MARDA was not due to leave until after lunch, but throughout that
morning they were all distressed and sympathetic, could not settle down
to anything, walked about the house. Every time Lady Naylor saw Marda
she asked her if she ought not to be packing, and while Marda packed,
with her door open, Lady Naylor kept looking in to remark how sad it
was to see her thus engaged. Francie sat and sewed in the ante-room,
looking anxiously up whenever anyone passed. The rain fell, the windows
were open, the rooms smelt of window-sills. Francie rolled up her work
with a sigh and went up to tell Marda how sorry she was about the rain.
“You’ll have a wet drive,” she said.
“But the hood works,” said Marda, folding together the sleeves of a
scarlet dress.
“But rain is so sad when one’s going away. Nothing, I mean but a train
to arrive at.”
“But I really like trains: I am always talked to.”
“Hugo will be so sorry, he has so much enjoyed talking to you.”
“It’s been very nice of him.”
Sir Richard looked up Marda’s train in a May time-table and was worried
because he could not find it. Had she really any proof, he came up to
inquire, that it had been put on since? Would she not be wiser to
catch the 12.30 and have plenty of time for dinner in Dublin? Also,
what was he to do about her suitcase if it ever turned up? But he
almost feared now it would never turn up. He sighed and went back to
the library.
Laurence sat in his room with a book with the door open; he could see
across the landing into Marda’s room. Evidently she could not make
up her mind which hat to travel in: she tried on three and looked at
herself in each. He did not care for her looks or her clothes, really;
both were over-assured. But then he could not recall whose looks or
whose clothes he did care for. Finally, he went across to say he did
not want _South Wind_ back, she could keep it to leave in the train, or
simply pack it.
“Oh, thank you,” she said; “do write my name in it.”
He recoiled at this awful suggestion.
Her room had all come to pieces--dresses swirled on the bed, hats
perched everywhere; she had lost the wedge from the mirror so that it
wagged right forward, showing its blank side. She was taking more from
the house than herself and her luggage.
“You will have a wet drive.”
“The hood works,” said Marda mechanically, throwing some rolled-up
stockings out to make room for some shoes.
“Hasn’t Lois been up?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What can she be doing?”
“Last time I saw her she was bouncing a tennis ball on the dining-room
wall between the portraits. She says she has not much to do at present.”
“Anything I can--”
“Oh, if you’d write my labels--”
“I will indeed, but I hate block printing--need they--?”
“Well, I’m afraid I would rather--”
“Remarkable orange labels,” said Laurence, taking the packet from her
politely.
“Here is Livvy Thompson,” he added, looking out of the window. “She
must have ridden over to say good-bye.”
“But I don’t know her.”
“She doesn’t know that: you have met.”
Marda leaned out and called her good-byes to Livvy, who waved and
shouted up to her that she would have a very wet drive. Marda withdrew,
shutting the window abruptly.
“I am sorry,” said Laurence, “that our young men will not have a chance
to say good-bye to you.”
“I’ve only met one of them--Gerald.”
“Oh yes, you weren’t here for our last party. What a very short time
you _have_ been here.... I hope you’ll come back again soon--with your
husband?”
“Thank you, it’s very kind of you.”
Laurence bowed and went away with the labels.
When Lois heard Livvy’s voice on the steps she fled to the back of the
house and hid in a box-room. Sir Richard had to tell Livvy he did not
know where she was; last time he had seen her she had been sorting out
some packs of old playing-cards in the drawing-room and seemed very
busy. Livvy was much disappointed; however, she took her horse round,
then sat in the hall to wait.
Lady Naylor--who had spared her attention to Marda with difficulty:
this was a busy morning--was agitated by this development. She stood at
the foot of the stairs, calling Lois.
“She doesn’t seem to be anywhere,” Francie at last called helpfully,
from the ante-room.
“But Livvy Thompson is sitting in the hall.”
“Ask Hugo to find her.”
“I can’t find him either.”
“Perhaps they have both gone out to the garden?”
“Not in all this rain.”
Lady Naylor sighed, gathered up two of the kitchen kittens that were
trespassing on the stairs and plunged away through a swing door. It
was twenty to twelve: extraordinary how one’s mornings went! Lunch was
to be unnaturally early because of Marda’s departure: evidently, Livvy
would, remain for it. She looked reproachfully into the library. But
there Sir Richard was engaged with the herd, discussing the Darramore
pig fair.
Meanwhile Lois was very melancholy in the box-room. The window was dark
with ivy, she could not see out. The room was too damp for the storage
of trunks that were not finished with anyhow; mustiness came from her
mother’s old vaulted trunks and from a stack of crushed cardboard
boxes. On the whitewash, her mother, to whom also the box-room had been
familiar, had written L. N.; L. N., and left an insulting drawing of
somebody, probably Hugo. She had scrawled with passion; she had never
been able to draw. Lois looked, and strained after feeling, but felt
nothing. Her problem was, not only _how_ to get out unseen, but _why_,
to what purpose?
She did not really know Marda well; to go up and offer to help her
pack would surely appear unnatural? Or worse, one might seem to be
taking advantage of yesterday? One had been passingly intimate under
the pistol’s little acute, pig eye--but one had not spoken again of
it. If she were free, she could search the rooms for something that
looked plausibly Marda’s--a magazine, a handkerchief--and bring it up.
But then Livvy was unavoidable, varnished up to the height of a shine
with love and bursting open with confidences like a cotton-pod. She was
appalled by these thoughts of Livvy.
But Livvy was privileged. If she chose to announce her engagement even
Sir Richard must stop and listen. It was a passport at any frontier,
that kind of announcement. Spurred by an impulse she did not examine,
Lois picked up two cardboard lids and with infinite breathlessness
crept from the box-room. Through the back-stairs banisters she peered
and listened. Lady Naylor had given up calling, but could still be
heard complaining to some one in the basement that she did not know
where Lois was.
Marda had finished packing, but felt it would not be decent to reappear
so soon. Especially when weather did not permit of the “last walk,”
a formal parade of the grounds with her host and hostess before
lunch-time. She was pleased to see Lois appear in the doorway.
“I brought up some cardboard in case you were packing photographs.”
“But I haven’t got any photographs.”
“And you’re packed ... Would you like me to sit on anything?”
“No, I think they will all shut.”
“What about Leslie?”
“Oh, he is in talc--unbreakable.”
“I say, I have never seen your engagement ring.”
“Oh yes, we must see the ring,” called Laurence, from over the landing.
Surprised by a sudden stillness inside the whirlwind, he had been
settling down to a half-morning’s work. But he came across and breathed
on the ring with Lois, in an imitation of reverence, then returned
to his work, shutting the door loudly. Lady Naylor was heard on the
stairs again, talking to some one below as she came up. Lois uttered
an exclamation of despair and dashed behind a window curtain. Lady
Naylor came in with some cake in a cardboard box. She said she did not
believe the train had a tea-car, but that Marda should be able to get a
tea-basket at Ballybrophy. “But I am sure you won’t care for tea-basket
cakes, we none of us do.”
“Thank you _so_ much--”
“My dear,” said her hostess, “it is really a terrible pity about your
hand. Especially as it’s the left hand, as I’m afraid you will have to
be conventional and start wearing your ring again, now you are going to
England. It is extraordinary, Marda, the way things happen to you.”
“We must be thankful,” said Marda, “that nothing worse has happened
this time.” Both thinking of Hugo, they looked at each other
benevolently, brightly and blankly. “At least she has not thought of
_that_,” they both thought.
Lady Naylor looked with surprise at Lois’s feet. “If you are hiding
there,” she said, “it is simply silly. I have been calling you
everywhere. Livvy is waiting for you down in the hall.”
“But I don’t want to see her.”
“But she is waiting for you in the hall.”
“I’ve got nothing to say and I’m sick of always having to keep on
saying it.”
“I can’t help that, she is your friend. And I thought her feelings
seemed very much hurt.”
“She will stay to lunch, you know,” Lois retorted.
“How fickle girls are!” said Lady Naylor, sitting down on the
window-sill. Her manner of sitting and waiting most strongly encouraged
an exit.
Lady Naylor was more than busy, but could not resist this last
opportunity to discover, before the veil of an international marriage
descended, what Marda really thought of the English. For nothing of
Leslie was Irish except his aunts.
“Of course really,” she said, “you are very adaptable. I dare say we
all are, but with some of us it does not have to come into play. I dare
say you’ll be very happy indeed. Where did you think of living?”
Leslie had thought of London, Marda confessed an omission on her part.
“Of course that is hardly England,” said Lady Naylor, encouraging. “And
of course it will be lovely for you being able to go abroad so easily;
you will be so much nearer everything. And you will have no neighbours,
one never has, I believe.”
“Demoralizing ...”
“You could certainly never be happy living like Anna Partridge. She has
an unnaturally sweet disposition: I often pity her.... I always find
the great thing in England is to have plenty to say, and mercifully
they are determined to find one amusing. But if one stops talking,
they tell one the most extraordinary things, about their husbands,
their money affairs, their insides. They don’t seem discouraged by not
being asked. And they seem so intimate with each other; I suppose it
comes from living so close together. Of course they are very definite
and practical, but it is a pity they talk so much about what they are
doing. I can’t think why they think it should matter: supposing I came
up here and insisted on telling you what I had been doing the whole
morning!”
Marda, feeling how true this must be, pulled open an empty drawer and
looked into it, much depressed.
“Though I don’t think it is fair,” pursued Lady Naylor, “to say
they have no sense of humour, and of course they are anxious not to
appear conventional, and they are kindness itself once they have
‘placed’ one.... Marda, surely you are not going to travel in that
thin coat? Well, for heaven’s sake do not develop a cold till it can
be obvious that you haven’t caught it here. How very unfortunate you
have been in your weather! Just that one fine day at Castle Isabel
and yesterday evening when you went for your walk. Before you came it
was brilliant--such a pity you missed our last party--and as I was
saying-- Why, Hugo ...”
He did not seem pleased to be with them. He was nonplussed at finding
the door open, having prepared to tap on it inexpressively. Francie had
insisted on sending him up with some eau-de-Cologne. She expected that
Marda, being so modern, would not care for eau-de-Cologne, but wanted
to give her some little token for the journey: this was all she could
think of. To the idea of this present he offered surprising resistance.
Or could she not take up her present herself? Her large eyes of protest
reminded him--their plan of life must eliminate stairs for her;
already, she had been up to the top once. So here he was, prepared to
recede three steps when Marda should come to her door: he was of that
school.
He stood back from the door, looking past with surprise at the room’s
non-committal features--the chairs, the window--as though he were
specially struck by there being a room at all in this part of the
house, and especially this room. Some tree-tops fidgeted under his
scrutiny. Where had he been all the morning, his hostess wanted to
know; no one could find him. Indeed? They could not have looked far:
for he had been in the dining-room, down at the dark end, taking out
those old _Illustrated London News_, old bound volumes he remembered
since he was a boy. There was that Tsar being bombed by Nihilists: very
interesting.
“I can’t think how any of those Tsars had any confidence,” said Lady
Naylor gloomily.
He looked doubtfully at the bottle of eau-de-Cologne; Lady Naylor
asked at once what he had there, was told, and exclaimed at Francie’s
imagination.
“There is nothing like eau-de-Cologne at the end of a crossing, when
one is trying to look like something again. Of course, it may not be
so bad to-night: at present I don’t like the look of those trees. Our
inland weather does sometimes go by contraries; it may be surprisingly
calm when one gets to Kingstown. I often wonder if living on an island
does not make one more deeply religious--the French, for instance,
could never have our sense of dependence--though of course they have
railway accidents. But I shouldn’t think of it, Marda, that’s much the
best way. I am sure one is often sea-sick from nervousness.”
“I don’t know what Miss Norton’s friends will think of her hand,” said
Hugo. “Their worst suspicions will be confirmed; they will think we
have been shooting at her. Her stumble was most unfortunate.”
“I ought to have brought back that piece of slate from the mill.”
“I hold you responsible, Hugo; you should not have let her go climbing
about. Never mind, it will give them something to talk about.”
“You must draw on your imagination,” said Hugo to Marda. “Don’t let
them suspect how tame we all are. They will expect you to be a bit of a
heroine; you must tell them everything that might have happened.”
Marda, finding a place for the bottle of eau-de-Cologne at the top of
her dressing-case, declared: “That would be inexhaustible.”
“They may think it odd that you should have cut the _back_ of your
hand....”
The three closed suitcases had a look of finality. Marda wished to
go down and find Francie and thank her, they all three crossed the
landing at a high pitch of affability. Laurence gripped the hair over
his temples in larger handfuls and crouched lower down over his book.
His thoughts, tight with concentration, were darkened by a wave of
malignance. Marda’s door, which no one had shut, remained flapping and
clicking.
In the yard, under the dripping chestnuts, Lois and Livvy walked about
in their mackintoshes. This afternoon, Lois intended to wash the dogs;
they might anticipate the occasion by disappearance, so she thought it
better to go down now--they had had their dinners--and shut them up in
the stables. They had gone up and looked for no reason into the loft,
at the chaff and the dead swallows. They went back slowly, listening in
vain for the gong.
“It seems odd,” said Livvy, “she should be going away; she seems to
have only just come. I generally get so accustomed to your visitors. I
have said good-bye to her once--I had no idea I should be staying to
luncheon. However, I don’t suppose she will remember, she seemed rather
flurried. Laurence was up there with her; it seems odd to me to have a
man in one’s bedroom even in the morning, but I dare say she is rather
cosmopolitan.... It does seem a pity, Lois, you forgot to ask her about
that jumper pattern.”
“Do you remember those Black and Tans on the Clonmore road? They always
remind me of her.”
“Why?” said Livvy. Then with her holy look, which Lois had up to now
managed to keep in abeyance, she added: “That was a memorable day for
me, naturally.”
“Why?” said Lois crossly.
“David and I decided to go to Cork.”
“I thought you said that was just chance.”
“It was predestination. Now I must tell you, Lois--”
“Things that have come just before people seem like part of them.”
“How you do talk ...”
“No, I don’t.”
“Lois,” said Livvy sagaciously, “I hope things are not going wrong
between you and Gerald?” Since her engagement, she spoke of all young
men by their Christian names and made motherly little impulsive
advances in all directions, like Mrs. Vermont.
Hugo wished to return to the _Illustrated London News_, but the
parlourmaid was laying the table and looked at him in surprise. In the
hall the two young girls, hair damp from their excursion, were playing
left-hand catch with a tennis ball. So he had to go into the library
where his wife and Marda were still talking about eau-de-Cologne--Marda
against the mantelpiece, bright and hard-looking in her coat and skirt.
Eau-de-Cologne wasn’t scent, Francie summed up; she hated scent for it
seemed a kind of advertisement. Sir Richard joined them; they all four
talked in an eager, unnatural way, as though they had just met for the
first time.
Indeed, the unfamiliarity of the moment made them strange to
themselves, though it now seemed to have been waiting ahead of them
like a trap into which they had stepped with a degree of naturalness.
Sir Richard, the least affected, thought the Montmorencys unduly
animated and deplored departures. Visitors took form gradually in his
household, coming out of a haze of rumour, and seemed but lightly,
pleasantly superimposed on the vital pattern till a departure tore
great shreds from the season’s texture. Francie rubbed the palms of her
hands lightly on the tapestry of the chair-arms. She knew that life
was unkind and that Marda must have begun at least to suspect this;
she wondered how much Marda had understood from the eau-de-Cologne.
Marda, turned half-away from them, tapped a tune on the edge of
the mantelpiece, laughed at every shade of a silence and felt how
resolutely Hugo did not look at her now. There was to be no opportunity
for what he must not say to be father painfully not said. Hugo wished
there had been a fire: the room was cold with rain and branches went
restlessly up and down beyond the windows. Her face and figure, at
which he dared not look, compelled his imagination with ghostly
sharpness.
“You will have a very wet drive, I’m afraid,” said Sir Richard finally.
To Francie, the remark had a faint echo. Had it been what she was going
to say, or had she once said it?
Outside in the hall, Livvy skidded over the edge of a rug and came
down heavily, knocking over a wicker chair. The tennis ball bounced
away, Lois shrieked her condolences. They all made a movement of
consternation and were delighted.
Livvy came into luncheon fragrant with Pond’s Extract, a shiny patch
on her chin. She kept putting up a finger and feeling the bump: David
must “kiss it better” for her to-morrow. David should have witnessed
her courage: he seemed increasingly struck by her moral qualities; he
had never observed these things in a girl before. Yesterday he had
taken her over to tea at the Vermonts; at her suggestion, they had
“told” the Vermonts, in confidence. It had been a success: she had been
made to feel at once she belonged to the regiment. She had had no idea
Mrs. Vermont was so jolly; she had taken Livvy off for a real little
chat in her bedroom; they agreed what a rag it would be if the regiment
went to China. Livvy looked voluptuously from Sir Richard to Lady
Naylor, thinking what a surprise she had here for them both. She ate
two helpings of fricasseed chicken, in absolute silence, designing her
trousseau dressing-gown; and old Mr. Montmorency, who sat beside her,
did not speak either.
“I like lunch at one,” said Lady Naylor, surprised. “It shortens the
morning, but gives one so much more time in the afternoon. I can’t
think why we don’t have it always.”
“I see no reason why we should not, my dear,” said Sir Richard, who,
unlike an English husband, was not conservative in these matters.
The car came round twenty minutes too early, but Sir Richard said the
chauffeur was quite right. He could hardly bear to let Marda drink
her coffee and was but slightly mollified when she burnt herself. Mr.
Montmorency sugared his coffee twice over, to Livvy’s delight. They
drank coffee out in the hall, standing up; it was like the Passover.
Marda went upstairs and came down in her travelling coat. Hugo stood at
the foot of the stairs, in the back hall, tightening the screws of his
racquet press.
“Good-bye,” she said. “Thank you for being nice to me.”
“Oh,” said he, looking blindly at her with his pale eyes, “have I been
nice to you? Good!”
“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye--Marda.”
“Don’t come on to the steps--”
“No, I’ll finish this press--”
They both half-turned, heard the pendulum of the clock swing once: she
went on into the hall. Everybody was there but Lois.
Lois stood behind the door in the drawing-room, waiting. “Marda,” she
said through the crack. “Hullo?” said Marda. She came round the door,
pushing it a little way to behind her. They kissed.
“Marda, I can’t--”
“Never mind.”
“_Darling!_”
“Be good!”
“Happy journey!”
“Oh yes.” They parted.
Marda came back to the hall, not looking at anybody in particular,
putting her gloves on. Lady Naylor asked her if she had packed the
cake. Sir Richard patted her arm and said she was a good girl and must
be sure and be happy--then looked very much abashed and startled at
what he had done. Laurence looked bored, so bored; she was sorry for
Laurence. She said: “I am really going.” “I’m sorry you’re going, I
don’t think it’s--” They shook hands, he immediately turned--rather
rudely, his uncle thought, and walked into the library.
After all, there were only Sir Richard and Lady Naylor and Francie to
wave Marda off from the steps and watch the car up the avenue into a
veil of rain. Rather few, they felt, considering what a dear she had
been and how they had come to love her. Wondering why and where the
others had gone, they tried to present the broadest possible expanse
of smile and flutter. And of this effort the flick of Marda’s gloved
finger-tips round the hood conveyed the friendliest, the most satirical
recognition.
“Well, that’s that,” said Livvy, at last discovering Lois in the
drawing-room. “Partings make me ever so sad. Now listen, Lois--”
“I’m afraid I’m not well, I’ve eaten something,” said Lois. “I’m
sorry--” She clapped her handkerchief to her mouth and fled from
the drawing-room by the other door, stumbling over the _portière_.
Livvy went a little way after her, talking, then came back: “It is a
disadvantage to a girl,” she reflected, “that kind of stomach.”
Lois found in the empty spare room a piece of paper that crept on the
floor like a living handkerchief. Through the defenceless windows came
in the vacancy of the sky; the grey ceiling had gone up in remoteness.
More wind came through, flowers moved in the vases, the pages of a book
left open beside the bed turned over hurriedly. The pillow was dinted,
as though half-way through packing Marda had lain down lazily. Or as
though since last night the pillow had not forgotten the feel of her
head.