Faster! Faster! (19 page)

Although it seemed to her that her whole miserable preoccupation was with Sylvia, and Sylvia's emotions, yet her mind continually dwelt on the thought of Andrew Quarrendon.

Then she'd been utterly wrong about him?

He was not the academic philanderer that she had expected him to be, he was not particularly attracted by the thought of a close intellectual affinity with herself, as so many men had been. Her sincerity, her direct intelligence, her faculty for real and vital conversation, really meant nothing to him at all. But after all, she hadn't expected him to fall in love with her. She had long ago faced the fact that sexual appeal, in herself had waned rapidly after the age of thirty. The men who liked her, who mildly fell in love with her—only she preferred to call it friendship—were attracted by quite other things. And it was those other things that kept them bound to her, regardless of the toll claimed and taken by the years.

No, she hadn't expected Quarrendon to fall in ove with her.

But she hadn't expected him, somehow, to fall in love with anybody else.

A housemaid came to the door—hesitated.

“It's all right,” said Claudia. “I'm going.”

Feeling as if there was no refuge for her anywhere, she sought the library. The room was deserted, and the wireless turned off.

As she sank into a chair, Copper appeared at the open window.

“Well?”

Claudia sat upright as if with a great effort. One could see her striving to dominate the lassitude that bound her.

“Come in, Copper. I've seen them both. He's asked her to marry him, but I don't think he really wants to marry anybody, and she knows it.”

“My God, if he doesn't want to marry her, what does he want? Does he suppose she's the sort he can keep in a flat in a back street somewhere?”

“Don't. What's the use of talking like that? It doesn't mean anything at all in a case like this.”

“Supposing, instead of lecturing me,” said her husband disagreeably, “that you tell me what's happened. Is Sylvia engaged to this blight?”

Claudia shook her head.

“I don't think they've settled anything. I've spoken to them both as honestly as I could. It did make a difference—at any rate to him. But the decision, now, rests with Sylvia. I feel, more than ever, that I've got to do what's really the hardest thing of all—leave her to live her own life without imposing my wishes, or even my views, on her.”

“My God, Claudia, stop theorizing. If you'd brought that child up properly, I don't suppose she'd be in this mess at all. And anyhow, there's no sense in talking as if it was grand tragedy. She can't be seriously attracted by the chap—and if she
is it won't last, at her age. But for heaven's sake don't go putting it into her head that there's any question of her making a life-and-death choice. That's all nonsense.”

Claudia gave him a look of mingled weariness and scorn.

“It's no good, Copper. You don't even begin to understand. Never mind. I'll do what I can about Sylvia—you needn't think about it any more. I imagine you'll admit—even you—that I do want what's best for my children. You'll give me that, won't you?”

“I tell you what,” said Copper with great deliberation, “I can't put things into words like you can, as you very well know, but there's something wrong about you somewhere, Claudia. You may do all the right things, for the children—I suppose you do, God knows you're clever all right—but you do them for the wrong reasons, or something. I don't know what it is. But you just think it over.”

So saying, he left her.

Ten minutes later Frances Ladislaw, entering the room, found Claudia there in tears.

She scarcely ever wept, and her tears had evidently exhausted her.

“It's all right,” she said, and summoned a smile for the reassurance of her startled friend. “It's all right, Frances dear. One or two things combined to upset me, and I'm tired, perhaps—and then Copper came in.”

“Claudia—I'm so sorry.”

“It's all right,” Claudia repeated, and she stood
up, with the old weary gesture of pushing back her hair from an aching forehead.

“He doesn't mean to be unkind,” she said in a low voice. “But they're rather incredible, sometimes—the things Copper says to me. I do everything that I can for the children—I've always done every single thing that I could for them, ever since they were born—but I suppose I make mistakes sometimes. Of course I do. Who doesn't? I try to face them, and acknowledge them. But he—he waits until I'm anxious or unhappy, and then—flicks me on the raw.”

“No, Claudia—no. Don't feel that. Copper may hurt you sometimes—as you've just said, who is there that doesn't make mistakes? But it's not on purpose. He couldn't hurt you on purpose.”

“Oh yes he could,” returned Claudia, decisively enough. “Never mind. I'm used to it by this time, and I don't let it interfere. One grows a protective shell, I suppose. And it doesn't hurt as things that are true might hurt. Copper talks at random—just relieving his own impatience and dissatisfaction with quite meaningless accusations or reproaches. They don't hurt,” repeated Claudia, “as they might hurt if they were true.”

Mrs Peel was wandering about searching, although she scarcely knew it, for somebody to whom she might talk of her grave apprehensions concerning her granddaughter Sylvia.

Copper, to whom she had addressed a preliminary “Oh dear,” had at once walked away, and Mrs Peel had decided that he could not have heard her.

Claudia was nowhere to be seen. Sal Oliver, whom Mrs Peel could not endure, seemed to meet her eye wherever she looked—but Mrs Peel and Sal Oliver were at least at one in their conviction that a
tête-à-tête
conversation between them could afford no gratification to either. With equal determination they ignored one another in spite of repeated encounters, until Sal at last accepted an invitation from Maurice to come and develop photographs with him in the cellar.

What affectation, reflected Mrs Peel unjustly. She can't
really
want to dabble about in a dark cellar.

Irritated, she sought the library once more. Taffy was sprawling across the sofa, reading a book and eating caramels.

“Ha, ha, ha, mais les hommes, les hommes sont rigolos!”

This merry proclamation rang stridently through the room and assaulted the ears of mrs peel three times in rapid succession.

“Really,” said Mrs peel.

Taffy, looking very glum, rose without speaking and, still reading her book, walked across the room and turned off the wireless.

“Where are the newspapers?” patiently enquired Mrs Peel.

“It's Bank Holiday. They don't deliver any newspapers to-day,” Taffy reminded her.

Giving her grandmother a glance full of hostility, she walked out at the open window.

Really, the children!

Mrs Peel sat on the sofa and thought how very odious children became the moment they ceased to be children.

Even her own Claudia and Anna, although perfectly brought up, seemed to her just as tiresome, ungrateful, inconsiderate, and unreasonable as did Taffy and Sylvia, who had not been perfectly brought up at all, but quite the contrary. She gazed sadly about her and felt relieved when Frances Ladislaw looked in at the window.

“Come in, come in,” said Mrs Peel. “I've not been downstairs very long, but I didn't have a good night.”

“I'm sorry. Perhaps it was the storm? It feels so fresh and nice outside now.”

“What about a little stroll?” mused Mrs Peel. “I don't know
where
Claudia is,” she added resentfully.

“I think she's upstairs.”

“Writing. Oh dear. Have you noticed how round-shouldered she's growing, with all this stooping over a desk and scribbling? How I wish she'd take advice!”

Frances smiled sympathetically—without, however, endorsing the aspiration.

“Would you care for a walk before lunch—just to the bottom of the drive?”

“Yes, certainly. Is it very wet underfoot?”

“It is a little, but the sun's drying things up.”

“I shall not be one moment,” said Mrs Peel.

A quarter of an hour later, wearing pointed black walking-shoes, a large straw hat and a pair of washing gloves, she joined Frances outside.

“Quite like old times,” she sighed.

She had always liked Frances. A quiet, nicely-mannered girl, without the good looks, brains, or personality of Mrs Peel's own daughters, and yet with sufficient intelligence to enjoy their friendship and the privilege of being a frequent visitor at Arling.

Without any particular intention of doing so, Mrs Peel found herself telling Frances by degrees all about her anxiety and distress over Sylvia. She had meant to be vague and general, and so indeed she was, but the story of Sylvia and Quarrendon found together in the schoolroom in the middle of the night filtered itself through her lamentations.

When Frances had disentangled the brief facts from Mrs Peel's storm of apprehensions, deductions,
and analogies with her experiences of one, if not two, previous generations, Frances felt that she understood Claudia's distress earlier in the morning.

Claudia, too, had known of the crisis, and it was on that account that Copper and she had quarrelled.

Frances quickly amended the thought, even in her own mind. Claudia didn't quarrel, ever. She said—Frances had often heard her say it—that quarrelling was uncivilized. But Copper, if he didn't quarrel, was frequently aggressive and disagreeable and would certainly hesitate not at all in blaming Claudia for anything that vexed him, whether justly or unjustly.

That was why Claudia had said that she did all she could for the children. And of course, thought Frances, so she did. Could any woman have worked harder or made more sacrifices? And surely her relationship with them was exceptional in its frankness and freedom?

Except perhaps, Frances admitted, in the case of Taffy. But it wasn't, now, Taffy who was in question.

Frances instinctively reserved judgment as to the affair of Sylvia and Andrew Quarrendon. The only account of it that she had received was from Mrs Peel, and not only were the general inferences of Mrs Peel always peculiar to herself, but she was also strangely unable to distinguish imagination from fact on any question that excited her personal prejudice.

Would Quarrendon now leave Arling, not waiting for the natural completion of his visit
on Tuesday? And would Claudia carry off the whole situation with her customary high-handed calm? Frances asked herself these and similar questions as she paced slowly along beside Mrs Peel and made, at suitable intervals, sounds expressive of commiseration and of modified agreement that she hoped did not amount to actual untruths.

Presently Claudia came towards them from the house.

She still looked pale but there were no traces left of her recent weeping and her voice was cheerful and matter-of-fact.

“Lunch is cold. I hope nobody minds. I was wondering what we could do that would be amusing, this afternoon. I'm afraid the court won't be dry enough for tennis, and the roads, of course, will be quite impossible and the beach too, so that rules out bathing.”

“What about a picnic?” Frances suggested. “We could find somewhere that's dry enough to sit down, with rugs, and it needn't be too far away. Do you ever picnic on the little common, where we used to go? That's right off the beaten track.”

“What a good idea.”

“Darling, the servants,” Mrs Peel said. “Won't it be giving them extra work?”

“The children get their own picnics ready,” Claudia returned crisply. “The maids are having the afternoon off. The girls can quite well cut sandwiches and pack up tea. I'll give them a hand.”

“You ought to rest. I think you do too much, Claudia.”

Claudia, as usual, made no reply—nor did her mother appear to expect one.

The picnic eventually resolved itself into a party consisting of Sal Oliver, Claudia's three children, and Andrew Quarrendon—who showed no signs of any intention of curtailing his visit.

Copper Winsloe retired to his workshop and Claudia declared that she had some writing to do. Mrs Peel was persuaded into ringing up an old friend in the neighbourhood, and allowing herself to be fetched and taken over to play Bridge.

“If you don't very much want to go for the picnic, Frances, will you stay and keep me company?” Claudia murmured.

Since she had been told by her mother that Frances was aware of the crisis, it seemed to Claudia that she could find a certain relief in talking to her friend.

After an hour of tense, concentrated work at the writing-table she turned to Frances, placidly glancing through the pages of a novel in the window-seat.

“That's done. Who was it that originally said life was just one dam' thing after another?”

“The mother of a family, I expect,” Frances suggested.

“Probably. Frances, I'd like your advice. Mother says she told you what happened last night.”

“I hope you don't very much mind,” Frances apologized.

“I don't a bit mind your knowing. I'm rather glad. I wanted to talk to you, but it seemed a little unfair, perhaps, to tell you. However, I might have guessed poor Mother wouldn't ever keep it to herself. I'm staving off, with the utmost difficulty, the long talk that she's certainly determined to have with me sooner or later. But what's the use of long talks, after all, with someone who simply takes a preconceived, conventional view of the whole thing?”

“I think she realizes that meeting a man in the middle of the night isn't quite the wild indiscretion that it would have been in our day.”

“Does she?” said Claudia abstractedly.

She came and sat on the broad window-seat beside her friend.