Nothing like Poetry, thought Adrian, and then remembered unexpectedly that Paul Wrench was lying in a German mortuary, with his bleak, thin nose sticking up in the air.
“Did you know Paul Wrench is dead?” he asked.
Laura sat up in dismay.
“It’s not true!”
She felt the loss to literature almost as keenly as he did. And they began to disinter episodes in that queer, unornamental life with a comfortable sense that it was over. But this was no subject to keep them sitting long in the yew parlour and soon they were pacing slowly back towards the house. Laura suggested that there was time for a bathe before dinner. But Adrian shook his head. He cut a lean figure in a bathing suit and he wanted to avoid, as long as possible, an encounter with Solange. So he set off towards the library, intending to write an article, a few first impressions of Paul Wrench while the subject was still fresh in his mind. But, on opening the library door, he heard a racket within which, for a moment, kept him standing on the threshold. The greater part of the room was hidden by a large leather screen and behind it he heard Corny say:
“Were every drop of blood that runs in thy adultrous veins a life, this sword (dost see?) should in one blow confound them all. Harlot! Rare, notable harlot, that with thy brazen face …”
It had crossed Adrian’s mind that he might be intruding upon another tête-à-tête, but the reference to the sword reassured him. Peeping round the screen he saw Aggie, in cloth of gold, standing with joined hands. Hugo, pale green with fatigue, sat on a table and clutched a prompt copy. Adrian had never seen that drained green shade on any face but once, when he had been taken on a yacht to the tropics and one of the cooks, crazy with the heat, had jumped overboard.
“Why do you wear a halo?” he asked Aggie. “Surely that’s not necessary for Anabella.”
Aggie explained. The proper head-dress had not come yet and she was obliged to wear this pearl cap which had done duty in the last tableau where she had posed as an angel. Her maid, not able to understand that Aggie ever acted anything more terrestrial, had stupidly failed to remove the halo. However, it was very becoming. She turned to Hugo for her cue.
“The man, the more than man …” prompted Hugo.
“The man, the more than man that got this spwightly boy … you ought to wush at me with a dagger, Corny.”
Adrian, after another glance at Hugo, did a kind thing. He broke up the rehearsal, insisting that Aggie ought really at this point to go up and practise all her labials in front of a glass. He told her straight out that she mooed rather over them.
“Say ‘the man, the more the man’ ten times over,” he urged, “and then you’ll see what I mean.”
Aggie looked a little peevish, but Adrian was known to be a good critic and she was known to take her work seriously, so off she went. And Hugo was at last free to go for a swim and cool his aching head.
Solange and Marianne had been bathing ever since tea and Ford very soon joined them. But they took little notice of one another. For a time the lake had been given up to sheer athletics. Ford, powerful and plebeian, had done trick diving by himself at one end of the pool. The girls rode on a rubber horse, played with some diving discs and did good work collecting the rose leaves which showered down upon the water and grew sodden. There was no shouting, splashing, or noisy laughter. Then, as the shadows lengthened, Philomena made her appearance and the gathering became more social. Seeing no sign of Hugo she decided not to go in at once. Her green silk tunic would stand the water, but it did not look its best when it was wet and the freshness of the colouring was lost. So she sat on the grass under the rose bushes and enjoyed the cooling air. Hugo would come sooner or later and Aggie was doing herself no good by being so autocratic. He had given Philomena a look, when he was dragged away, which was entirely reassuring. And now, all the time that he was reading ’Tis Pity indoors (rehearsals were no treat to him) he would be longing for the lake and more congenial company.
She had devised a most original bathing cap, so transparent as to make her hair into a gold frame, and confined by a little wreath of flowers. But she took it off as she lay on the grass, enjoying the feel of the soft breeze on her skin and blowing through her hair. She was not in a hurry. She was not impatient. She was consciously happy. The smell of mown grass was pleasant, and the rose petals drifted down on to her hair.
One end of the pool was in shadow now, but beams of dappled light fell on the diving scaffold. Over and over again did those two indefatigable girls climb up and stand there, poised solemnly for a moment with their arms above their heads. Then they would skim downward, straight into the water with hardly a splash, like a couple of fishes. Their thick shrimp-coloured caps hid their hair completely and their faces were like nuns’ faces, pink and null. In their bodies, as they lifted their arms, there were youth and vigour but little grace. Philomena envied them nothing. She was glad not to be a girl any more. Could anything, she asked herself as she watched them, be more unknowing than the way they moved? Marianne was going to be a magnificent creature, a second Laura, but at present she just seemed to be too large for herself. And Solange was as straight and spare as a boy. No. There were no points about being a girl. One had it all to go through. One married the wrong man too young, and one lost virginity, not, as poets believe, in the twinkling of an eye, but gradually like something pounded up in a mill. Nor was it enjoyable, though one tried to think so at the time. One had a lot to go through before enjoyment became a possibility.
And she looked with grave satisfaction at the slim soundness of her own legs. They were perfect, from waist to ankle, long, smooth and white, almost more beautiful than her arms. She had avoided that sharp bisecting line at the mid-thigh which is the blemish of so many bathing dresses. Her tunic hung loose in rounded petals to the knee, over a brief maillot, so that when she moved or swam, there was always the gleam of white flesh through silk. The sense of her own beauty possessed and exalted her so that she was lifted clear out of yesterday’s indecision. She was sure of Hugo and she was sure of herself. No anxieties or scruples beset her, for she knew that she could get anything she wanted so long as she preserved this sense of rightness and balance. She could do as she pleased, nor was there any need to wonder what was going to happen. Nothing would happen unless she willed it.
“But it shall,” she thought, with a faint, reckless tremor of anticipation. “I’m going to go on with it.”
Lady Geraldine came down to the lake. It was always rather a shock to see her there, for at sixty-eight she looked her age. She came padding over the grass in a queer wrap made out of some oriental shawl, bright red but a little moth-eaten and smelling of camphor. Her gnarled old feet were thrust into leather sabots, and on her head she wore a battered rush hat.
“Such a noise in the library,” she complained as she sat down on the grass beside Philomena. “I heard it as I came past the window. Poor Aggie is saying a piece all about strumpets …”
Nobody else in the world ever called Aggie poor. But Geraldine had always done so, and, like most of her vagaries, it might possibly have been a piece of malice. To her it was as if no years had passed since poor Aggie was a lumpish girl of fourteen whose nose always bled in church.
Philomena peered into the ravaged beauty of that face and wondered, not for the first time, what was really at the back of Geraldine’s mind. She was as mysterious as the Queen of Sheba. There was no plumbing the depths of her inward emancipation. For complete submission to Otho in every detail of existence had taught her how to hide herself, and behind a wall of disconcerting vagueness she led a lawless and independent life. Nobody had ever penetrated into that uncomplicated country, and her lovers knew even less of her than Otho did. If there had ever been any lovers. Philomena would have liked to be sure. But nobody was sure. That tranquil simplicity had blinded everyone.
Now she gave a shock to Ford by taking off her wrapper and standing up on the bank in a salmon-pink chemise made of very cheap artificial silk and trimmed with cotton lace. Philomena remembered once more that if you are rich enough you can do and wear anything you like. And Ford, who saw that even this garment was shortly to be removed, dived quickly under water. But his panic was premature, for beneath her chemise she wore a faded black bathing dress with an anchor embroidered on the front of it. Taking off her rings she hung them on a twig of a rose bush, pulled an oilskin cap over her tousled white hair, and jumped into the pool. She was still a fine swimmer though she had given up diving.
Up to the far end, by the diving board, she went, and then back again, the oilskin cap travelling swiftly and silently over the water. And behind her, swimming in a row, came the pink heads of Solange and Marianne and Ford with his hair plastered down over his eyes, for they had all been seized with an impulse to do a couple of lengths before coming out.
Philomena was beginning to feel chilly. The sun was nearly off the pool and to be looking blue would spoil everything. But she was relieved to see Gibbie come bounding from the house. Evidently the rehearsal was over and Hugo would soon be on his way. Gibbie burst into the pool with a jocular splash and began to be funny with the rubber horse. The quiet was over.
“Are you going out or coming in?” he called to Philomena on the bank.
“We’re all going out,” replied Lady Geraldine, as she climbed on to the bank. “It’s nearly dinner time. Beata!”
Marianne, who was used to being called after any of her aunts, came swimming to the bank edge.
“Have I arranged the table?”
“No, grandmamma. I think Laura’s doing it.”
“Aren’t we a man short?”
“No, we’re even numbers unless Mr. Bechstrader comes. I think I remember how Laura’s done it: you, Mr. Pott, Aggie, Mr. Cooke, Solange, Uncle Alec, Mrs. Grey, Sir Adrian, me, Mr. Grey, Laura and Mr. Usher.”
“Humph.”
Geraldine looked at Ford’s head as it sped away down the lake again.
“Have I got to have them both? Is there anybody besides Laura who knows anything about mosquitoes?”
“Solange does. She knows a lot about them.”
“Ho, does she? Well, why not … oh, I suppose we’d better leave it to Laura.”
Philomena bit her lip angrily. Adrian and Alec! Why should she have to sit between Adrian and Alec? And Aggie, of course, was to get Hugo. She glanced across the lawn impatiently to see if he was coming, for she had suddenly grown tired of waiting for him. This hour, which was to be her own, was flying past; it was being wasted. All her contented assurance fell away from her as she thought of Adrian and Alec, and the cruel shortness of life. At this rate the week-end would soon be over and she would go back to London having missed her chance. If anything was to happen she must make it happen immediately.
As soon as he appeared on the other side of the lawn she climbed to the highest dive, a board in a pollarded willow, where she could stand with green leaves behind her. And she stayed there just long enough before she dived, so that he could see her and wish that he had come out sooner. Her white legs flashed under the silky water and her yellow head with its flowery cap came up. Hugo was standing staring on the bank.
“Philomena?”
He leapt into the water beside her and the girls immediately retreated from the bath as though it had been contaminated. Seizing their cloaks they made for the house, followed by Ford. Lady Geraldine, sitting on the grass, had gone into one of her long Sibylline trances, so that Hugo and Philomena had the pool to themselves, undisturbed by Gibbie who plunged merrily about with his horse in one corner.
Hugo did not want to swim, or to dive, or to exert himself in any way. He craved to be simply at peace. But Philomena was so beautiful that he could not be at peace. Something stung him between the shoulder-blades as when he had seen the horses on the hill. He was reminded of something, an image, a snare, cheated man that he was. For beauty, instead of remaining a pleasure, still masqueraded as a promise, and he could not tell what it was that he desired. Perhaps it was simply Philomena.
Floating on his back he looked up at the sky and the rooks streaming homeward across the golden zenith. The water was getting chilly. Damn Aggie! She had spoilt his bathe. She had kept him away from Philomena.
“I’m glad you’re still here,” he said. “And I’m glad the others have gone away. I don’t like crowds.”
“Is Corny coming?”
“No, he had to catch the post. He writes to his wife every day, you know.”
Philomena laughed, as people always did when they remembered that Corny had a wife.
“I can’t get used to it,” she said.
“I know. It does bring things home, doesn’t it? This world depression I mean. One can hear of the unemployed, and fluctuating currencies and trade slump without losing hope. But I did feel that things must be in a very bad way indeed when Corny had to marry. Have you ever met her, Philomena?”
“No. I never meet those racing people. But she’s been pointed out to me … all teeth and tweeds. She must be at least fifteen years older than Corny. But so, so rich!”
“That explains it from Corny’s angle, but …”
“Oh, she married him because he looked so like her first husband, who was a jockey. Corny told Gibbie so.”
“I never thought of it, but he is exactly like a jockey. Oh, I say, don’t go out yet.”
“I’ve been here for hours and it’s getting cold.”
She got out of the water and stood warming herself in the last of the sun, while Gibbie disappeared into the shed to put away the rubber horse. And Hugo floated in the water at her feet, looking up at her beseechingly.
“Can you see yourself in the water?” he asked.
“No. It isn’t still enough.”
“That’s a pity.”
He climbed out too, and they waited for the rippled surface to settle so that they could look down to their own faces, drowned under the shadow of the bank. Hugo caught at her elbow. It was cold and drops of lake water fell off it like pearls.
“I suppose you know,” he said gravely, “how beautiful you are. Or don’t you?”
But he spoke to the face in the water, rather than to the woman beside him. If only he could plunge down there, into that green deep world which was so much more beautiful because it was an illusion. He would dive down and down and stay there for ever. How long can you stand on your head at the bottom of the lake? For ever!
A belated rook, flapping over their heads, jarred the air with a single derisive caw, and he roused himself.
“Philomena!”
“Yes, Hugo?”
“I’m desperate.”
“Poor Hugo!”
“You know what’s the matter. Or don’t you?”
“Of course I know.”
“Then … come away with me.”
His plan of escape dissolved into gloom as the gangplank of a steamer flashed upon his inward eye. That was no way.
“I must talk to Gibbie,” murmured Philomena.
Talks to Gibbie, scenes, packing up, customs houses, trouble with Caro, more publicity, the divorce court: that was what it meant. He had been mad.
“I don’t think Gibbie would mind, Hugo. He understands me. If I came for a little while …”
“For a little while?” echoed Hugo blankly.
His mind had scarcely adjusted itself to this amazing idea before they were startled by the tolling of a great bell in the Syranwood stables. It swung out over the hayfields so that shepherds on the downs might know that their betters were about to dress for dinner. In the house hot baths were being turned on and maids were laying dresses reverently on beds. There was a girding of loins in the butler’s pantry, and the cook and her satellites knew nothing of the cooling day.
Smoke rose from the cottage chimneys in the valley. Ploughmen and their wives sat at supper with the day’s toil behind them. Out in the fields the last wagon had creaked through the gate into the lane. But at Syranwood the curtain was about to ring up on the biggest drama of the day, and all those upon whom the success of the evening depended were settling themselves into harness. Dinner must be cooked and served and in due time ninety-six plates, seventy-two glasses, twelve coffee cups, thirty-six spoons, seventy-two forks, and sixty knives would come back to be washed, not to mention dishes, sauce boats, salad bowls and cream jugs.
And yet, in the mellowing light, the house looked as if every one in it had gone to sleep. The sun had dipped suddenly behind the trees, but the sky was still full of gold and the cedars and yews, massed against all that glory, looked quite black, while the line of hills was turning rapidly to indigo. In the hall it was dusk. Hugo paused there amid the litter of dogs and hats and garden baskets and dishevelled copies of Proust. He said:
“Don’t risk anything you value for me, my dear. I’m not worth it.”
“I’ll talk to Gibbie.”