Return I Dare Not Read online

  Tango, smelling of soap, shot off to find a nice midden where he could roll, and Marianne went upstairs to change her overall. There was an empty Sunday feeling about the house, as if even time was giving itself a rest. Still whistling she pulled off her white shroud and sat down beside the window in her petticoat, while she got some of Tango’s mud from behind her nails with an orange stick and a piece of cotton wool. When that was done she whipped herself on to attack her Sunday reading. For a year, ever since Miss Fosdyke left, she had kept it up. She had promised. On Sunday she would sit down and read a Great Book for an hour and in this way she might hope to become, in a few years, really well-read. She did not enjoy it, but as she had promised she persisted. Miss Fosdyke had cried so much at leaving her that she felt bound to humour the poor thing. Last week she had finished The Excursion and now she thought that she would try Paradise Lost. She went over to the bookshelf and thought as she surveyed the smug façade of bindings:

  “Oh dear! How I do hate poetry!”

  Taking down Wordsworth she extracted the bus ticket which she used as a marker and transferred it to Milton. To lie down on her bed, as she would have liked to do, would be fatal. She had fallen asleep too often over Sordello to risk it. So she chose the hardest chair in the room, sat down upon it, and went to work with scrupulous and earnest attention. But the long strips of blank verse stood up like walls against her. They would yield no meaning. Her eye kept slipping off the page, although Miss Fosdyke had prophesied that in a year’s time she would have conceived a passionate love of literature. She wished the miracle would hurry up.

  In a small shelf at the head of her bed there were half a dozen books which had given her real pleasure. She had read them so often that she knew them by heart and wherever she opened them it was not like reading at all, but simply slipping off into another world where the very air was different. But not one of them would have passed Miss Fosdyke’s censorship. They were not Great Books. They were not poetry.

  After twenty minutes’ hard labour she gave it up and reached over to her own shelf. Without looking she pulled out the first volume that she touched, opened it, and read:

  ‘… And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I heard people talking at the ferry landing. I heard what they said, too, every word of it. One man said it was getting towards the long days and the short nights, now. T’other one said this warn’t one of the short ones, he reckoned—and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and they laughed again: then they waked up another fellow and told him, and laughed, but he didn’t laugh: he ripped out something brisk and said let him alone. The first fellow said he ’lowed to tell it to his old woman—she would think it was pretty good; but he said that warn’t nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say it was nearly three o’clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn’t wait more than about a week longer. After that, the talk got further and further away, and I couldn’t make out the words any more, but I could hear the mumble; and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off …’

  The green and white of her bedroom melted away. She was floating down an enormous river in a country which she had never seen but which she knew as well as she knew the Ullmer Downs. She was doing what she had always longed to do: floating on, and on, with the current, close down to the water on a raft, not high up on a noisy boat, floating all day and all night with no goal in front of her and no place where she ought to stop. She heard the lap of the water against her raft and saw the lights of a little town blink out from the shore a mile away. For it was growing dark, and the river banks were long black lines under a dim sky. Only the water still had gleams of light in it somewhere, as if it had stored up lucence from the day. Between her and the shore it lay like a pale gleaming desert as the town swung past and was lost round a bend. She was happy. If only poetry could make her feel like that!

  20. The Invader.

  A knock on her door came from very far off and she took some seconds to answer it.

  “If you please, Miss Marianne, Fletcher says there’s a lady downstairs asking for Mr. Usher. She’s in the drawing-room and we can’t find anybody. Her ladyship’s gone over to Brassing.”

  “Can’t they find Mr. Usher?”

  “No, Miss. Fletcher saw him in the garden with Miss Upward, about an hour ago, but he doesn’t seem to be anywhere about. And Lady Le Fanu has gone over to Brassing too. The lady said she’d wait.”

  Marianne groaned and shut her book.

  “Thank you. I’ll come. Tell them to go on looking for Mr. Usher.”

  She knew that it was part of her business to entertain callers if Laura or her grandmother were out of the way. So she changed her shoes and stockings, pulled on a white pleated skirt, tucked her blouse in neatly, and pummelled her head severely with a brush. Remembering her nose, she rushed back to the glass to powder it, got to the door again, ran back to remove nearly all the powder, swung downstairs. Good drilling had cured her of some of her shyness. She knew what she had to do. She would walk this woman round and round and round the garden until somebody came.

  But the drawing-room, with its open doors and windows, seemed, at the first glance, to be empty. She could not see anybody, though she was aware of a curious pause, a stillness in the long, shadowy room. Amid the airy spaces and motionless bowls of flowers some eye was watching her intently. She advanced a little way among the chairs and sofas and then came to a standstill, startled and confused, the smile of civility frozen on her face. A slight movement made her jump. In the darkest corner of the room, by the little table where the visitors’ book was kept, somebody had turned a page. The book was quickly shut and a short, brown woman came into the light, saying in a voice that was odd and friendly:

  “How do you do? Do you recognise me?”

  Marianne did recognise her. It was the woman she had seen with Hugo before lunch.

  “I …” she began confusedly. “I …”

  But the woman had come closer to her and interrupted:

  “Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn’t see. I thought it was Laura.”

  “I’m so sorry they’re out,” said Marianne. “My grandmother will be very sorry. She …”

  “I didn’t come to see her,” said the lady. “Or Laura either for that matter. So it doesn’t matter. I want to see my son. Ford Usher. My name is Mrs. Usher.”

  “I think he’s in the garden,” said Marianne.

  “So they tell me. But they don’t seem to be able to find him.”

  “Perhaps he’s gone for a walk.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Could I … can we give him a message … or …”

  “No. You can’t give him a message.”

  The lady sat down with a very determined air and added:

  “I’ll wait. I suppose I may wait?”

  “Oh yes,” said Marianne. “I’m sure he’ll be back quite soon. Wouldn’t you … would you care to walk round the garden?”

  “No thanks. I’ve walked quite enough to-day.”

  Marianne sat down too because that seemed to be the only thing to do. The lady looked so angry that it hardly seemed safe to talk to her. And it was very strange that she should speak of Laura by her Christian name. It looked like impertinence, and Marianne knew how to deal with that in a general way. But it might not be. It might be a form of shyness.

  A long silence ensued during which the stranger examined her young hostess from head to heels most attentively, and then stared about the room. Presently she said:

  “You’re not out yet, are you?”

  Marianne stared at her. What did the woman mean? Out?

  “You haven’t been presented?”

  “No. Oh no,” said Marianne, beginning to understand.

  “When shall you come out?”

  “Next spring, I believe.”

  “Really? You’ll be presented then, I suppose?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “How old are you?”

  Mari
anne wanted to say thirty, but contented herself with twenty-one. Mrs. Usher looked surprised and then suspicious.

  “That’s very old to come out.”

  “Is it?”

  “Older than most girls. Are you looking forward to it?”

  Marianne drew herself up and began to reply very coldly. But Mrs. Usher went on. She asked if Marianne had been to school, and if she meant to take up a career and if she did not think it splendid the way girls took up careers nowadays, and if most of her girl friends had taken up careers, and if she thought modern freedom was a good thing, and if she despised post-war young men, and if she was going to grow her hair, and whether her grandmother would give a dance in London for her next year.

  At last Marianne could stand it no longer. Murmuring something about telling them to bring tea, she made her escape into the hall where she found Hugo loitering among the dogs.

  “There’s a most extraordinary person in the drawing-room,” she told him. “I think she must be a reporter or something. But she says she is Ford Usher’s mother.”

  “She’s both,” said Hugo. “And I’m afraid I brought her here. I had to. I met her in the village and she wants to see Ford. Did she ask you a lot of questions?”

  “Yes. She was very rude. But Hugo …”

  “I know … I know …”

  He looked at her to see how much she also knew. But she was merely puzzled.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

  “I’m afraid she won’t go until she has seen Ford. So the thing to do is to get hold of him as soon as we can. I’ve been all over everywhere, and nobody has seen him apparently.”

  “I think he’s gone for a walk with Solange. Must I go on talking to her till he comes?”

  “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t tumble to it, till we were actually on the doorstep, that she was …”

  He paused and looked nervously at the drawing-room door.

  “But is she always so very queer?”

  He shook his head.

  “The fact is, I’m terribly afraid … you see I lunched with her …”

  “I know.”

  “Did you? How did you know?”

  “I saw you with her in the garden and you didn’t come in to lunch, so I concluded you were lunching with her.”

  “Holmes, you’re … wonderful!”

  So at least one person had noticed his absence. They had not all taken it for granted that he should fade away as soon as Aggie has ceased to find him amusing. He could not keep himself from asking anxiously:

  “I suppose it was all right?”

  “What?”

  “Your grandmother didn’t mind my lunching with them? She didn’t think it rude?”

  “Oh no,” Marianne assured him. “I don’t think she knew. Lunch went on a long time because the golfers came in late. I think I was the only one who …”

  She stopped and flushed. Hugo was relieved but a trifle resentful. Remembering his triumphant exit from the Acorn yesterday he felt that Marianne ought not to have been the only one. But there was something that he wanted to ask her.

  “I say,” he said impetuously, “I’m quite mad, but do you know I don’t know your surname. I suddenly realised it this morning.”

  “Fleming,” said Marianne. “But about Mrs. Usher?”

  “Oh yes. Mrs. Usher. I’m afraid she’s rather … upset.”

  “Has she got bad news for Ford?”

  “Something of the sort.”

  “I see. Well, I’ll ply her with tea and keep her soothed till he’s found.”

  “No,” said Hugo. “I’ll give her tea. And you look for Ford. I expect I’ll manage her better.”

  He pulled himself together and went into the drawing-room. Mrs. Usher was still sitting as though she defied anyone to remove her. She glared up at him and said truculently:

  “You think I’m drunk, I suppose?”

  “Yes,” said Hugo. And then: “No. Not really. But you aren’t quite yourself, you know. I think you braced yourself up a bit too much at lunch. If I were you I shouldn’t see Ford just now. You won’t do any good. Go away and have it all out with him when you’ve thought it over.”

  “Go away? What a hope! Go away? Now that I’ve got here? I suppose you’re ashamed to be seen with me. Oh yes. I daresay they would like to get me out of the house. I know too much, don’t I?”

  Her voice was rising to a pitch of uncontrolled fury. It rang and jarred through the spacious quiet of the room, until three rose petals fell from the bowl behind her as if the shaken air had disturbed them. They floated slowly to the carpet and Hugo picked them up. He made no further protest, but the silence, when she had finished speaking, was like a rebuke. She seemed to feel it and she drew herself in with a suspicious glance behind her. The disadvantages of her position were dawning on her clouded mind and her next remark showed a vacillation of purpose.

  “You’d do the same if you were me, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t quite know what it is that you want to do.”

  “I want to save him … from her.”

  “Yes. But how? You won’t do it simply by making a scene. And are you quite sure what it is that you’re afraid of? You say she’ll waste his time and make a fool of him. But at the bottom of your heart you’re wondering …”

  “What?”

  “If she doesn’t still care for him.”

  “Oh no!” said Mrs. Usher quickly. “That’s impossible.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She was not sure, and that was why she had forced her way into Syranwood.

  “You mean I’ve come here to see her, not him?”

  “I think you’d better make up your mind which you’ve come to see, and what it is you want to find out.”

  She shook her head, and said that she could not make up her mind about anything. She was too much upset.

  “When that girl came in I thought she was Laura.”

  “Did you? Marianne? How strange!”

  “She’s very like Laura.”

  “Not a bit,” said Hugo crossly.

  “Very like Laura ten years ago. She’s her niece, I suppose. Not so pretty, but she has the look. Only Laura was always more … what’s the word? … voluptuous or something. Came dashing into the room like a cavalry charge and then pulled up and wondered where she was. I thought: ‘Here’s our Laura.’ That sounds funny, but it’s quite true. ‘Our Laura,’ I thought. As if there was nothing to worry about. And there wouldn’t be if she was …”

  Fletcher came in with tea for two and set it on a little table in front of the sofa where they were sitting. Hugo poured out and induced her to eat a cress sandwich. And when Fletcher was gone he distracted her mind by describing all that he could remember of the domestic arrangements of Syranwood. He felt that time was everything and still hoped to get her away without a scene. Her truculence had quite disappeared. She drank three cups, listened to his gossip with a sombre attention, and at length accepted a cigarette.

  “But you’re being nice to me,” she said suddenly, as he lighted it. “I think you’re being very kind. You’re so sympathetic.”

  “Am I?”

  “I mean you understand.”

  “Not the same thing,” said Hugo grimly.

  She looked at him quickly. Her mind was growing clearer.

  “No,” she agreed. “You understand with your head and sympathise with your heart. But you can do both, Hugo. That’s why everybody likes you.”

  “Does everybody like me?”

  “Oh now! Don’t fish! You’re the most popular …”

  She was shaking a playful finger at him, but he gave her a look so grave that she left off laughing and said soberly:

  “Well, anyhow, you’ve been an angel to me. Because you really think I’m quite in the wrong, don’t you? You think I oughtn’t to interfere.”

  “I think it’s too late. You can’t live his life for him, you know.”

  “I want him to be happy,” she
cried.

  Hugo leant back in his chair and shut his eyes. They ached and his head rang with all the jokes and giggles that had gone on at the Ullmer Arms. Also he could listen sympathetically if he was not looking at her. That voice, speaking in the darkness, had accents of grief which convinced him that she suffered. But sitting before him he could only see Mrs. Dulcibel Usher, whom he had so often mimicked, and who wanted to pinch Mélisande’s job. Those pepper and salt tweeds, that greedy mouth, were too impenetrable a disguise.

  “He might have been happy,” toiled on the sorrowing voice. “He was happy before she came. I had a premonition … yes, a premonition. That first night. I knew. I was working very late with my serial. And when I went to bed I saw a light under his door. I suppose, at the back of my mind, I was afraid of her. I don’t know. I didn’t think anything specially, but I felt frightened.”

  There was a pause and Hugo murmured:

  “Umhum?”

  “I looked in. He was asleep. He’d fallen asleep reading a score. He used to read scores in bed. I … I looked at him … and I was so unhappy. I felt as if I could never do anything for him really. As if all that I was doing was no good. I don’t know. It … was …”

  Her voice trailed off as though she had found no words adequate to the emotion which she was attempting to describe. She could never lay bare to another mind that picture of her son, lying asleep among his scores, so lost, mutinous and young, his clumsy boy’s hands flung out empty across the counterpane. His bare little room rose up before her, and the deal table where he worked, with a shelf of scores above it and a picture of the Himalayas which he had torn out of the Illustrated London News and pinned up on the wall. And once more she saw his life as she had seen it then, not as a thing which she had made but as having travelled already far beyond her keeping. She knew, even then, that he was looking forward to a time when he should get away from her. And she would let him go.