severn’s cousin.’ He advised Richard to evict Aunt Winifred. ‘I don’t believe she’s broke – and at worst, it would pay you to send her a few pounds a week out of the rent Miss Willy pays. As for Violet, it would be impertinent to advise you, but as your letter mentions her mink coat and car (how like you not to know about them until told by Jane!) she can hardly be in need of a roof. And the Willy money does seem too good to turn down. I’ll write again when I can. Now I have to escort Miss Whitecliff to the pictures. I hope they won’t prove too much for her; she hasn’t been since talkies came in.’

He had barely finished reading Drew’s letter when Aunt Winifred, in a new sky-blue dress, with the pink roses – now slightly wilted – pinned against her shoulder, came downstairs.

‘Richard,’ she said, importantly. ‘I must speak to you at once and very privately. Not here – it’s far too public.’

She led the way into the drawing-room where they sat on two dust-sheeted chairs.

‘Such a pretty room this used to be when
I
took charge of the house.’ She looked around disapprovingly. ‘Always full of flowers, so beautifully arranged by Clare. Well, now: I’m sure the dear child won’t have told you quite all she told me but I gather you know the main outline of the situation. And I want to impress on you the necessity for the utmost discretion.’

He looked at her blankly. ‘Are you talking of Clare? Do you mean you’ve seen her?’

‘Yesterday. It was my main reason for going to London, though I spent some time on very necessary shopping before I began my inquiries. It was quite easy to find her as Jane Minton told me she was staying at one of the very best hotels. I asked first at the one I like most – where I’ve often been for tea. And there she was and simply delighted to see me. She told me the whole story at once. Poor child, she expected me to be shocked!’

‘And you weren’t?’ said Richard dazedly.

‘Of course not. But some people would be. That’s why I urge complete discretion. Nothing must be known in the village; be careful not to talk in front of the maids. I’ve said nothing to Violet. And I strongly advise you not to tell Jane Minton. She’s a good creature but her standards are essentially middle class. An affair like this needs the aristocratic approach.’

‘Oh, quite,’ said Richard, tickled to hear his aunt dissociate herself from the middle class.

‘A king, whether reigning or not, is always above petty conventions. Perhaps Clare will assist him to regain his throne.’

‘I don’t fancy he wants to,’ said Richard.

‘He may now, on Clare’s account. Perhaps we shall see her a queen – for of course he wishes to marry her. Unfortunately
I was not able to meet him as he’s abroad for a few days. He now reigns over what I believe is called a Business Empire. Clare hopes to present me later.’

She continued to chatter happily, stressing Clare’s affection for her. ‘The dear girl pinned these roses to my coat. A perfect setting for her, that lovely room, but no doubt her own house will be even more delightful. Our tastes, of course, have always been similar.’ And gradually it dawned on him that she was partly identifying herself with Clare. Perhaps her past treatment of Clare, at times amounting to persecution, had been an effort to re-create Clare in her own image and she was now replacing this by re-creating herself in Clare’s image, in order to enjoy a longed-for romance. He was more and more sure she was a little mad but her madness seemed harmless – indeed benign, for it emerged that she had decided to leave Dome House and live in London, to be near to Clare.

‘But can you afford to?’ he asked involuntarily.

‘With economy, at some quiet hotel. I shall let my house.’ No point in reminding her she’d told him it was already let, also that she was practically penniless; he doubted if she now knew the difference between fact and fiction. She might be inventing Clare’s pleasure at seeing her, or had Clare, out of the largesse of her happiness, found some affection to spare for her once-hated old aunt? He thought it possible. Had not Clare said: ‘I couldn’t hate anyone now’?

‘When do you plan to leave us?’ he inquired politely.

‘Almost at once. I came here as soon as I saw your father’s name in the papers, to do all I could to help; at such times, family solidarity counts for so much. But you’re over the first shock now and Clare’s need of me is greater.’

How revelatory they were, those words ‘name in the papers’! For her they had indicated not a reprehensible notoriety but a romantic celebrity, something it would increase her
self-importance
to share in; that was why she had come. And now her ego was feeding on thoughts of sharing far more romantic circumstances – he noted the visionary look in her faded blue eyes. He also noted something else: a faint but indubitable resemblance to Clare. And it occurred to him that there, but for the grace of God, went Clare in her old age, finding in some hazy cloud cuckoo land a refuge from a lifetime of repression. Though it seemed a bit blasphemous to equate the grace of God with Charles Rowley.

Incidentally, he wondered just how long his aunt’s new dream world would last. For would Clare, however kind her present mood, be willing to see much of a half-dotty old woman? Pleased though he was that Aunt Winifred would soon be on her way, he felt a little sorry for her.

Edith, looking worried, opened the drawing-room door. ‘Will you come and see Burly, Mr Richard? We’re wondering if we ought to telephone the Vet.’

Richard rose at once, saying, ‘You go back to the fire, Aunt Winifred.’

‘That dog should be put down, Richard. It’s not pleasant having an ailing old dog around the house.’

How swiftly she had lost his sympathy! Seeing Edith’s outraged expression he whispered to her as they crossed the hall. ‘Never mind. She’s going.’

‘Thank God for a bit of good news,’ said Edith.

Cook was kneeling beside Burly who lay with his heavy golden head flopping over the edge of the basket, every line of his obese body indicating exhaustion. His wide-open old eyes stoically faced his fast-approaching death; they had been capable of that expression since puppyhood.

‘Is his ear still bleeding?’ asked Richard.

‘Not now, but he won’t eat,’ said Cook.

Richard knelt, studied the selection of food which had already been offered, then festooned Burly’s greying muzzle
with a thin strip of boiled ham. In an effort to dislodge this, Burly got a bit inside his mouth and failed to disguise interest. After that, he accepted all there was for him and seemed to want more. Cook went happily to the refrigerator and no more was said about the Vet.

‘Still, we won’t take him to the Swan tomorrow,’ said Edith. ‘It upsets his pride. And one of us must stay at home with him. Mr Richard,
was
there a letter from Drew?’

He admitted there had been and that Drew had nothing against letting rooms to Miss Willy. ‘All the same, I can’t decide yet.’ He hurried out of the kitchen. Damn it, even Burly was now rooting for Jane’s scheme. Finding Violet, horizontal in black lace, alone in the hall, he went to his bedroom until supper was ready. It proved to be a sparse meal only nominally liver and bacon, Burly having been given much of the liver.

After supper, Richard said: ‘I have an important piece of work to finish and I shall be most grateful not to be disturbed unless it is absolutely necessary.’

This remark was greeted with such a stunned silence that he guessed he must have sounded pompous. But Jane did eventually manage a kind ‘We quite understand.’

He went to his music room and locked himself in. If Violet arrived he would tell her to go to hell. He was not coming out until he had made up his mind.

But had it not been made up for him by Jane, Cook, Edith, Drew and even old basket-loving Burly? What opposition was there, now Aunt Winifred was going and Violet would surely leave willingly provided he accepted her invitation for London weekends? (He wasn’t going to consider her suggestion that he should
live
in London … Well, he wasn’t going to consider
yet
.) Why shouldn’t he sit back, accept the Willy contingent, live peacefully here in his music room and work, say, five days a week?

He only knew that he loathed the idea of it. Well, that was just too bad as there was no alternative.

He looked around the room, trying to see it as a warm, comfortable bed-sitting-room. It was not only cold now; it was beginning to feel damp. His books would soon be mildewed and his piano would be affected. His eyes travelled from it to his gramophone. The Third Rasoumovsky Quartet was still on the record-player. Should he listen to it now? Certainly not.
He must make up his mind
.

Thinking of the quartet reminded him of Merry and her still unread letter. Well, he would allow himself that. He took it from his pocket and began to read, admiring the pretty, already formed hand which she could write with surprising speed.

He broke off, staggered by her insight, which had revealed something he had never before admitted. At no time on entering the room had he felt a hopeful excitement, an eager readiness to work. He had experienced it in various other rooms: an attic in Germany, a practice room at school, the drawing-room at Dome House where he had first learned to play the piano. But here he had to chum up eagerness, kick himself into working – even when, as so recently, he had felt eagerly ready up to the very moment of opening the door. He looked around at his musical instruments, his library of scores, critical studies, books on composition – could one ask for a better equipped work room? Why, then, was it so hard to work in?