Yes, it all seems so simple, and yet he can’t bring himself to get out of the boat. What is it that prevents him from stepping ashore? What is it that tells him that it is safer not to think, safer to remain vague, to realize nothing? Dimly, through a haze of unreality, he envisages the gendarmes, the questions, the significant looks. But all these things are far-off, unimminent, cloudy. Much better not to think about them, much better not put things to the test, much better not risk having realization forced upon one.
All the archness, the volatileness, has vanished with the smile from his face. He now looks much older, worn and dejected. The spirit has quite gone out of him. He feels very tired. Slowly, wearily, with a deep sigh, his eyes empty and downcast, he takes hold of the oars and begins the laborious passage back to the other shore.
VIII
In the clinic, as in heaven, there are many mansions. The worst cases, and those requiring the most supervision, are lodged in a house called ‘La Pinède’ which stands some distance away from the main building. Metal scrolls guard the windows of this house and there is only one outer door that is always kept locked. An attendant is constantly on duty to unfasten and relock the door each time anyone passes through.
The attendant sits in a little room, white and bare as a nun’s cell, just to the left of the door. This morning quite a young girl is on duty there. She is bright and pleasant looking in her superlatively clean overall, she has put a bunch of flowers on the table where she sits with her English grammar, her note book and pencil. She is industrious, she means to get on in the world, and she studies her book with concentration. Nevertheless, she finds time to glance occasionally at the little bunch of wild cyclamen which she picked yesterday in the forest with a young man in whom she is interested. Everything about her is normal, cheerful, serene. It is difficult to associate the contented girl with the hidden unhappiness that surrounds her under this roof.
She hears footsteps approaching and goes out into the hall.
A middle-aged English lady is waiting for the door to be opened. She is rather tall, rather large, and wears a mauve knitted dress that clings to her solid figure. Her faded hair is encircled with a bandeau of brown tulle which gives her an air that somehow contrives to be both impressive and slightly comic. She has the intensely respectable, intensely reserved look so characteristic of a certain old-fashioned type of Englishwoman abroad. One would expect to find her in a pension at Mentone, making tea in her bedroom over a spirit lamp, or perhaps painting precise little water-colours with a good deal of ultramarine. To-day is one of her good days. There is nothing at all in her appearance to suggest the moods of suicidal depression which are the cause of her presence at ‘La Pinède’.
‘Good-morning, Miss Swanson,’ says the smiling attendant in careful English, as she unlocks the door.
Miss Swanson answers and smiles in her remote way and goes out into the sun. After the shadows indoors the bright light is like a blow and she stops to put on the dark spectacles that she carries about in her bag. In front of her, in the middle of the asphalted private road, is a round bed full of succulent looking cannas; behind, to the right and left, is the pinewood from which the house takes its name. When she has adjusted her glasses Miss Swanson puts up a linen sunshade lined with green and walks slowly along the middle of the roadway that leads both to the main building and to the workroom for which she is bound.
As she goes, she has, from some distance away, a clear view of what is happening ahead. From time to time, at irregular intervals, singly or in small groups, figures emerge from the white balconied house and walk towards the atelier. All of them, in passing, pause for a few seconds beside a small, solitary girlish form under a clump of trees: the distant girl in her gay summer frock seems to have some piece of news which she is imparting to each one in turn.
The woman with the sunshade watches this procedure intently, screwing up her eyes behind their dark screens. The contraction of her eyes seems to indicate anxiety or disapproval — perhaps both. She begins to walk faster.
Soon she comes within speaking distance of the girl who is now alone, half sitting on an iron table under the trees. She is so small boned and slight, her body is so immature looking, that at a first glance one would take her for a child of about fifteen. It is hard to believe that she is actually a married woman when she calls out to her friend:
‘My husband’s come! He’s with the doctors now. As soon as he’s finished with them he’s going to take me out for the day.’ She jumps up and seizes Miss Swanson’s arm impulsively, shaking back her soft, fluffy hair and exclaiming: T told you he’d come, didn’t I? You didn’t believe me, but you see I was right all the time!’ She tilts her head and laughs rather aimlessly, glancing up at the elder woman who, for her part, looks down gravely into the pretty, childish, undisciplined face which seems to lack some co-ordination with its receding chin, its large, slightly prominent blue eyes.
‘How nice for you, Freda,’ she says, non-committal.
The lukewarm tone disappoints the other who pouts and moves a few petulant steps away, putting a space between the two of them.
‘You don’t sound a bit pleased,’ she complains in an aggrieved tone.
Miss Swanson advances and pats her on the shoulder.
‘Gracious, how thin you are, child!’ she mutters to herself, feeling the bones under their inadequate coverings of silk and flesh. A thwarted maternal instinct in her has fastened upon this girl, her compatriot, who, like herself, is an exile, almost a prisoner, in this unhappy place. She feels possessive, protective, towards Freda; jealous of anyone who might come between them. ‘Of course I’m pleased that you’re happy,’ she goes on. ‘But I’m afraid for you — that things will be worse for you afterwards — that you’ll feel lonelier than ever when your husband has gone.’
‘But he’s not going!’ cries Freda triumphantly. ‘He’s going to stay at the hotel by the lake.’
‘All the same, he’ll have to go back to England sometime.’
‘Then he’ll take me with him — I’ll persuade him — you’ll see. I’m quite well now, anyhow.’
The childish face is all smiles and Miss Swanson has not got the heart to refrain from smiling back in return. But she says nothing, and as it happens she is spared the necessity for words, because at that moment Mr. Rushwood comes out on to the steps of the clinic. He is very much older than his wife — perhaps more than twice her age — the last man in the world one would expect her to marry, for his face is serious, repressive, almost stern, under his grey hair. He approaches stiffly in the sunshine, walking with rather a wooden gait on account of an old war wound in the right leg. Freda introduces her friend, and he smiles like a schoolmaster, without warmth. His voice, too, is the voice of a master or of a clergyman, authoritative and cool.
‘Well, what did the doctors say? Did they tell you how good I’ve been?’ Freda is asking, clinging on to his arm and beaming at him.
But he, without answering the question, advises her to go and fetch her hat and bag as the car will arrive in a moment.