A Quiet Life(38)
When Laura got out of the train her legs felt heavy from sitting so long. There was no one there to meet her, but she was not surprised; she was hours late, and she asked the station master if she could use the telephone to ring the number that Sybil had given her. It was a servant who answered and asked her to wait at the front of the station. Eventually, an old-fashioned Daimler pulled up and the very elderly driver came out to pick up her case.
Laura thanked him in a bright voice, but he said nothing and remained in total silence throughout the drive. Although she never usually smoked alone, Laura fumbled in her purse for an old pack of cigarettes and lit one. The lane they were driving along wound between high hedgerows, so that one couldn’t see much from side to side, and curved sharply over and over again, so that one couldn’t see far forwards. As they drove, a burst of rain came pattering on the hedgerows. But as she stepped out of the car on to the drive, light broke through the clouds and lit the raindrops to sparkles on the gravel and on the camellias that were blooming in sombre white and crimson by the russet walls of the house.
The elderly driver opened the car door and took Laura’s case, and she followed him up to the house. She was cold and stiff after the long journey, as well as thirsty and desperate for a lavatory. But as the door opened and she was ushered on through an oak-panelled hall whose ceiling was two or three storeys high, she realised that she would be immediately on show. From the hall she was led into a huge drawing room, with six large French windows that looked out onto a formal garden and the hills beyond. It was the view that dominated the room; your gaze was pulled on and on to the gauzy verdancy of the garden and the shadowy green heights beyond. It was like a dream or idea of a view. But there was no time to contemplate it, as there was Sybil on the sofa in the room and beside her was Mrs Last, Edward’s mother.
As Laura took them in, she noticed immediately, crowding out all other impressions, that the clothes she had thought would be just right for this weekend with Sybil were quite wrong. She had remembered Sybil’s queenly look, and so that morning Laura had chosen a rather formal cobalt blue skirt and silk blouse, with patent black shoes. In her mirror in the bedroom the outfit had said confidence, but now she realised she looked like a shop girl next to Edward’s sister-in-law and mother. Both Sybil and Mrs Last were wearing tweed skirts and jerseys in muted, heathery colours, and polished brogues. Around Sybil’s throat was a necklace of large cabochon amethysts, which meant that she still had that regal look, while Mrs Last wore a double row of perfectly matched pearls. In contrast, Laura felt that she looked both overdone and underdone; there was nothing of value in what she wore, and yet she had obviously tried too hard. Miserably, she sat down when asked, and told Mrs Last what a beautiful house it was and thanked her and Sybil for inviting her.
‘You can’t see the house the way it was, I’m afraid,’ Mrs Last said. ‘It’s looking so ragged now we don’t have the staff any more. And we are just using one wing – I’m afraid you’ll be in a tiny room tonight.’
Laura, still unused to the English way of constant apology, muttered something about how she was sure that it was fine. Mrs Last immediately passed her another conversational ball, asking her whether she had seen much of England, and Laura tried to respond with some sprightliness, telling her how fine the hills had looked from the train, but she was afraid that she came over as na?ve, and American in the worst sense. They went on talking in this way, but there was a brittleness to their conversation that made Laura feel the oxygen was being sucked out of the air, and Sybil hardly spoke at all. That chord of sympathy she had felt with her in the London club had gone, and she felt that Sybil was already regretting having asked her down for the weekend.
All in all, she was relieved when Mrs Last said that no doubt Laura would like to go to her room. ‘We won’t dress for dinner,’ she said. ‘We haven’t, since the war started.’ It seemed a curious sacrifice to make to the patriotic cause. As they walked, Mrs Last asked Laura about her family. Laura had learned something now she had been in England for more than a year, and she gave very little away. To say her father was an architect, to say they lived in Massachusetts – this could mean so much or so little, and she knew that English people had no way of placing her. ‘Your cousin is Giles Frentham?’ Mrs Last said at last, and this placed her, she knew, and obviously not in a good way in Mrs Last’s eyes, judging by the suspicion in her voice. ‘He used to come here sometimes in the long vacation. My son is fond of him. I hear he is doing very well – in air defence, isn’t he?’
Left in the room she had been told was tiny, Laura crossed immediately to the big window under which was a deep window seat. The cushions were worn, the chintz all faded to a dim turquoise, but if you sat there you could see the view that had opened from the drawing room, miles and miles of wild slopes and open sky. Turning back to the bedroom, Laura saw there was a generosity to its structure – the high ceiling, the detailed cornices and the large white fireplace. But everything was fading, dust clinging to the little cracks in the hearth tiles and the old paintwork, even if the mahogany wardrobe was polished to a high shine.
Her nightgown was already folded on the pillow, and when she opened the wardrobe she saw the clothes she had brought already hanging up. She regarded them now with despair. What did Mrs Last mean by saying that they would not dress for dinner? Did that mean she had to stay in her inappropriate skirt and blouse? And where was the bathroom?