Read an Excerpt
New York. Autumn, 1930.
I sometimes wonder, looking back at everything with the
experience that four years ought to have brought, whether I
would make up my mind quite so precipitously to marry Simon
Quinn if I met him for the first time to-day. There are moods
in which I tell myself: “Not a hope! Freedom and work are the
only important things. My God, haven’t four years taught you
anything at all, you damn little fool?” But at the back of my
head I know quite clearly that if it happened all over again I
should marry Simon just the same. I could yell and scream; I
could run away to some place six weeks from Southampton by
a fast boat. Running would only bring me back to the inevitable
fact, like one of those dreams in which you tear out of a room
in a crazy, nameless panic, and find yourself back again where
you started.
London four years ago—more than four years, really, for it
was at the end of a scorching week in July. Over here they laugh
at English summers, but that week had seemed like something
angry, slowly gathering and throbbing to a white-hot head.
In the late afternoons I went into the Park and sat limply on
the grass by the Serpentine; the trees on the other side looked
unreal and a little distorted, as though a sheet of hot glass were
stretched between them and me. Even the pavements seemed
to sweat. At night you saw people strolling with linked arms,
and pale, relaxed faces that reminded you of those starry kinds
of flowers that only open up in the cool of the evening.
It was the week-end of the Eton and Harrow match. The
streets were full of small boys walking about behind haystacks
of cornflowers; cars were tied up with pale-blue ribbons like
cart-horses at a country fair. I had been up to the ground with
Roddy Talent on Friday and had walked round, eyeing the
other women’s clothes until a rather nice pair of Hanan shoes
were grey with dust and hurting me like the devil. It was all
rather stupid, rather pointless, very charming, unmistakably
British. I remembered that Soames Forsyte had gone to Lord’s
and had seen Irene there in a dove-coloured dress. Te thought
quite cheered me; at that time Galsworthy was my god. I don’t
suppose that I watched more than a couple of overs.
On Saturday I was going down for a short week-end to the
Fentons’ at Burnham Beeches. Te thought of getting away
from the smell of hot pavement and hot people was rather nice;
still, I packed in a bad temper. Mrs. Proutie, my charwoman, had
not turned up that morning to get my breakfast. I lived in a tiny
flat with bright yellow walls and a geyser as temperamental as a
prima donna. Proutie got my breakfast; then I settled down and
worked until I got hungry, when I either dug up some biscuits
and went on working, or else ran round the corner to a little
restaurant. The same little restaurant supplied my dinner, unless
some man took me out. Quite simple, you see, when it worked.
Unfortunately, Proutie was like the geyser, temperamental. I
couldn’t rely on her, but she was always cheerful, and, so far as I
could see, didn’t steal the gin.
That morning I had made coffee and sliced a grape-fruit for
myself, rather peevishly. The explosion of the geyser nearly threw
me out of the bathroom and broke two cups on the dresser of
the kitchenette next door. Already it was hot. I dragged out my
suitcase and started to pack, half my mind occupied irritably
with a short story that had been worrying me all the week. It
refused to sparkle or to come alive; although I was generally
the most cordial admirer of my own work, something seemed
to tell me: “Tis is wasting your time—burn it!” Skin food, a
yellow crêpe sports suit, tan-and-white shoes—but supposing
I look at things from her point of view?—how many evening
dresses do I want? Only one night. I looked unenthusiastically
at a black chiffon, and stuffed its flounces with tissue paper. …
Perhaps I’ve fiddled with it so long that it’s gone sour on me.
Perhaps I’d better burn it. Oh, damn! … Tere was only just
time to catch that train.
Slough is the station for Burnham Beeches. Even in a good
temper I dislike Slough. That morning it seemed to me a town
without a single excuse for itself; a foul industrial blot spreading
slowly over those pleasant fields towards Windsor. I wondered
what kind of people could possibly wish to live in Slough, and
pictured men with faces on which avarice and pettiness of soul
were stamped like mean handwriting on cheap paper; women
who made fumbling, ineffectual gestures and said “Pardon!”
when they committed a social error. I wondered how many
people in Slough had ever heard a Beethoven Symphony or
seen a Leonardo.
My dislike of the unfortunate place was so absurdly
vindictive that it almost put me in a good temper again. As I
got out I saw the neat dark-blue figure of Shelby, the Fentons’
chauffeur, trotting up the platform towards me.
“Hallo, Shelby!”
“Good-morning, miss. Let me take your suitcase. The car is
just outside, miss.”
Shelby was a great friend of mine. The car, an enormous
pre-war Daimler, was the absorbing pride of his life. When
you asked him how his wife was doing, Shelby would say:
“Wonderful, miss. We’ve only just had her decarbonised, and
she’s running like a bird. I keep telling Mr. Fenton we ought
to have her painted, but she’ll do as she is till spring, he says.”
I liked the Fentons’ house. It was Georgian, red brick with
cream-coloured doors and windows; its lines were unpretentious
and satisfying. A big magnolia tree grew up the side of the
dining-room window, and in it were perched three flowers like
creamy, snug-bosomed birds with faintly pink throats. Frank was
fond of his garden. In autumn these borders blazed with dahlias
and straggling, lavish Michaelmas daisies, so that the heart was
warmed on the most melancholy day; now that it was hot yellow
summer there were clouds of white phlox, and delphiniums so
pure and cold a blue that they were like strange flowers grown in
a glacier. … London seemed a very long way off.
The front door was open. I walked into the hall, and stood
pulling off my gloves. It was cool and dim. On the centre table
there was a quantity of lavender drying on newspapers. I could
see through the morning-room into the garden and hear voices
and the sharp, irritable ping of tennis-balls.
“They're all down at the courts, miss. I’ll fetch Mrs. Fenton.”
“No, don’t bother. I’ll go down.”
I started to walk slowly across the lawn. There were two or
three people sitting in wicker chairs under the cypress. The
players had just finished a set; someone was struggling into a
sweater. Cora cried: “Tere she is!” and darted to meet me.
“My dear, it’s so lovely to see you!”
Cora had a funny, breathless way of speaking, as though she
could not trust her attractive husky voice to hold out for long. I
loved her. I suppose that she was the best woman-friend I ever
had; on the whole I did not care for women. She was thirty-five,
ugly in a fascinating way, with no colour at all in her small face
or her beautiful cendré hair, which was uncut, swathed tightly as
a turban round her head. Her ankles were lovely. Chanel dressed
her. She had three ugly cendré children and was supposed to
love Frank Fenton, which I thought distinctly unenterprising.
“I’d better go and change, Cora.”
“No, darling, it’s nearly lunch-time, and anyway you look
adorable. Come and meet people.”
I glanced towards the group on the tennis-court.
“Are they all staying here?”
“No, only Simon Quinn. I don’t think you’ve met him here
before. Simon!”
Frank came over, his face red and glistening.
“Hallo, Nevis. You look damn cool. Been to Lord’s?”
“Yesterday afternoon. Don’t ask me what the score is—I
haven’t the faintest idea.”
“You girls only go to look at each other’s clothes.”
“Frank, darling, you read us like a book.”
Simon came over. He was the young man whom I had
noticed struggling into a sweater.
“Nevis, this is Simon Quinn. Nevis Falconer, Simon.”
He had curiously light eyes with dusty gold lashes. I thought,
“He’s attractive.” I felt suddenly angry and helpless, as though I
knew that the nice, orderly little pattern of my life was going to
be broken up. He said:
“I wish that I could say I’d read your book.”
“Why should you?”
“Well, it would make a good beginning. But, as a matter of
fact, I don’t read anything. I’m practically illiterate.”– 8 –
He made the statement with an irritating satisfaction. Cora
slipped a hand under my arm and took me away to say how-do-you-do
to people. The butler came carefully over the lawn
carrying a tray of cocktails. I sat down next to a woman who
fixed her eyes on my feet and demanded:
“Do you live in London? I suppose that the sarvant problem
is a good deal easier thar than it is har?”
Tinking of the criminal Proutie (she would have to clear up
all the mess that I had made packing, and serve her right, old
cow), I answered wildly, “Far, far more difficult,” and saw that
Simon was watching me, smiling
