The Well of Loneliness (20 page)

Anna hesitated a moment, then she nodded: ‘I suppose so—that is if you really wish to.’

The drive only took about twenty minutes, for now Stephen was so nervous that she positively flew. She who had been puffed up with elation and self-satisfaction was crumbling completely—in spite of her careful new necktie she was crumbling at the mere thought of Angela Crossby. Arrived at The Grange she felt over life-size; her hands seemed enormous, all out of proportion, and she thought that the butler stared at her hands.

‘Miss Gordon?’ he inquired.

‘Yes,’ she mumbled, ‘Miss Gordon.’ Then he coughed as he did on the telephone, and quite suddenly Stephen felt foolish.

She was shown into a small oak-panelled parlour whose long, open casements looked on to the herb-garden. A fire of apple-wood burnt on the hearth, in spite of the act that the weather was warm, for Angela was always inclined to feel chilly—the result, so she said, of the English climate. The fire gave off rather a sweet, pungent odour—the odour of slightly damp logs and dry ashes. By way of a really propitious beginning, Tony barked until he nearly burst his stitches, so that Angela, who was lying on the lounge, had perforce to get up in order to soothe him. An extremely round bullfinch in an ornate brass cage was piping a tune with his wings half extended. The tune sounded something like ‘Pop goes the weasel.’ At all events it was an impudent tune, and Stephen felt that she hated that bullfinch. It took all of five minutes to calm down Tony, during which Stephen stood apologetic but tongue-tied. She hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry at this very ridiculous anti-climax.

Then Angela decided the matter by laughing: ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Gordon, he’s feeling peevish. It’s quite natural, poor lamb, he had a bad night, he just hates being all sewn up like a bolster.’

Stephen went over and offered him her hand, which Tony now licked, so that trouble was ended; but in getting up Angela had torn her dress, and this seemed to distress her—she kept fingering the tear. ‘Can I help?’ inquired Stephen, hoping she’d say no—which she did, quite firmly, after one look at Stephen.

At last Angela settled down again on the lounge. ‘Come and sit over here,’ she suggested, smiling. Then Stephen sat down on the edge of a chair as though she were sitting in the Prickly Cradle.

She forgot to inquire about Angela’s dog-bite, though the bandaged hand was placed on a cushion; and she also forgot to adjust her new necktie, which in her emotion had slipped slightly crooked. A thousand times in the last few days had she carefully rehearsed this scene of their meeting, making up long and elaborate speeches; assuming, in her mind, many dignified poses; and yet there she sat on the edge of a chair as though it were the Prickly Cradle.

And now Angela was speaking in her soft, Southern drawl: ‘So you’ve found your way here at last,’ she was saying. And then, after a pause: ‘I’m so glad, Miss Gordon, do you know that your coming has given me real pleasure?’

Stephen said: ‘Yes—oh, yes—’ Then fell silent again, apparently intent on the carpet.

‘Have I dropped my cigarette ash or something?’ inquired her hostess, whose mouth twitched a little.

‘I don’t think so,’ murmured Stephen, pretending to look, then glancing up sideways at the impudent bullfinch.

The bullfinch was now being sentimental; he piped very low and with great expression. ‘0, Tannenbaum, 0, Tannenbaum, wie grün sind Deine Natter,’ he piped, hopping rather heavily from perch to perch, with one beady black orb fixed on Stephen.

Then Angela said: ‘It’s a curious thing, but I feel as though I’ve known you for ages. I don’t want to behave as though we were strangers—do you think that’s very American of me? Ought I to be formal and stand-offish and British? I will if you say so, but I don’t feel British.’ And her voice, although quite steady and grave, was somehow distinctly suggestive of laughter.

Stephen lifted troubled eyes to her face: ‘I want very much to be your friend if you’ll have me,’ she said; and then she flushed deeply.

Angela held out her undamaged hand which Stephen took, but in great trepidation. Barely had it lain in her own for a moment, when she clumsily gave it back to its owner. Then Angela looked at her hand.

Stephen thought: ‘Have I done something rude or awkward?’ And her heart thumped thickly against her side. She wanted to retrieve the lost hand and stroke it, but unfortunately it was now stroking Tony. She sighed, and Angela, hearing that sigh, glanced up, as though in inquiry.

The butler arrived, bringing in the tea.

Sugar?’ asked Angela.

‘No, thanks,’ said Stephen; then she suddenly changed her mind three lumps, please,’ she had always detested tea without sugar.

The tea was too hot; it burnt her mouth badly. She grew scarlet and her eyes began to water. To cover her confusion she swallowed more tea, while Angela looked tactfully out of the window. But when she considered it safe to turn round, her expression, although still faintly amused, had something about it that was tender.

And now she exerted all her subtlety and skill to make this queer guest of hers talk more freely, and Angela’s subtlety was no mean thing, neither was her skill if she chose to exert it. Very gradually the girl became more at her ease; it was uphill work but Angela triumphed, so that in the end Stephen talked about Morton, and a very little about herself also. And somehow, although Stephen appeared to be talking, she found that she was learning many things about her hostess; for instance, she learnt that Angela was lonely and very badly in need of her friendship. Most of Angela’s troubles seemed to centre round Ralph, who was not always kind and seldom agreeable. Remembering Ralph she could well believe this, and she said:

‘I don’t think your husband liked me.’

Angela sighed: Very probably not. Ralph never likes the people I do; he objects to my friends on principle, I think.’

Then Angela talked more openly of Ralph. Just now he was staying away with his mother, but next week he would be returning to The Grange, and then he was certain to be disagreeable: ‘Whenever he’s been with his mother he’s that way—she puts him against me, I never know why—unless, of course, it’s because I’m not English. I’m the stranger within the gates, it may be that.’ And when Stephen protested, ‘Oh, yes indeed, I’m quite often made to feel like a stranger. Take the people round here, do you think they like me?’

And Stephen, who had not yet learnt to dissemble, stared hard at her shoes, in embarrassed silence.

Just outside the door a dock boomed seven. Stephen started; she had been there nearly three hours. ‘I must go,’ she said, getting abruptly to her feet, ‘you look tired, I’ve been making a visitation.’

Her hostess made no effort to retain her: ‘Well,’ she smiled, ‘come again, please come very often—that is if you won’t find it dull, Miss Gordon; we’re terribly quiet here at The Grange.’

3

Stephen drove home slowly, for now that it was over she felt like a machine that had suddenly run down. Her nerves were relaxed, she was thoroughly tired, yet she rather enjoyed this unusual sensation. The hot June evening was heavy with thunder. From somewhere in the distance came the bleating of sheep, and the melancholy sound seemed to blend and mingle with her mood, which was now very gently depressed. A gentle but persistent sense of depression enveloped her whole being like a soft, grey cloak; and she did not wish to shake off this cloak, but rather to fold it more closely around her.

At Morton she stopped the car by the lakes and sat staring through the trees at the glint of water. For a long while she sat there without knowing why, unless it was that she wished to remember. But she found that she could not even be certain of the kind of dress that Angela had worn—it had been of some soft stuff, that much she remembered, so soft that it had easily torn, for the rest her memories of it were vague—though she very much wanted to remember that dress.

A faint rumble of thunder came out of the west, where the clouds were banking up ominously purple. Some uncertain and rather hysterical swallows flew high and then low at the sound of the thunder. Her sense of depression was now much less gentle, it increased every moment, turning to sadness. She was sad in spirit and mind and body—her body felt dejected, she was sad all over. And now someone was whistling down by the stables, old Williams, she suspected, for the whistle was tuneless. The loss of his teeth had disgruntled his whistle; yes, she was sure that must be Williams. A horse whinnied as one bucket clanked against another—sounds came dearly this evening; they were watering the horses. Anna’s young carriage horses would be pawing their straw, impatient because they were feeling thirsty.

Then a gate slammed. That would be the gate of the meadow where the heifers were pastured—it was yellow with king-cups. One of the men from the home farm was going his rounds, securing all gates before sunset. Something dropped on the bonnet of the car with a ping. Looking up she met the eyes of a squirrel; he was leaning well forward on his tiny front paws, peering crossly; he had dropped his nut on the bonnet. She got out of the car and retrieved his supper, throwing it under his tree while he waited. Like a flash he was down and then back on his tree, devouring the nut with his legs well straddled.

All around were the homely activities of evening, the watering of horses, the care of cattle—pleasant, peaceable things that preceded the peace and repose of the coming nightfall. And suddenly Stephen longed to share them, an immense need to share them leapt up within her, so that she ached with this urgent longing that was somehow a part of her bodily dejection.

She drove on and left the car at the stables, then walked round to the house, and when she got there she opened the door of the study and went in, feeling terribly lonely without her father. Sitting down in the old armchair that had survived him, she let her head rest where his head had rested; and her hands she laid on the arms of the chair where his hands, as she knew, had lain times without number. Closing her eyes, she tried to visualize his face, his kind face that had sometimes looked anxious; but the picture came slowly and faded at once, for the dead must often give place to the living. It was Angela Crossby’s face that persisted as Stephen sat in her father’s old chair.

4

In the small panelled room that gave on to the herb-garden, Angela yawned as she stared through the window; then she suddenly laughed out loud at her thoughts; then she suddenly frowned and spoke crossly to Tony.

She could not get Stephen out of her mind, and this irritated while it amused her. Stephen was so large to be tongue-tied and frightened—a curious creature, not devoid of attraction. In a way—her own way—she was almost handsome; no, quite handsome; she had fine eyes and beautiful hair. And her body was supple like that of an athlete—narrow-hipped and wide shouldered, she should fence very well. Angela was anxious to see her fence; she must certainly try to arrange it somehow.

Mrs. Antrim had conveyed a number of things, while actually saying very little; but Angela had no need of her hints, not now that she had come to know Stephen Gordon. And because she was idle, discontented and bored, and certainly not over-burdened with virtue, she must let her thoughts dwell unduly on this girl, while her curiosity kept pace with her thoughts.

Tony stretched and whimpered, so Angela kissed him, then she sat down and wrote quite a short little letter: ‘Do come over to lunch the day after tomorrow and advise me about the garden,’ ran the letter. And it ended—after one or two casual remarks about gardens—with: ‘Tony says please come, Stephen!’

On a beautiful evening three weeks later, Stephen took Angela over Morton. They had had tea with Anna and Puddle, and Anna had been coldly polite to this friend of her daughter’s, but Puddle’s manner had been rather resentful—she deeply mistrusted Angela Crossby. But now Stephen was free to show Angela Morton, and this she did gravely, as though something sacred were involved in this first introduction to her home, as though Morton itself must feel that the coming of this small, fair-haired woman was in some way momentous. Very gravely, then, they went over the house—even into Sir Philip’s old study.

From the house they made their way to the stables, and still grave, Stephen told her friend about Raftery. Angela listened, assuming an interest she was very far from feeling—she was timid of horses, but she liked to hear the girl’s rather gruff voice, such an earnest young voice, it intrigued her. She was thoroughly frightened when Raftery sniffed her and then blew through his nostrils as though disapproving, and she started back with a sharp exclamation, so that Stephen slapped him on his glossy grey shoulder: ‘Stop it, Raftery, come up!’ And Raftery, disgusted, went and blew on his oats to express his hurt feelings.

They left him and wandered away through the gardens, and quite soon poor Raftery was almost forgotten, for the gardens smelt softly of night-scented stock, and of other pale flowers that smell sweetest at evening, and Stephen was thinking that Angela Crossby resembled such flowers—very fragrant and pale she was, so Stephen said to her gently: ‘You seem to belong to Morton.’

Angela smiled a slow, questioning smile: ‘You think so, Stephen?’ And Stephen answered: ‘I do, because Morton and I are one,’ and she scarcely understood the portent of her words; but Angela, understanding, spoke quickly:

‘Oh, I belong nowhere—you forget I’m the stranger.’

‘I know that you’re you,’ said Stephen.

They walked on in silence while the light changed and deepened, growing always more golden and yet more elusive. And the birds, who loved that strange light, sang singly and then all together: ‘We’re happy, Stephen!’

And turning to Angela, Stephen answered the birds: ‘Your being here makes me so happy.’

‘If that’s true, then why are you so shy of my name?’

‘Angela—’ mumbled Stephen.

Then Angela said: ‘It’s just over three weeks since we met—how quickly our friendship’s happened. I suppose it was meant, I believe in Kismet. You were awfully scared that first day at The Grange; why were you so scared?’