“Well, perhaps,” he stammered, “I really don’t know.”
“Although you must know perfectly well,” she went on, as if he had not spoken, “that I asked you to come here because I wanted to tell you everything. Didn’t you know that?” she added, after a pause, as Rendell said nothing.
“Well, I suppose it did occur to me.”
“I have to tell you everything—or not see you again. I either trust people entirely, or not at all.”
A long silence ensued. To be alone with her in this intimacy lulled Rendell in an odd interior kind of way. He felt he had entered her world, and that each moment yielded one of its secrets.
She sat cross-legged, her hands clasped round her right knee, her head thrown back. When she spoke it was as if she were continuing a reverie aloud.
She told him of her childhood in an old house surrounded by a great rambling garden, circled by trees, twenty miles from London. She was an only child, and her parents had spoiled her. From the age of twelve she had been educated by governesses, as her parents did not approve of the schools in the vicinity—and refused even to contemplate sending her away.
Swiftly, vividly, she evoked the spirit of the old house with its tree-ringed garden. The world of her childhood emerged—not as a memory, but as something still existent. She seemed to walk back to it, becoming, on the way, the child who had inhabited it. Then, with a few sentences, her parents came to life. Rendell saw the invalid father, who went for a drive each morning at eleven, each afternoon at three, when the weather was fine, and who spent the rest of his time reading Gibbon, or studying the financial columns of the newspapers. A kind, rich, too-indulgent man, who clung to a rigidly-defined code, not permitting a thought to stray beyond its orthodox limits. Rosalie revealed him as he had appeared to her when she was fourteen: a bent, wizened man, in an old smoking-jacket, puffing his pipe, and shuffling round his large untidy study—cursing the Germans and the air-raids, and endlessly proclaiming the Decline and Fall of the British Empire.
Then, with a sentence or two, Rosalie conjured up her mother, A frailly-built, beautiful woman, whose Trinity consisted of her husband, her daughter, and her home. She moved about the house like the spirit of tranquillity, dowering each room with a dreamy radiance.
“I was fifteen when the war ended, and during the next few years I discovered—most unfortunately—that I was a talented person.”
“Why unfortunately?”
She gazed at him with blue, frightened eyes for some moments—then laughed.
“I had a gift for drawing, and a gift for acting. I was told that I ought to have my voice trained, and that I ought to study dancing. I was excited, several careers seemed to be beckoning me. Money was poured out in an endless stream for lessons. Every morning the car took me to London. For a year I studied drawing. Then I gave that up and spent a year at a dramatic academy. They said I was most promising. But I gave that up, too. Then for some time I went from one voice-producer to another. But, eventually, I decided I was destined to be a dancer. That lasted some time. And then, suddenly, I gave that up—and stayed at home and began to study Spanish.”
“But why didn’t you stick to anything?”
She looked at him enigmatically.
“Because I discovered that each meant work—and I hadn’t the will. Work—endless work—month after month, year after year! And the greater one’s gift, the greater the necessity for work. I was done for, directly I had reached the limit of what I could do naturally. I was a dilettante, a gifted amateur. And I was surrounded by students who had to achieve something. A car did not bring and fetch them.”
“Well, and then?” Rendell asked, as she remained silent, staring at the fire as if she had forgotten his presence.
“I stayed at home and read. I was about twenty-one then. I read all sorts of books. I had no method—I just read anything that came my way. I drugged myself with reading. I didn’t want to go out into the world—it reminded me of my failure. I lived for three years in a kind of trance. Then—Paul Vivian turned up.”
She leaned back and closed her eyes. Over a minute passed before she continued.
“My father met him through some business or other. He was years older than I was—nearly forty. He began to come to the house frequently—so kind, so solid, so reliable! But, somehow, you could not believe he had ever been a child. But my people became very fond of him. And then—he fell in love with me.”
She rose slowly, then stood looking down—the firelight kindling her features and dark curly hair.
“He fell in love with me,” she repeated. “Soon, he asked me to marry him. I refused. Then he asked again—and again—and again! Still I refused. He wasn’t fiery, he was—patient. So were my parents. They wanted me to marry him. They were a little worried about me. They thought I was a trifle wayward. That was their word. And here was Safety First—proposing regularly each month.”
She knelt down swiftly and peered into the fire.
“I can see a face!” she exclaimed, with the sudden gaiety of a child. “I’ll show you. No! It’s gone!”
She remained crouched before the fire. It was some moments before she went on.
“So there I was with the three of them. And the three of them were willing the same thing. I could feel their united will closing round me like a contracting iron ring. I began to feel depleted. I spent whole days lying on a sofa. Twice a week Paul came to dinner. Every day he sent flowers. And mother began to say: ‘Don’t you think, darling, you’d be happier if you settled down?’”
She leaned her head back and laughed—a joyous, rippling laugh.
“And I said to her: ‘I don’t love him.’ And she said: ‘That sometimes comes afterwards.’ And I asked: ‘After what?’ But she didn’t answer.”
Again she laughed.
“And then, at last, weary of it all—and not knowing what to do with my life—I said I’d marry him. I told him I didn’t love him, but that didn’t seem to worry him. It would have terrified me. Everyone was radiant. Paul dined with us nearly every night. At the week-ends he took me out in his large car—and told me what a glorious and thrilling thing common sense was.”
After a pause, she said softly: “My God!”
Instantly, however, she raced him:
“And then we bought clothes—such lovely clothes!—and then the wedding. The bride, a little pale and trembling, perhaps, but then—well, you understand—she would be quite different—afterwards. And then, the departure for the honeymoon. Tears. Fluttering good-byes. ‘You will be good to her, Paul?’ A manly hand-shake. And then an invalid old man and a frail woman craning out of the window to see the last of the receding car.”
Then, after an imperceptible pause, she turned to Rendell and asked:
“Would you like some tea?”
“Tea!” he almost shouted.
“Yes, why not? People drink tea in the afternoons. Some take milk, some sugar, some neither—and some take one or the other. Some have China tea, some Indian, some Russian—but tea they all have. It’s one of those things that are definitely done.”
“I could not drink tea to save my life,” Rendell announced emphatically.
“Very well. Well have sherry later. Smoke a cigarette, and let me know when you would like the next instalment of the serial.”
“What an incalculable being you are!” he exclaimed involuntarily.
“Well, don’t worry too much—there won’t be any more like me soon. But that’s an idea of Ivor’s, and he comes—later.”