We were to be married in July, as soon as Walter’s term ended.
Grandmother had arranged that, I think, with Walter.
Cousin Delia said:
‘Wait a little. Wait till the Autumn, or even Christmas.’
Mrs. Sebright said July seemed rather soon.
Walter said:
‘Why wait, now it is settled?’
I let them arrange it as they liked. I felt all the time quite
passive, as though things happened, and decisions were made,
quite separately from me; it was not my business to interfere;
I just watched.
And I thought:
‘Now this is happening, now that. Now she is engaged to be married.
Now she is looking for a house. Now they are getting clothes
for her. Now, sheets. Soon there will be a wedding in a church.
And what then?’
It was as though I were watching it all from a long way off.
We found a house in Hampstead; number seven, Edinburgh Terrace.
It was a stucco house, semi-detached, with a garden back and
front, and a high flight of steps up to the front door. There
was a stucco wall between the road and the garden in front, and
a straight path that sloped up from the gate to the front door,
so that the house itself looked high up, higher than it really
was. There were lilac bushes at the side of the house, where
the back door was, and a trellis gate that led through to the
garden behind. There was a verandah at the back, with iron steps
leading down to the back garden. The gardens were oblong strips
of grass, neglected for some time. The whole terrace had been
built, I should think, about 1850; it was old-fashioned, and
a little dilapidated; much more attractive, I thought, than more
modern houses, and Walter thought it cheap.
I wanted to have the outside of it painted; it had been painted
a sort of cream colour once, and I wanted it white, and the windows
and door bright green. It was the sort of house that ought to
be white and green.
Walter said he thought it would do as it was. We could decorate
it inside, and then see how much money we had left. We had five
hundred pounds to spend on decorating and furniture; Mrs. Sebright
said that would be ample; Grandmother said we must do the best
we could with that, and that she would make up the extras. I
could see that she did not think it would be enough.
Cousin Delia came to see the house. She stood on the steps and
looked at the front garden.
She said:
‘You should grow roses here; red roses, I think. Richmond, or
General Macarthur; and a pond in the middle, perhaps.’