Pearl did not, or most of the time did not, think that John Robert could possibly believe all the awful things said in the Gazelle article. (Hattie and Pearl had not seen The Swimmer which was published on Tuesday.) But the need to be relieved of the fear that he might, took form as a most intense longing, a lover’s longing, for his presence and for the simple assurance that he still trusted her. She needed, and received, so little, but how precarious. There was of course no doubt that Rozanov would be very upset and hurt and angry. Pearl did not share, any more than Tom did, George’s illusion that the philosopher was indifferent to what people thought; he might be indifferent to hostility but not to ridicule. Her loving gaze had ‘estimated’ and ‘embraced’ the quality of Rozanov’s special dignity, his solemnity, his shyness, his particular awkward pomposity, his naïve unworldly egoism, his complete lack of ordinary social reactions, his lack of common sense, his distaste for mockery, and his inability to deal with it. All this made one. She had not often seen Rozanov in company, but had seen how, on such occasions (when talking to Margot and Albert, for instance) he imposed a seriousness which made gossip or even mildly malicious jokes impossible. Neither Pearl nor Hattie had ever teased him or seen him teased. Pearl also knew something of Rozanov’s view of George, and could measure his furious irritation at George’s intrusion into the picture. Pearl and Hattie had, as it happened, arrived to visit John Robert in California just after George’s ill-fated excursion to see his master, and Pearl had overheard John Robert say something to Steve Glatz, who was then a student. It was on that occasion too that Pearl noticed the jealous manner in which John Robert kept Hattie well away from his pupils, and his colleagues; so much so that Pearl vaguely framed the hypothesis, lately so vividly revived, that John Robert, so far from being indifferent to his grandchild, was obsessed with her.
Pearl was of course aware of John Robert’s match-making plan, since she had listened ardently at the door while it was being divulged. She had also witnessed Hattie’s outburst of distress and annoyance, and seen Tom McCaffrey’s yellow tulips fly out on to the lawn. But although the matter was no secret between them and could be referred to, they had not discussed it. Hattie retreated into the fastidious reserve and chaste mode of discourse which was so essential a part of their relation. They did not chat in a gossipy or malicious way about Tom, any more than they ever did about John Robert. This was not just an aspect of what Pearl sometimes wryly thought of as her ‘station’. It was to do with Hattie, with Hattie’s primness and still childish simplicity and dignity, and with Pearl, her particular love for Hattie and the preciousness of her trust. Pearl sometimes felt that she had been made, or remade, by that odd trust, and could not imagine what, without it, would have become of her.
So it was that, during this interim, while they waited ‘with hatches battened down’, as Hattie said, although they speculated about when John Robert would appear and whether he would be ‘awfully cross’, they did not discuss what he, or they, might or might not feel now about Tom and ‘the plan’. (Pearl mentioned to Hattie that Tom had rung up.) They did occasionally wonder ‘how the idea got around’; but Pearl steered Hattie off these topics, of whose enormity Hattie seemed not fully aware. Pearl dreaded most of all, with a dread which gradually crippled her mind, that John Robert might actually believe that she was somehow in league with George and it was she who had betrayed the secret. This dread made the days of waiting so painful that she began to want nothing more than to run straight to John Robert and babble out her explanations, and her love which she could not help feeling gave her rights, and even powers.
‘Perhaps he doesn’t know.’
‘Some kind person will have told him. If no one else, that impertinent editor will.’
‘He wasn’t impertinent. He just wrote to ask if I’d give an interview.’
‘I didn’t like his tone. Neither did you.’
‘I wish John Robert was on the telephone.’
‘You know he hates telephone calls. Anyway, what could we say just like that?’
‘It’s nothing really, it’s a fuss about nothing, we’ve made a melodrama out of it.’
‘It was a melodrama.’
‘People will forget it, they’ve probably forgotten it already.’
‘You don’t know Ennistone.’
‘Anyway it wasn’t our fault, was it, Pearlie?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘No, I know it wasn’t our fault, but I can’t help sometimes feeling that it was. Can you understand that?’
‘Yes!’
‘You don’t think John Robert could think we invited George in?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘I’m surprised John Robert hasn’t come, just to see if we’re all right.’
‘Well, perhaps he doesn’t know.’
‘You’re saying it now!’
‘After all, he may have been away.’
‘I suppose I ought to go and see Mrs McCaffrey and say — ’
‘Say what? Better say nothing.’
‘You thought we ought to see John Robert first and then see her.’
‘I thought John Robert would come at once.’
‘So did I. There’s that stained-glass window that the stone cracked. Oughtn’t we to do something about it?’
‘It was a beer can, not a stone, I heard it fall. The window’s quite safe.’
‘Yes, but it’s cracked, we ought to tell someone. Do you think John Robert’s brooding over it?’
‘No, he’s probably gone back to his philosophy book and forgotten all about us.’
‘I sometimes wonder how often he remembers that we exist.’
‘Don’t worry so, Hat dear.’
‘I wish he’d come and get it over. Why do we have to wait here? Are we slaves or something?’
‘He may have gone to London to give a lecture.’
‘Let’s go to London. We were going to go. We’ve waited here long enough.’
‘We’ve waited so long we may as well wait a little longer. You know we couldn’t enjoy London without having seen him.’
‘We’re building it all up so, we’re making mountains out of molehills.’
‘The trouble is with him that all ordinary sense of size just vanishes!’
‘I know what you mean. How I hate Ennistone. I wish we were living in London. Let’s say we want to. We could have a flat, couldn’t we? You say, you tell him.’
‘All right.’
‘You won’t, you’ll chicken out. Oh, why on earth did he bring us here?’
‘It’s his home.’
‘California is his home. I wish we were back in America. What a crazy life we lead. Don’t you sometimes think we lead a crazy life?’ Yes.’
‘How long will it go on?’
‘Who knows.’
‘Pearlie, sometimes I feel so sad - when I go to bed - I feel like at school - just so relieved to become unconscious - it’s like wanting to be dead — ’
‘Oh don’t be silly, you’re young, you’ve got everything, when I was your age — ’
‘Yes, yes, yes, forgive me. Do you forgive me?’
‘Hattie, I shall throw something at you!’
‘I wonder who let out that story about Tom.’
‘Tom, I should think!’
‘No! Do you think so? Anyway, he can’t believe we did.’
‘No.’
‘And he can’t think you let George in, that’s absurd! Did the article say that? I can’t remember.’
‘Sort of.’
‘It’s ridiculous. He can’t blame us for anything, can he?’
‘No.’
‘Oh how I wish he’d come!’
‘Here he is,’ said Pearl.