3

Niall stopped playing the piano when Charles went out of the room.

“I’ve got that queer feeling,” he said, “that I used to have as a child, and I haven’t had for years. That all this has happened before.”

“I have it often,” said Maria. “It comes suddenly, like a ghost touching you, and then it goes again, leaving you rather sick.”

“I believe there’s an explanation for it,” said Celia. “One’s subconscious thinks ahead a fraction before one’s brain, or vice versa, or something. It doesn’t really matter.”

She reached out once more for the workbasket, and took the sock with the hole in it in her hand, and looked at it.

“When Charles called us parasites he was thinking of me,” she said. “He was thinking how I come down here every weekend and never leave him alone with Maria. When he goes into the schoolroom I’m there playing with the children, breaking into their routine with Polly, taking them for walks when they should be resting, or telling them stories when they ought to be learning lessons. The other Saturday he found me in the kitchen showing Mrs. Banks how to do a soufflé, and yesterday morning I was in the shrubbery with a pair of clippers, clearing the brambles. He can’t get rid of me, he can’t shake himself clear. It has happened all my life, this business of clinging to people, of getting too fond of them.”

She threaded the needle and began to darn the sock. It was worn and rubbed and rather smelly from the little boy’s foot, and she thought of the many times she had done this, always for Maria’s children, never for a child of her own, and how up to now it had not mattered too deeply, but this afternoon the whole scheme of things was altered. She could never come to Farthings again with the same lightness of heart, because Charles had called her a parasite.

“It was not you,” said Maria; “it was me. Charles is devoted to you. He loves having you about the house. I have always told you he picked the wrong one.”

She lay down again on the sofa, sideways this time so that she could see the fire, and the hot white ash from the smoldering wood curled and fell away through the bars to the dead stuff below.

“He should never have married me,” she said. “He should have married someone who likes the things he likes, the country in winter, riding, going to point-to-points, having couples to dinner and playing bridge afterwards. It has never been any good to him, this mixed-up life, me in London, working, coming down only at weekends. I pretended we were happy, but we haven’t been happy for a long while.”

Niall closed the lid of the piano, and stood up.

“That’s absurd,” he said abruptly. “You adore him; you know that perfectly. And he adores you. You would both have parted years ago if it had not been so.”

Maria shook her head.

“He doesn’t really love me,” she said: “he only loves the idea he once had of me. He tries to keep it in front of him always, like the memory of a dead person. I do the same with him. When he fell in love with me I was playing in that revival of Mary Rose. I’ve forgotten how long it ran—two or three months, wasn’t it?—but all the time I thought of him as Simon. He was Simon to me; and when we became engaged I went on being Mary Rose. I looked at him with her eyes, and with her understanding, and he thought it was the real me, and that’s why he loved me, and why we married. The whole thing was an illusion.”

And even now, she thought, gazing into the fire, as I say these things to Niall and Celia, who understand, I’m still acting. I’m looking at myself, I’m seeing a person called Maria lying on a sofa and losing the love of her husband, and I’m sad for that poor, lonely soul, I want to weep for her; but me, the real me, is making faces in the corner.

“There’s only one parasite,” said Niall. “Don’t flatter yourselves he was blowing off at either of you.”

He went over to the window.

“Charles is a man of action,” said Niall, “a man of purpose. He possesses authority, he has bred children, he has fought in wars. I respect him more than anyone I have ever known. Sometimes I’ve wanted to be like him, to be that sort of man. God knows I’ve envied him… for many things. Just now he called me a freak, and he was right. But I’m even more of a parasite than a freak. All my life I’ve run away from things, from anger, from danger, and above all from loneliness. That’s why I write songs, as a sort of bluff to the world. That’s why I cling to you.”

He threw away his cigarette, looking across the room towards Maria.

“We’re all getting morbid,” said Celia restlessly. “This introspection doesn’t do us any good. And it’s nonsense saying you’re afraid of being lonely. You love being alone. Look at those mad places you go and bury yourself in from time to time. That leaky boat…”

She heard her voice becoming fretful, the voice of the child Celia who called, “Don’t leave me behind. Wait for me, Niall, Maria. Wait for me…”

“Being alone has nothing to do with loneliness,” said Niall. “Surely you’ve learned that by this time.”

From the dining room we could hear the sound of the tea-trolley being laid. Mrs. Banks was alone. She trod heavily, and, being ham-fisted, she jingled and clattered the cups. Celia wondered whether she should go and help, half-rising, then sank back again as she heard the brisk, cheerful voice of Polly saying, “Let me give you a hand, Mrs. Banks. No, children, don’t finger the cakes.”

For the first time Celia dreaded the communal tea. The children chattering about their walk and what they had done, Miss Pollard—Polly—smiling behind the teapot, her healthy, attractive face dusted with powder for the occasion—Sunday tea—the powder a shade too pale for her complexion, and her conversation (“Now, children, tell Aunt Celia what you saw out of the window, such an enormous bird, we wondered what it was—don’t drink too fast, dear—more tea, Uncle Niall?”) always rather nervous when Niall was present, coloring a little—she never knew where she was with Niall; and today of all days Niall would be difficult, and Maria more bored and silent than usual, and Charles, if he were present, grim and taciturn behind the monstrous cup that Maria had once given him for Christmas. No, today of all days communal tea was something to be avoided. Maria must have had the same thought.

“Tell Polly we won’t be coming in to tea,” she said. “Get a tray and we three will have ours in here. I can’t face the racket.”

“What about Charles?” said Celia.

“He won’t want any. I heard him go out through the garden door. He’s gone for a walk.”

The rain had come on again, a melancholy drizzle, pattering thinly against the prison panes.

“I always hated them,” said Maria. “They take away the light. Little, ugly squares.”

“Lutyens,” said Niall. “He always did it.”

“They’re right for this sort of house,” said Celia. “You see them dozens of times in Country Life, generally in Hampshire. The Hon. Mrs. Ronald Harringway—that sort of name.”

“Twin beds,” said Maria, “the kind they push together to look like a double. And the electric light, disguised, comes from the wall above.”

“Pink guest towels,” said Niall, “and exquisitely clean, but the spare room is always cold and faces north. There’s a very efficient housemaid who has been with Mrs. Ronald Harringway for years.”

“But she will put the hot-water bottles in too early, and they’re tepid when you go to bed,” said Maria.

“Miss Compton Collier comes down once a year and photographs the border,” said Celia. “Masses of lupins, very stiff.”

“And corgis, with their tongues out, panting on the lawn, while Mrs. Ronald Harringway snips at the roses,” said Niall.

The handle turned, and Polly put her head round the corner of the door.

“All in the dark?” she said brightly. “It’s not very cheerful, is it?”

She flicked on the main switch by the door, flooding the room with light. No one said anything. Her complexion was glowing and fresh after her brisk walk with the children in the rain, and the three of us were haggard in comparison.

“Tea’s ready,” she said. “I’ve just been giving Mrs. Banks a hand. The children have such an appetite after their walk, bless them. Mummy looks tired.”

She stared critically at Maria, her manner a strange mixture of concern and disapproval. The children stood beside her, saying nothing.

“Mummy should have come for a walk with us, shouldn’t she?” said Polly. “Then she would have lost her London look. Never mind, Mummy shall have a big slice of that lovely cake. Come, children.”

She nodded, and smiled, and went back into the dining room.

“I don’t want any cake,” whispered Maria. “If it’s the same as the kind we had last time I shall be sick. I hate it.”

“Can I eat your slice? I won’t tell,” said the boy.

“Yes,” said Maria.

The children ran out of the room.

“Uncle Niall would prefer brandy, neat,” said Niall.

He went into the dining room with Celia, and together they fetched a tea tray, and a second tray of drinks, and then came back into the drawing room, closing the door behind them, shutting off the domestic sounds of Polly and the children.

Niall turned off the light, the comforting darkness enveloped us again. We were alone, and quiet, and undisturbed.

“It wasn’t like that for us,” said Niall, “all bright, and clean, and purged and commonplace. Plastic toys. Things that go in and out.”

“Perhaps it was,” said Maria; “perhaps we don’t remember.”

“I do remember,” said Niall. “I remember everything. That’s the trouble. I remember much too much.”

Maria poured a spoonful of brandy into her tea, and into Niall’s cup also.

“I hate the schoolroom here,” she said. “That’s why I never go to it. It’s prison again, like the windows of this room.”

“You can’t say that,” said Celia. “It’s the best room in the house. Due south. Gets all the sun.”

“That’s not what I mean,” said Maria. “It’s self-conscious, pleased with itself. It says, ‘Aren’t I a nice room, children? Come on, play, be happy.’ And down those poor little things used to squat, on shiny blue linoleum, with great lumps of plasticine. Truda never gave us plasticine.”

“We never needed it,” said Celia. “We were always dressing up.”

“The children could dress up in my clothes if they wanted to,” said Maria.

“You haven’t any hats,” said Niall. “It’s no fun dressing up unless you have hats. Dozens and dozens of them, all piled on the top of a wardrobe, just out of reach, so that you have to get on a chair.” He poured another spoonful of brandy into his teacup.

“Mama had a crimson velvet cape,” said Celia. “I can see it now. It fitted around her hips, swathed, I believe you’d call it, and a great belt of fur round the bottom. When I dressed up in it the whole thing touched the ground.”

“You were supposed to be Morgan le Fay,” said Maria. “It was so stupid of you to put on the red cape for Morgan le Fay. I told you at the time it was not right. You were obstinate, you would not listen. You started to cry. I nearly hit you.”

“You didn’t hit her because of that,” said Niall. “You hit her because you wanted the red cape for yourself as Guinevere. Don’t you remember we had the book on the floor beside us, and were copying the Dulac pictures? Guinevere had a long red gown, and golden plaits. I put my gray jersey back to front for Lancelot, and some long gray socks of Pappy’s on my arms to look like chain mail.”

“The bed was very big,” said Maria, “simply enormous. Larger than any bed I’ve ever seen.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Celia.

“Mama’s bed,” said Maria, “in that room where we were dressing up. It was in that apartment we had in Paris. There were pictures of Chinese people round the walls. I’ve always looked for a bed as big as that and never found one. How very queer.”

“I wonder what made you think of that suddenly?” said Celia.

“I don’t know,” said Maria. “Was that the side door I heard just now? Perhaps it’s Charles.” We all listened. We heard nothing.

“Yes, it was a big bed,” said Celia. “I slept in it once, that time I pinched my finger so badly in the lift. I slept in the middle, and Pappy and Mama on either side.”

“Did you really?” said Maria, curious. “Just the sort of thing you would do. Were you embarrassed?”

“No. Why should I be embarrassed? It was warm and nice. You forget, those things were easy for me. I belonged to both of them.”

Niall pushed his cup back on the tray.

“What a bloody thing to say,” he said, and he got up and lit another cigarette.

“Well, it’s true,” said Celia, surprised. “How silly you are.”

Maria drank her tea slowly. She held the cup in both hands.

“I wonder if we see them with the same eyes,” she said thoughtfully, “Pappy and Mama, I mean. And the days that were, and being children, and growing up, and everything we did.”

“No,” said Niall, “we all have a different angle.”

“If we pooled our thoughts there would be a picture,” said Celia, “but it would be distorted. Like this day, for instance. We shall each of us see it differently when it’s over.”

The room had grown quite dark, but the coming night outside seemed gray in contrast. We could still see the shadowy shape of huddled trees, shivering under the listless rain. A bent twig from the jasmine creeper growing against the walls of the house scratched the leaded pane of the french window. We none of us spoke for a long while.

“I wonder,” said Maria at last, “what Charles really meant when he called us parasites.”

The drawing room felt cold, suddenly chill, without the curtains drawn. The fire had sunk too low. The children and Polly who sat round the table in the brightly-lit dining room across the hall belonged to another world.

“In a way,” said Maria, “it was as though he envied us.”

“It was not envy,” said Celia, “it was pity.”

Niall opened the window and looked out across the lawn. In the far corner, by the children’s swing, stood a weeping willow, which in the summer made an arbor cool and leafy, the foliage twined and interlaced, blotting the hard glare of the sun. Now it stood white and brittle in the somber darkness of December, and the branches were thin, like the bleached bones of a skeleton. As Niall watched, a breath of wind came with the spitting rain and stirred the branches of the weeping willow, so that they bowed and swayed, sweeping the ground. And it was no longer a lone tree that stood there, outlined against the evergreens, but the wraith of a woman who stood poised against a painted back-cloth for one brief moment only, and then came dancing towards him across a shadowed stage.