Return I Dare Not Read online

  There was only one thing to be done. He must take them by surprise. He must do something quite, quite new. For he had got to the top of the ladder too soon, and to stay there, perching nervously for the rest of his life, would look absurd.

  He would become a poet. He would write those poems of which he had already spoken to Adrian. He would listen to the music in the shell. He would hold up the train as it flashed out of the tunnel. He would dive down into the Other Life. In that existence, experienced momentarily inside his soul, all things hung together: they had some collective relationship. That was why horses against the skyline, or a memory of a tossed tamarisk hedge, would start an echo. They threw shadows which were not their own.

  “Hugo’s poetry is marvellous.”

  “It’s much better than his plays.”

  “Extraordinary career that fellow has had.”

  But poets were generally such dank people. They hid in the country or in basements and at luncheon parties they always looked a little unkempt. Or else they were very old and distinguished and got buried in Westminster Abbey. He did not want to be buried just yet. He wanted Aggie to think well of him. And he wanted to get out of the tunnel. Either one or the other, and, if possible, both.

  For surely once, once, he had lived in the light: among the tamarisks, beside the chicken run, before he was born, perhaps. There had been a time when everything seen and heard, a dog barking in the street, the pattern of his aunt’s tea cups, the whole texture of life, had been full of mystery and excitement. Nothing had escaped him; every experience, however small, had fed his flame, had become part and parcel of his dream. He knew that it had been so once, just as he knew that the illumination had failed him. It had happened. To make it happen again might be, simply, a question of effort. Perhaps he had not tried quite hard enough. But he needed help. He wanted a call from somewhere, outside himself. He would have prayed for it, had he known of any God disposed to listen. And he was very nearly praying, for, as he walked this way and that among the trees and bushes, a prayer, long forgotten, came back into his mind.

  “Renew …” he muttered. “… renew,” (because it had been there once) … “Renew Thy spirit within me.”

  18. Mrs. Dulcibel Usher.

  At the end of the shrubbery path there was a stile. It led into the churchyard where a few villagers were paying their Sunday morning visit to the graves and filling the jam crocks with fresh bunches of stock and sweet-william. Also a party of tourists were straying about among the tombstones. He could see their car waiting for them at the corner by the church. One of them had climbed up on to the stile and was peering inquisitively through the trees. She seemed to be in half a mind to climb over and when Hugo drew near she asked him if this path was private. Immediately afterwards she exclaimed:

  “Hugo Pott?”

  He looked up at her and realised that it was Mrs. Usher. The sight of her galvanised him at once. He felt his geniality tap turn on with the explosive gush which so often succeeds a slight air lock. For she was an old friend. He seized her hand and wrung it warmly, crying:

  “Why! Look who’s here!”

  At least she did not know what a mess he was making of things. To her he must still be a miracle. He saw her froglike mouth expand into a broad and happy smile. This was a wonderful piece of luck for her. She had only meant to trespass a very little way into the Syranwood grounds and pick up enough to make a short paragraph. Before ever she climbed up on the stile the opening lines were written in her head:

  … I’ve been spending the week-end on the Downs near Syranwood, which is, of course, the famous Rivaz place. And oh, my dears, the beauty of it! The old church …

  But here was something much more valuable than any old church—Hugo Pott, whom she claimed to have discovered, whose ghost still hovered benignly over her Sunday evening salons, was good for a couple of paragraphs any day.

  … I ran over to Syranwood which is of course … and had a chat with Hugo Pott who tells me …

  With his notorious good nature she could get quite a lot out of him. Casting an eye at her friends in the churchyard, who were rival journalists, she nipped lightly over the stile into the sacred ground.

  “Be an angel and tell me who else is staying here?” she began eagerly. “And what are they all doing? Is there anybody …?”

  Hugo understood and shook his head. As far as he knew there were no blacklegs in the party, and no gossip would be sold on Monday. But before giving her any information he hesitated a little. It was rather a return to the chicken run, this alliance with a breadwinner. If he was really going to make a habit of these week-ends he ought to rid himself of people like Mrs. Usher. But then Syranwood had not been so very kind to him, and he was not so sure of ever coming back. And a few crumbs of news, the outline of a ‘story’ might make all the difference to her, poor old thing. Even if the seven orphans were all grown up there were probably grandchildren. Here she was, still tapping away on her typewriter, sending her grandchildren to St. Paul’s, or possibly Westminster, while peeresses with sons at Eton and bridge debts to pay snatched more bread out of her mouth every year. It was a shame.

  “Well. There’s Aggie.”

  “Lady Aggie? Ooh! Wait a minute while I get my stylo. Yes?”

  “I’ve just been reading my new play to her,” he added carelessly.

  “Oh, have you? I’d just love to hear anything you can tell me about that.”

  It was curious how she licked her lips, a trait he had forgotten. And he had never seen her in country clothes before, only in an amber satin tea gown with an imitation jade string. Now she wore tweeds of a pepper and salt colour. She looked like some immense amphibian which might have come out of the pool to hop about secretively among the trees, something as unlike the inhabitants of Syranwood as a toad is unlike a man. As he told her about his new play and she took it all down with her stylo, his thoughts plunged down through the successive levels of his rise to glory, past Caroline Chappell and Antibes, the Acorn, club dinners, Joey and Squirrel, till it fetched up among the rancid cakes in Mrs. Usher’s studio. They had discussed Aggie a good deal then, he remembered.

  “And Cornelius Cooke …”

  “ ‘Corny’ Cooke … yes?”

  “And Adrian Upward …”

  She was not interested. Adrian was not news.

  “And Lady Geraldine’s daughter, Lady Le Fanu …”

  “Dear little Laura!”

  “What?”

  “How is she? I’ve not seen her for ages.”

  “She’s very well,” said Hugo in surprise.

  He thought that Laura must have grown a good deal since Mrs. Usher last saw her.

  “Though I’m sure I don’t know why I call her little. But then I always think of her as so, so young. And my goodness! What a handful! She lived with me for some time, you know.”

  “Lived with you?” cried Hugo, trying to conceal his astonishment. “No, I didn’t know.”

  “I daresay you wouldn’t. It was a madcap scheme she had. She wanted me to teach her how to run a house. Very sensible really. But I oughtn’t to have taken it on with all my work. I couldn’t look after her properly and felt she was running wild.”

  “I see. And that’s how Ford got to know her.”

  “Oh, no,” said Mrs. Usher quickly. “I don’t think so. She never saw much of Ford. He … he wasn’t at home at the time. In fact I don’t think they ever met.”

  “Oh?”

  Hugo opened his mouth to mention Ford’s presence at Syranwood. But he shut it again, paused for reflection, and asked:

  “Have you seen much of her since?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Usher. “As a matter of fact, I think she was very hurt that I wouldn’t keep her. But do tell me, Hugo, who else is here? You see, to be quite frank, I’m very keen to get a good paragraph. You see, Mélisande, who does our Gossip Page, Lady Symes she is, has got phlebitis and I’m carrying on for her, and I believe I’ve got just the ghost of a chance of
pinching her job. Of course, you know, Hugo, times aren’t what they were, when I began. I mean you have to be in the know so much. With these society women wanting to earn money, the likes of me are getting crowded out, because of course they get all the chances, and all the plums go to them. But if only I could put it over that I can do as well as she can! Of course your play and how you’ve been reading it to Lady Agneta, that’s the goods. But is there nothing else?”

  Goodnaturedly he told her that Aggie was rehearsing ’Tis Pity, that Adrian was going to Paul Wrench’s funeral in East Prussia, and that Walter Bechstrader had been to church.

  “Walter Bechstrader? Not really! Well, the luck some people have! I’d give anything, anything in the world for an introduction to that man. You wouldn’t guess how often I’ve tried to wangle it. I know he could help Ford.”

  “And then there’s Marianne,” said Hugo hastily. “A granddaughter. Oh well. She’s nobody much. Just a girl.”

  “Marianne Rivaz?”

  “No. I don’t think so. I … I’ve forgotten …”

  He had never known. And it came to him with quite a shock that he should have lived so long without knowing Marianne’s surname.

  “She doesn’t count,” he insisted.

  “Girls make quite good news nowadays,” said Mrs. Usher. “I mean débutantes and the younger set and all that. Is there anything about her you could give me?”

  “No, nothing … nothing …”

  “Does she belong to this Monkey Club? Is she likely to be engaged or anything like that?”

  “No. Oh, no. Certainly not. She does the flowers.”

  He would tell her anything she wanted to know about Aggie, but he was not going to betray Marianne.

  “I see. What sort of flowers do they have? Do they have them on the dinner table, I mean? Do they have coloured glass? And a cloth? Or is the table polished? You see, entre camarades, it would be such a score if I could make it sound as if I’d lunched there. Where does this path go?”

  “This goes to the swimming pool.”

  “The swimming pool. Oh, I must peep at that. I’ve heard of it. I could suggest that I’d bathed in it, couldn’t I?”

  “You could,” agreed Hugo, with a faint quiver of mirth. “But be careful, for I think there’s somebody there already.”

  They paused and heard a loud splash behind the bushes.

  “Oh. Then I’ll be very careful.”

  She peered over the top of an arbutus and asked in a raucous whisper which of them it was.

  “Bechstrader,” said Hugo, also peering.

  “O … O … Oh!”

  She craned up eagerly to look at the man who could do so much for Ford. But all they could see of Bechstrader was a brisk grey head travelling up and down the pool at a great rate.

  “You couldn’t … you couldn’t possibly introduce me, Hugo?”

  Hugo shook his head.

  “It wouldn’t do,” he told her.

  “Oh, Hugo. You’re so kind. You’re too kind to say no. To an old friend. You’re always so good to your old friends. It would mean so much to me. I can’t tell you how grateful I should be. It isn’t for myself. It’s for Ford. I know he might do something for Ford if he was approached in the right way.”

  “But it’s lunch time. Really I ought to …”

  “Just let us stroll along that path till we come out by the pool. We can stand and watch him for a little while and then you can do it quite naturally. I’ll do the rest. You needn’t say who I am. You can go in to your lunch when you’ve done it. Hugo! You won’t refuse me.”

  “Mrs. Usher … it won’t do.”

  “Since when have I become Mrs. Usher to you, Hugo?”

  “My dear Dulcie … I can’t. I ought to have told you before. I think he and Ford have met already.”

  “You think?” She stared at him. “Oh no. Impossible. I’m sure he hasn’t. Ford would have told me. Why do you think that? Has he ever said anything about Ford?”

  Hugo looked up at the trees and down at the path and wondered why such things should be fated to happen to him.

  “Oh dear,” he said dolefully. “I am in a mess! You see, as a matter of fact, he’s staying here …”

  “Yes. I know. You told me …”

  “I don’t mean Bechstrader. I mean … Ford …”

  “Ford? Ford? What? Not here?”

  “Yes. At Syranwood for the week-end. But I didn’t like to mention it because evidently you didn’t know. I was so taken aback that I thought … oh well, it doesn’t matter what I thought … I behaved like an idiot …”

  “Not here? Not in the house?”

  “I thought perhaps he didn’t want to tell you until he’d got something fixed up with Bechstrader, with Bechstrader, you know, in case you might be disappointed …”

  Hugo looked at her hopefully, rather pleased at having hit upon so plausible a story. But she hardly seemed to be listening. Her greenish face was slowly turning purple and she was gasping for breath. And in her eyes there was such an expression of despair that he felt ashamed and lowered his own while he repeated:

  “He came, I believe, expressly to meet Bechstrader.”

  There was a long pause, during which they heard a succession of splashes from the pool. Bechstrader was doing high dives. But she made no movement in that direction.

  Hugo stood miserably, first on one foot and then on the other, fearing that anything he said might make matters worse, and a little afraid, also, lest she might be going to have some sort of seizure. But after a few seconds she pulled herself together. Sitting down heavily on a small rustic bench by the path she got breath enough to mutter hoarsely:

  “No. He didn’t.”

  “Didn’t?”

  “Didn’t come to meet Bechstrader. You know he didn’t.”

  “I don’t know what else …”

  “Yes, you do. He came for her … that woman …”

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” thought Hugo.

  But aloud he said, in assumed bewilderment:

  “What woman? What do you mean?”

  “Oh yes, you know whom I mean. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

  “Really and truly, Dulcie, I don’t know a thing. I hardly know Ford. I knew he was brought here to meet Bechstrader.”

  She began to rock herself backwards and forwards on the seat.

  “Oh, I knew there was something. I guessed there was some woman. He’s been upset for months. I knew he wasn’t always at the Guthrie when he said he was. I thought it was some little slut of a student working in his laboratories. I was ready for that. But this … this …”

  “Don’t you think you’re letting your imagination run away with you?”

  “Oh no. No, I don’t. Why should he lie to me? He said he was going to Sussex this week-end. He never lied to me before.”

  This was not true. Ford had lied to her for years, and she to him. They both knew it. He resented her domination and outwitted her when she tried to spy on him. She was his mother, but he did not love her any more. A remorseful gratitude was all that bound him to her now. But they both pretended this was not so.

  “After all I’ve done for him!”

  She had not been able to make him happy. She had never won his love. She was driven back into a recital of everything else that she had done.

  “You couldn’t know, Hugo. Nobody could ever know. The years, of overwork. It was such a cruel struggle to get him educated. I gave him a better education than the others. He was the youngest. I adored him. He was born after my husband died. I had nobody to turn to. I had to do it all myself. I’ve worked all night, often. I’ve tramped round London … people say I drink, and it’s no wonder if I do. I’ve been so tired. I kept him for years when he wasn’t earning anything. The others all began earning as soon as they’d left school. But he was so brilliant. Everybody said so. I was so proud of him. I believed in him. I always knew he would make his way in the end. I backed him up through everything. I sent him to
Yeshenku. And now … just when he’s begun to make his way … now, to have this awful business start again now. To see him ruined! Yes … ruined …”

  She began to cry, and Hugo’s fatigued voice interrupted her, as he tried to think of consoling things to say.

  “Oh, how can you say such things? Dulcie, how can you? Why, he’s marvellous! Everybody is talking about him. He’s been asked down here especially to meet Walter Bechstrader …”

  “She may give out that, I daresay. But if that’s all there is to it he’d have told me. It isn’t that, and their being so sly about it only makes it worse. It shows she’s ashamed of herself. You know as well as I do that he’s come here because of her. Oh God! I wish I’d died when he was born. I nearly did. I wish I had.”

  Her tears, her obvious misery, upset Hugo. He could not bear to see anyone so unhappy, and he sat down on the bench beside her, patting her hands and murmuring consolations. His head ached and he wanted his lunch, but he put the thought of it out of his head.

  “After all, you know, even if your suspicions are true, there’s no harm done, is there? Nobody gets through life without affairs of some sort or another. She may attract him. I daresay she does. She’s a very attractive person. But that won’t hurt him. It’ll probably do him good. Buck him up …”

  “Oh no, it won’t. He’s got no time for that sort of thing. An affair with one of the girls at the Institute, yes! That’s to be expected. But he hasn’t the time or the money to take up with a woman like her. She’ll waste his time. She’ll exhaust him. She’ll keep him dangling after her till he’s fit for nothing but a lunatic asylum. She’ll keep him from marrying some nice girl, who’d make a good home for him. I know. I’ve seen it before. She could always turn him round her little finger. She was always making eyes at him, from the moment she came into my house …”

  “But …”

  She had forgotten her easy lie of five minutes ago, and that Ford and Laura were not supposed to have met. But he did not remind her. He listened in silence.