Sunflower (22 page)

Hurrell’s fingers closed over the offered hand. Huskily he said, ‘You are my dear Essington … indeed. There’s a saying we have in Scotland … It sounds foolish in English … A sight for sore eyes …’

‘It certainly does sound wrong,’ said Essington querulously, dropping into an armchair by the bed. ‘Sore eyes … It reminds me of the days we were in opposition together and used to join forces to bully that ass Prester when he was at the Home Office. We used to allege that he exposed Russian immigrants to stricter eye tests than the other immigrants because they were free-spirited rebels against the Tsardom. I wonder now if that was true …’

‘Let not two politicians in the autumn of their days sit down and distress themselves by discussing how much of what they used to say was true,’ objected Hurrell, ‘particularly what they used to say when they were in opposition.’ He got back to what was evidently a little prepared speech. ‘But I couldn’t tell you you were a sicht for sair een, for I would never dare use Scottish dialect to you after an evening we spent at a play by a compatriot of mine called Sir James Barrie. Your comments were most unsympathetic. Do you not remember? We were taken in a party by Lucille Oppenshaw.’

‘How I detest that woman,’ said Essington. ‘We Liberals brought our own ruin on ourselves. We ought to have seen that no man was fit to lead a Party who had been fool enough to marry that woman. There were no sensuous inducements. That toasting-fork figure makes celibacy seem a life of riotous self-indulgence.’

Hurrell said ‘Tchk! Tchk!’ in a shocked, delighted way, and laughed into his pillow. Sunflower moved to a sofa that was set against the wall, facing the end of the bed. Francis Pitt was standing looking at the two men with a gratified yet wistful expression, as if he had arranged this meeting and was very glad that it was going off well, but that he had not wished it to go so well that they would both forget all about him. Presently he strolled over to his sister, who was sitting by a table near the sofa, and lounged over the back of a chair. Suddenly he caught sight of a bottle on the table and started up right, exclaiming in a vehement undertone: ‘But he’s still taking that French stuff! You know Cornelliss said he was to have the German brand! Oh, Etta, Etta!’

‘It’s only because the German brand hadn’t come when it was time for him to have his last dose. But very likely the German has come by now, and he can have it next time. I’ll see if you like.’

‘Go now, go now …’

To the closing door he said, but too late for her to hear, ‘Thank you, my dear,’ and went and sat down in an armchair on the other side of the bed.

Hurrell said: ‘I’ve often thought of that evening. The things you said. I missed you a lot after you left. I don’t know how often I’ve said to myself, when something ridiculous happened, “I wish Essington had been here. He’d have laughed at that, and maybe said one of his things!” Nobody else ever said things like you. I’ve always told people who’ve come in since you’ve left, “There was never such good company as Essington.’”

Francis Pitt jumped forward on his chair as if he expected to have to give corroboration of this; but this was not asked, and he sat back.

‘Yes, we were always good friends,’ said Essington, with an air of grudging the admission, of cantankerousness reluctantly giving way to amity.

Hurrell meditated: ‘It’s funny what a lot jokes count for in life. And just seeing the humour of things. Even if you hadn’t said those things the mere fact that we laughed at the same things meant …’ his voice faded away; and came back crisp and Scotch, ‘almost more than anything.’ It was apparent that though his mind did not know that he was dying his spirit had learned it, and was not afraid, but was calmly casting its accounts of what it had gained and lost in its sojourn on earth. He closed his eyes and was still for a minute. Then he said feebly, ‘There was something I saved for you … Something that I thought would make you laugh … Francis … What was it?’

Instantly Francis was on his feet, bending over the bed.

‘I know … The letter in that packet we were going over yesterday … The letter from St Audrie … I asked you to put it by for Essington …’

Francis Pitt went smartly to a writing table in the corner of the room, opened a drawer, took out a paper, and brought it back with the fussiness of a retriever bringing back its bird.

‘Read it out, Francis.’

With comic pomposity he read: ‘My dear Hurrell, I hear that Lord Longchester has called on you and has suggested that he should be given the power to raise the fourth Draconian Loan. This news has caused me to feel the greatest perturbation, as I can hardly imagine a less suitable person. He has gone from bad to worse ever since he left Eton. Some time ago he left the lady who is his wife and ran away with a woman. Recently he had to sell his place. I do not think that any Englishman of his class who sells his place after he has been left sufficient wealth whereby to maintain it is the kind of person who ought to be associated in any way with the operations, whether financial or otherwise, of the Empire. May I say that though the duty which has fallen to me of writing this letter is painful—and may I say that that duty has been made more painful than it need have been by my consciousness that I write in response to no enquiry on your part, but have to intrude unasked to avert a calamity that may be I know not how near final accomplishment—I consider that this occurrence should not be forgotten but should be kept in mind as a proof of how undesirable it is that Downing Street should permit itself to parley with approaches that should have been made to the Foreign Office. Yours sincerely, St Audrie.’

‘Oh, glorious, glorious! … What a man …’

‘And I had but told one of my secretaries to give this Longchester rogue a cup of tea and a bun.’

‘But do you remember the personal letter he wrote to the Postmaster General in our time? “The Marchioness of St Audrie was twice disturbed last night, once at 11.30 p.m. and once at 11.45 p.m., by persons ringing up her telephone number and enquiring, ‘Are you the Coliseum?’”

‘Oh, the man’s a wonder!’

While the two men laughed, Francis Pitt neatly folded the letter, took it over to the desk, and went back to his seat on the other side of the bed.

‘Oh, often and often I’ve wanted to hear what you would say about things like that. There was Mussolini.’

‘Yes, he came after my time. Of course you had to meet him over that League of Nations advertising business. What sort of wonder is he?’

Hurrell closed his eyes again, said in a very soft, very Scotch voice, ‘The man’s a lunatic,’ breathed deeply and nuzzled into his pillow as if he were going to sleep. Francis Pitt moved forward anxiously, and a fretfulness came over the sick man’s face. With a broken word and a flutter of his hand, as if he were trying to find some reason for the change and were too tired to achieve it, he summoned up some last resource of energy and rolled over so that he lay with his face to Essington and his back to Francis Pitt. There was a silence of some moments. Essington bent forward and covered his eyes with his hands. Francis Pitt sat cupping his podgy chin in his hands and staring at the back of Hurrell’s head, which was all he could see of him. A clock ticked, a flame drove, behind the maroon curtain and the navy-blue blind an owl smudged the night with its blurred cry.

Hurrell stirred in his bed. Both men sat up to attention. He was lying on his back staring at the ceiling.

Suddenly he said, ‘Man, your suit was smaller on you than mine was on me.’ His Scotch accent was quite broad. He said, ‘Your shirt!’

Essington’s laughter was almost weeping. ‘Hurrell, you flatter yourself!’

They looked at each other steadily. It occurred to Sunflower that they might have been brothers. But perhaps that was just because they were both the same age, because they were both old.

Francis Pitt wriggled on his seat and looked round the room. His eyes fell on Sunflower. He looked back at Hurrell who had put his hand on the quilt. He watched Essington, who, making the gesture as light as could be, torturing his eyebrows into a quizzical shape, laid his hand on it. He pulled himself out of his deep chair and went over to Sunflower.

‘Will you come and see my garden?’ he asked softly.

As they were going down the stone steps to the gravel he paused and laid a protective hand on her arm, ‘Are you cold? Would you like your cloak?’

Amazed by the idea that she could feel heat or cold when she was wholly absorbed in him, she exclaimed, ‘Oh, no!’

She saw that she had spoken with too much emphasis. He had lowered his eyelids and was compressing his lips, plainly he was filing the fact of her excitement for reference, and meant to examine it at leisure. Deep down in her she realised that her delight in him was shot with fear. Embarrassed, she ran down the last few steps and stood on the gravel, looking up at the stars.

He padded down after her, standing a little behind her, took a cigar out of his pocket and slowly, clumsily lit it.

‘That’s a clever thing to do, to ask a lady to see my garden, when it’s pitch dark and she can’t see a thing,’ he said, amiably but stiffly.

It was all falling so flat. She had wanted to be alone with him so that she could get to know him and be nice to him. But they had nothing to say to each other. He was in the grip of a queer mood. He seemed so penetrated with heavy grief that a sense of weight, of suffering under weight, hung round him, yet she had a suspicion that he was bathed in a sense of satisfaction at being there with her, a satisfaction so strong that if she had made a movement to go back into the house he would have stopped her with a vigorous gesture, a satisfaction so utterly unconcerned with her well-being that the gesture would have been definitely threatening. She hated this satisfaction men got out of people, which did not make them gay and caused them to feel cruel instead of grateful to those who gave it. Essington’s unsmiling, complaining glee in making a fool of her and scolding her for it afterwards was like that. Sharply she turned her head and looked at Francis Pitt. But at the sight of him she could believe nothing bad. He was a simple, loving, unhappy little man. She had been imagining these things. Living with Essington had spoiled her nerves. There was nothing wrong with the moment except that it was falling flat, she supposed because he wasn’t interested in her.

Weakly she murmured, ‘The moonlight looks nice on the flat top of that yew hedge. It might be frost.’

‘Ah,’ he said, brightening up because she had given him a line to follow, which showed how bored he must have been. ‘Come and see what lies behind it. That’s my paved garden. It’s very old, it belonged to the Tudor house that was on the site of this one till it got burned down about sixty years ago. The other gardens were burned with the house, and the old ass of a city merchant who built this house just planted his idea of a nice suburban garden all over the ruins of them. I dare say you noticed how queer it looked as you came down the drive. And I dare say you think the house is queer enough too.’ He gave one of those deep chuckles which were comic and endearing and piteous, since they were so obviously nervous prostration of the sort of maleness which has no nerves, so obviously timid attempts to avert criticism by pretending that this was the rugged strength which laughs when it is criticised. ‘Well, I like it. I like queer things. When we first came to England Etta buzzed round looking for somewhere to live and I got sick of it, and I could see the woman would spend the next two years finding a house, and then two years after that picking up bits of furniture, and that I’d have to go on living in hotels till she’d finished. So when we stumbled on this, with its crazy gardens and its Noah’s ark furniture, I said, “For God’s sake, let’s buy the thing, it’s somewhere to live and it’s too damn good a joke to let out of the family.” So here we are.’ Having reached the end of his defence, again he chuckled.

She walked beside him across the moonlit square of gravel, smiling to herself. It was funny the way he took his childish feeling of diffidence at doing such a grown-up thing as furnishing a house and represented it as the curt gesture of a strong silent man. To her face she held the flower which he had given her at dinner.

The passage through the yew hedge was cut aslant so that no vista of the garden within should be seen from without. There was a second when they could see nothing before or behind but walks of twiggy darkness. He gave a mutter of pleasure as if he liked being hidden, he dawdled as if he did not want to leave this cache.

She went on ahead of him into the garden. It was like a sampler worked by some grave little girl who liked quiet colours. There were the four tall hedges like a frame, and flagstones like the canvas that had to be sewn on, and yew beasts and plants whose flowers had now the hueless lustre of faded silk, set in four beds within box borders, all as neat as stitching. At the other end of the garden, in a vaulted alcove cut in the middle of the yew hedge, was a stone bench, dignified and melancholy, that was like the moral emblem worked at the foot of the sampler.

Francis Pitt, coming up behind her, said: ‘In here you’re shut right away from all the rest of the world. I come in here and sit on that seat when I’m feeling too miserable. I have sat there a lot … during the last few days …’

She made a little tender noise, but could find no words to say. She looked hard at the stone bench. She could see him sitting there, his bulging shirt-front gleaming in the moonlight, his martyred face tragicomic with strong shadows, his feet not quite reaching the ground. She could imagine herself running across the flagstones to him in the dress of some other age, in the full skirts of the eighteenth century, throwing herself down at his feet, drawing his head to her breast with bare arms, petting him and saying things that didn’t mean anything, that you couldn’t argue about, but that would make him feel better. It would be impossible to do it in ordinary clothes. If she did it in the dress she had on now it would look as if she were making love to him. She wished that when a person was in trouble one could get up a sort of masque about it, when all his friends would put on fancy dress to show that what they were doing was something separate from everyday life and did not have to be followed up in any way, and would make beautiful, stylised gestures to show what they really felt about him, and said lovely, vague things in poetry. But people never put on fancy dress in gardens except to do pastoral plays for charities (she wondered suddenly who ‘Our Dumb Friends’ were) and then it was usually ‘As You Like It’, which was a horrid dull play when you came to act it. You couldn’t believe that the people you saw going down to Kew on Sunday didn’t say warmer and kinder and more unexpected things to each other than Orlando and Rosalind did. It was queer how nothing connected with the stage, like fancy dress, ever could be made handy for anything that would be really useful, as running over the flagstones to him would be.