The Stranger's Child Part 17

'I don't think this is quite what she had in mind, do you,' said Revel coolly, so that a leap had been taken, several unsayable matters all at once in the air. Daphne's heart was beating and she felt herself gripped at the same time by a strange gliding languor, as if to counter and conceal the speed of her pulse. She said, 'I've got to tell you about the oddest scene just now, with old Mrs Riley. I'm absolutely certain she was making love to me.'

Revel gave a careless laugh. 'So she does have good taste, after all.'

Daphne thought this rather glib, though charming of course. 'Well . . .'

'You see I thought she'd set her sights on Flo, who has a bit of a look of all that, doesn't she.'

'You see I thought . . .' but it was too much to explain, and now a housemaid was coming along the top landing with a baby, no, a hot-water bottle wrapped in a shawl. 'You're so sweet to the children,' Daphne said loudly, 'they'll be thrilled to see you,' giving the servant an absent-minded nod as she came past and thinking all would be explained by this, her virtue as a mother touchingly a.s.serted after the frightful racket from downstairs. 'If they're not asleep, of course, I mean!' She kissed her raised forefinger and pushed open the door with preposterous caution. Then she had the drama of the light behind her for a minute, before they both came in and Revel closed the door with a m.u.f.fled snap. Now a sallow night-light glowed from the table and heaped large shadows on the beds and up the walls. 'No, Wilfie darling, you go back to sleep,' she said. She peered down at him uncertainly in the stuffy gloom he had stirred and groaned but was not perhaps awake . . . then across at Corinna, by the window, who looked less than lovely, flat on her back, head arched back on the pillow and snoring reedily. 'If only she could see herself,' murmured Daphne, in wistful mockery of her ceremonious child.

'If only we could see ourselves . . .' said Revel. 'I mean, I expect if you saw me . . .'

'Mm,' said Daphne, leaning back, almost feeling with her shoulders to where he was, feeling his left hand slip lightly round her waist, confident but courteous and staying only a moment. 'Mm . . . well, there you have them!' stepping aside in a way that felt dance-like, a promise to return. She muttered into her winegla.s.s as she swigged. 'Not a terribly pretty picture, I'm afraid.' She felt a run of trivial apology opening up in front of her, the children perhaps not pleasing to Revel. He must be aware of the smell of the chamber-pot, she seemed to see Wilfie's yellow tinkle. 'Of course their father never looks at them when they're asleep, I mean well, as little as possible at other times when they're awake! they can't contrive to be picturesque at all times of the day and night ' she shook her head and sipped again, turned back to Revel. Revel was picking up Roger, Wilfie's brown bear, and frowning at the creature in the pleasant quizzical way of a family doctor: then he looked at her with the same snuffly smile, as if it didn't matter what she said. Her own mention of Dudley hung oddly in the half-light of the top-floor room.

She went round to the far side of Wilfrid's little bed, set her gla.s.s down on the bedside table, peered down at him, then perched heavily on the side of the bed. His wide face, like a soft little caricature of his father, all mouth and eyes. She thought of Dudley kissing her just now, in the cow-pa.s.sage, all her knowledge of him that had to be kept from a child, their child, facing blankly upwards, one cheek in shadow, the other in the gleam of the night-light. She didn't want to think of her husband at all, but his kiss was still there, in her lips, bothering away at her. She gently straightened and smoothed and straightened again the turned-over top of Wilfrid's sheet. Dudley had a way of trapping you, he stalked your conscience, his maddest moments were also oddly tactical. And then of course he was pitiable, wounded, haunted all that. Wilfrid's head twitched, his eyelids opened and closed and he turned his whole body in a sudden convulsion to the right, then in a second or two he thumped back again, murmured furiously and lay the other way. He had bad dreams that were sometimes spooled out for her, formless descriptions, comically earnest, too boring to do more than pretend to listen to. He claimed to dream about Sergeant Bronson, which Daphne deplored and felt very slightly jealous of. She leant over him and straddled him with her arm, as if to keep him to herself, to say he was spoken for. 'Uncle Revel,' said Wilfrid sociably.

'h.e.l.lo, old chap!' whispered Revel, smiling down at him, setting Roger down safely by the pillow. 'We didn't mean to wake you up.'

Wilfrid gave him a look of unquestioning approval and then his eyes closed and he swallowed and pursed his lips. As they both watched him, the happy look slowly faded from his face, until it was again a soft witless mask.

'You see how he adores you,' said Daphne, almost with a note of complaint, a breathless laugh. She gave him a long stare over the child's head. Revel's smiling coolness made her wonder for a moment more soberly if she was being played with. He went to the table and pulled out the diminutive child's chair and sat down with his knees raised. He pretended drolly that life was always lived on this scale. She watched him, vaguely amused. The night-light made a study of his face as he worked quickly at a drawing. It seemed the very last moment of a smile lingered there in his teasing concentration. He used the children's crayons as though they were all an artist could desire, and he was the master of them. Then with a louder snort Corinna had woken herself up and sat up and coughed uninhibitedly.

'Mother, what is it?' she said.

'Go back to sleep, my duck,' said Daphne, with a little shus.h.i.+ng moue, affectionate but slightly impatient with her. The child's hair was tousled and damp.

'No, Mother, what's the matter?' she said. It was hard to tell if she was angry or merely confused, waking up to these unexpected figures in her room.

'Shush, darling, nothing,' said Daphne. 'Uncle Revel and I came up to say goodnight.'

'He's not Uncle Revel actually,' said Corinna; though Daphne felt this was not the only matter on which she might put her in the wrong. The child had a fearfully censorious vein; what she really meant was that her mother was drunk.

Revel looked over his shoulder, half-turned on the little chair. 'We were wondering if we might still see that dance, if we asked very nicely,' he said, which actually wasn't a very good idea.

'Oh, it's too late for that,' said Corinna, 'far too late,' as if they were the children pleading with her for some special concession. And getting out of bed she thumped across the room and went out to the lavatory. Daphne slightly dreaded her coming back and making more of a scene, allowing herself to say what she thought. If they all said what they thought . . . And now Wilfrid had woken again at the noise, with a furtive look, like an adult pretending not to have slept. She watched Revel finis.h.i.+ng his drawing. There was the clank and torrent of the cistern, suddenly louder as the door was opened. But now Corinna seemed more balanced, more awake perhaps. She got back into bed with the little twitch of propriety that was part of her daylight character.

'Shall I just read you something, darling, and then you both go back to sleep,' Daphne said.

'Yes, please,' said Corinna, lying down and turning on her side, ready for both the reading and the sleeping.

Daphne looked by Wilfrid's bed, then got up to see what books Corinna had. It was rather a bore, but they would be asleep again in a moment. 'Are you reading The Silver Charger how I adored that book . . . though I think I was a good deal older . . .'

'There you are, little one,' said Revel, getting up from the desk and holding his picture in front of Wilfrid to catch the light. The child pondered it, with a conditional sort of smile, against the pull of sleep. 'I'll put it over here, shall I?'

'Mm,' said Wilfrid. Daphne couldn't quite make it out; she saw the great bill of a bird.

'It's chapter eight,' said Corinna. Did she think that she ought to have a drawing too? Perhaps, tomorrow, Revel could be asked to make her one, if he wouldn't mind he might even draw her likeness . . .

' "So Lord Pettifer climbed into his carriage," ' Daphne read, rather cautiously in the dim light, ' "which was all of gold . . . with two handsome footmen in scarlet livery with gold braid, and the coachman in his great c.o.c.kled hat c.o.c.ked hat and the green" I'm so sorry! "the great coat of arms of the Pettifers of Morden emblazoned upon the doors. The snow had begun to fall, very gently and silently, and its soft white flakes sat settled for a moment on the manes of the four black horses and on the gold . . . panaches of the footmen's hats" oh lawks, I remember them or how do we say it? panaches, French . . .' She looked up over the edge of the book at Revel, who was a dark column against the low light, perhaps a little impatient with her performance. He was a man of the theatre, after all; it was just that reading aloud brought out how much you'd had to drink. ' " 'I shall return before dusk on Sunday!' said Lord Pettifer. 'Pray tell Miranda, my ward, to prepare . . . herself.' " ' She wasn't sure how much feeling to put into the speeches; and in fact at that moment there was a snort from Corinna's bed, and Daphne saw that her mouth had opened, and she was already asleep. She peered hopefully at Wilfrid, who was gazing at her clearly, though he couldn't have had the least idea what was going on. 'Well, I'll just read a little bit more, shall I?' she said. And lowering her voice she read on, skipping a fair bit, through the wonderful description of Lord Pettifer's journey to Dover through the falling snow, which she hadn't read since she was a girl. How quaint it looked part of her didn't want to read it like this, distracted by Revel, stumbling over the words; but partly she kept it up out of simple disquiet about stopping. ' "In the distance they saw the lights of a lonely house that she could never return," ' read Daphne, turning over two pages at once, and taking a moment to realize. She glanced at Wilfrid, then carried on, quite at a loss as to what was happening herself. He smiled distantly, as if to say now it made sense, and to thank her politely, and turned away from the light and pulled up his knees under the covers, which she felt she could take as a sign to stop.

When they were outside in the pa.s.sage again, things were both more urgent and more awkward. She felt it might go wrong if it wasn't acted on quickly, it would wither on the stem in a horrible embarra.s.sment of delay and indecision. But then Revel put his arms round her lightly. 'No,' she whispered, 'Nanny . . . !'

'Oh . . .'

'Let's go down.'

'Really?' said Revel. 'If you like.' For the first time she had a sense that she could wound him, she could add to his other hurts; though he pressed his little flinching frown into a look of concern for her.

'No, you'll see,' she said, and kissed him quickly on the cheek. She led him round, through the L-shaped top pa.s.sage and out on to the top of the main stairs, with their sudden drama, the gryphons or whatever they were with their s.h.i.+elds and raised gla.s.s globes of light descending beneath them. She thought, the glare of publicity.

'They're wyverns,' she said, 'I think,' as they went down.

'Ah,' said Revel, as if he had indeed asked.

In the enormous mirror on the first-floor landing there they went, figures in a story, out of the light into the shadow. She thought she was calmer now but then she started gossiping under her breath, 'My dear, I simply have to tell you what Tilda Strange-Paget said' she peered round 'about Stinker!'

'Oh, yes,' said Revel, half-listening, like someone driving.

'I'm not at all sure I should. But apparently he's got another woman, tucked away.'

Revel chuckled. 'Mm, I wonder where he, um, tucks her.' He slowed and turned outside the door of his room. 'Are you sure?'

'Well, how can one be sure . . .'

'No, I mean . . .' He looked from her to the door. What she wanted was so simple and she felt suddenly lost. She had an odd, quite superhuman sensation of hearing her mother's breathing in her room, and then an image of Clara in hers, miles away, and Dudley of course, but she couldn't think of that.

'No, not here,' she said; and taking him on she went round the corner. A single lamp burnt on a table for the guests, and when she opened the linen-room door it flung a great shadow up like a wing across the ceiling. 'Will you come in here?' She was solemn but she giggled too.

It was dark, which was the beauty of it, and then the skylight was seen to glimmer the moon, of course, throwing other shadows down into the well of the room. Again there was no colour, just the white gleam of the high-piled sheets on the shelves among realms of grey. 'You can climb out at the top on to the roof,' said Daphne.

'Not now, I think,' murmured Revel, and putting his hands on either side of her face he kissed her. She rocked in front of him for a moment before she put her arms round him, gripped the loose bulk of the dinner-jacket over his wiry unknown body. She let him kiss her, as though it were still reversible, a mere gambit, and then with a violent grunt of a.s.sent she started to kiss him back.

They kissed and kissed, Revel respectfully holding her and stroking her, a faint comedy of self-consciousness creeping into their murmurs and half-smiles between kisses, the little mimicking rhythms of the kisses themselves. Still, it was completely lovely, a forgotten pleasure, to be pleasing someone who sought simply to please you. She had never been kissed by two men in one evening before well, she'd only been kissed by two or three men ever. The contrast, in so intimate a thing, was bewilderingly beautiful. The of course unmentioned fact, that it was men that Revel liked to kiss, made it the more flattering, though perhaps more unreal. Revel had something more than a man's normal experience in all this, it shone in his mischievous eyes. Daphne couldn't be sure, now it had finally started, that it was serious after all. But if it wasn't serious, perhaps that would be its charm, its point. She stood away for a moment in the monochrome gleam from the skylight she touched Revel's face, his clever nose, his brow, his lips. He took her hand as she did so and kissed it. Then he kissed her again on her cheek. It was almost odd he didn't push her further. She wondered now if he had ever kissed a woman before. She supposed when men kissed each other it was a pretty rough business; she didn't quite like to think about it. She knew she must encourage Revel, without making him feel at all inadequate or in need of encouragement. He was younger than her, but he was a man. In some strange romantic way, to please him, she wished she could be a man herself. 'We can do whatever you like, you know,' she said, and then wondered, as he laughed, what she was letting herself in for.

9.

Then for twenty minutes the world belonged to the birds. Thickly in the woods, and out on the High Ground, all through the gardens, on benches and bushes, and high up here among the roofs and chimneys, finches and thrushes, starlings and blackbirds were singing their songs to the daybreak all at once. Wilfrid opened his eyes, and in the greyish light he saw his sister, sitting up in bed, peering at her book. With a cautious turn of the head and a little steady concentration he worked out that it was half past six. There was something strange on the bedside table, that held his attention for a minute, with its shadowy glimmer, but he didn't want to think about it. It made no sense, like a window where no window could ever be. He let his eyes close. The birdsong was so loud that after it had woken you it drove you back to sleep. Then, when you woke again, it was really day, and the birds by now were further off and much less important. You forgot all about them. He saw the door was half-open: Corinna had already gone to wash and he needed to ask her one or two things about the night, about the noises and music and coming and going that were tangled up with it like dreams. He turned over and there on the mantelpiece, propped up by the Toby jug, was Uncle Revel's flamingo, standing on one leg, and giving him a crafty smile. A bit of the dream had stayed in the solid world, as a proof or a promise, and he slipped out of bed and took it down. Uncle Revel had been here, with his mother, laughing and joking, and he had done a drawing, very quickly, like a magic trick. Wilfrid took the drawing back to bed with him of course the strange thing on the table, misleading him before with its magic gleam, was his mother's winegla.s.s, with the last bit of dark red wine still in it, and bits of black rust in the wine. He peered into the gla.s.s, and confusingly the sour smell was the smell of his mother's latest kisses. He heard Nanny in her bedroom next door, the worrying creak of her floorboards, rattle of curtain-rings. She was talking to someone, it sounded like the maid Sarah. They came on to the landing. 'Another of their wild nights,' Nanny was saying. 'G.o.d knows what they'll be like this morning.' Sarah groaned and laughed. 'Duffel up here at G.o.d knows what time, with her young artist friend, to have a look at the little ones sleeping, she said. Of course, how can they sleep through that, it upsets them. They'll be little horrors after a night like that.'

'Aah . . . !' said Sarah, who sounded nicer today. Wilfrid hated what Nanny said about his mother.

'Well, my day off, dear, I don't have to deal with them!'

'Robbie says they were playing at sardines,' said Sarah.

'Sardines! Silly b.u.g.g.e.rs, more likely . . .' said Nanny, and the two women cackled and seemed to go away down the corridor. 'I suppose you heard the music . . .' Nanny was saying, as the door at the top of the stairs thumped shut. Well, they'd all heard the music, Wilfrid thought. His mother had been dancing with Uncle Revel in the hall, and he had the scene still bright in his head. Now he wanted to sleep; but in his heart and mind there was a muddled stirring of protest, at the abuse and disrespect to his mother but also at the restless and broken night she had given him. He was exhausted by dreams.

Almost at once, various things happened, perfectly normal but none the less oddly upsetting in their way of keeping on happening. Very early a message came up that Mr Stokes was leaving and her ladys.h.i.+p wanted the children down. Corinna was already practising the piano, and the maid brought Wilfrid down by himself. He felt lonely and reluctant, and frowned a good deal so as not to give way. In the hall the pianola still stood, with its keyboard closed, at an angle to the wall. He loved the pianola, and once or twice his father had worked the pedals for him and let him run his hands up and down over the dancing keys, while Corinna looked on in disdain. But today it seemed only a jangling reminder of the night before, a toy that others had played on without him. He wished intensely they would take it away. He went out to examine the Daimler. Even Robbie's wink, as he brought out the luggage for Uncle Sebby, was displeasing and lacking in respect. Why did he always have to wink at him? 'And how are you, Master Wilfrid?' said Robbie.

'Well, I'm very overwrought,' said Wilfrid.

Robbie pondered this for a minute, with a tiny smile. 'Overwrought, you say? Now, why would that be?' He handed the bags to Sebby's chauffeur, and Wilfrid came round to see them stowed in the boot. The great interest of the boot, with its unusual door and trench-like black interior, struggled feebly with his mood of discontent.

'Well, I had a bad night, if you must know,' said Wilfrid.

'Ah,' said Robbie, and nodded sympathetically, but still with an unsettling hint of amus.e.m.e.nt. 'Kept you awake with their dancing, did they?' At which Wilfrid could only look up at him and nod back.

Granny V came down to see Sebby off, and they talked interminably for two or three minutes while Wilfrid wandered round the Daimler, looking at the lamps and at his own reflection looming and folding in the dark grey bodywork. Then Sebby came over and shook his hand, and unexpectedly gave him a large coin before getting into the car, which took off up the drive in a sudden cloud of blue oil-smoke. Wilfrid smiled at the departing car, and at his grandmother, who was watching him keenly for the proper reactions, though in fact he felt bothered and slightly indignant. 'Goodness!' said Granny V, in a gloating but critical voice, 'a crown!' He put it in his trouser pocket but he felt it was Wilkes who should have been given it.

Then almost at once the trap was brought round, to take Corinna and both her grandmothers to church in Littlemore. Lady Valance herself would drive the mile and a half each way, and Corinna was bleating a promise extracted earlier, that she would be allowed to take the reins for some of the time. The pony could be heard through the open front door twitching its harness, the stable-boy talking to it. There was a flutter in the hall, gloves and hats being found. Granny V always wore the same sort of thing, which was black and took no time, but Corinna had a new dress and a new bonnet, which Granny Sawle was helping her to tie on firmly.

'It seems such a shame not to use the chapel here,' said Granny S, as Uncle George and Aunt Madeleine appeared.

'Nowadays,' said Granny V, with strange emphasis, 'the use of the chapel is restricted to the major festivals'; and she went out into the drive.

' "Nowadays",' said George, 'seems to have become Louisa's favoured term of opprobrium.' He looked comically at his mother. 'You don't have to go at all, darling,' he said. 'We never do, you know.'

She fussed with the bow under Corinna's chin. 'Louisa does seem to count on my going.'

'Mm, but you needn't be bullied,' said George.

'Oh, please come, Granny,' said Corinna.

'Oh, I'm coming, child, never fear,' said her grandmother, holding her at arm's length and looking at her rather sternly.

Wilfrid traipsed out again with his aunt and uncle to see the party leave. As Granny V settled herself on the bench the pony dropped a quick but heavy heap of dung on to the gravel. Wilfrid giggled, and Corinna held her nose up unhappily. The trap jolted and moved off at a brisk pace, as if nothing had happened, leaving the boy to bring a shovel. At the top of the drive Granny Sawle turned and waved. Wilfrid stood beside his aunt and uncle and waved back, half-heartedly, with the sun in his eyes. 'Well, here we are, Wilfrid,' said Aunt Madeleine, which he felt just about summed it up. She stood stiff above him, blocking his view of some much happier morning, in which he was sitting at a table with Uncle Revel, drawing pictures of birds and mammals. When they went back into the house his mother appeared from the morning-room with a strange fixed smile.

'I hope you slept for a minute or two?' she said.

'Oh, far more,' said Uncle George, 'ten minutes at least.'

'I had a full half-hour,' said Aunt Madeleine, apparently not joking.

'What a night,' said George. 'I feel bright green this morning. I don't know how you take the pace, Daph.'

'It requires some getting used to,' she said. 'One has to be broken in.'

Wilfrid stared at his uncle for signs of this exotic colouring. Actually, his mother and George both looked very pale.

'And how are you, Mummy?' he said.

'Good morning, little one,' his mother said.

'Do you do this every weekend?' said Madeleine.

'No, sometimes we're very quiet and good, aren't we, my angel,' said his mother, as he ran to her and she stooped and pulled him in. He felt a quick shudder go through her, and held her tighter. Then after a moment she stood, and he had more or less to let go. She reached for him vaguely again, but somehow she wasn't there. He looked up into her face, and its utterly familiar roundness and fairness, the batting of the eyelashes, the tiny lines by her mouth when she smiled, beauties he had always known and never for a moment needed to describe, seemed to him for a few strange seconds the features of someone else. 'Well, I must get on,' she said.

'No, Mummy . . .' said Wilfrid.

'Hardly the best moment,' she explained to Madeleine, 'but Revel has offered to draw my picture, which feels too good an offer to refuse, even with a hangover.'

'I know what you mean,' said George, and smiled at her very steadily. 'No, that should be quite something.'

'Oh, Mummy, can I come too, can I come and watch?' cried Wilfrid.

And again his mother gave him a strange bland look in which something hurtfully humorous seemed also to lurk. 'No, Wilfie, not a good idea. An artist has to concentrate, you know. You can see it when it's done.' It was all too much for him, and the tears rose up in a stifling wail. He longed for his mother, but he pushed her off, shouting and gulping, fending them all off, with the tears dripping down on to his jersey.

So after that he was left, for an undefined period, with Uncle George and Aunt Madeleine. They went into the library, where George leant by the empty fireplace and talked to him encouragingly. Wilfrid stood listlessly spinning the large coloured globe, with its well-known splodges of British pink, first one way, then the other. His hands smacked lightly on the bright varnished paper, and the world echoed faintly inside. As often after a great explosion of tears he felt abstracted and weak, and it took him a while to see the point of things again.

'I don't suppose you've seen your father this morning,' said George.

Wilfrid thought about how to answer this. He said, 'We don't see Daddy in the mornings.'

'Oh, really?'

'Well, not as a rule. You see, he's writing his book.'

'Oh, yes, of course,' said George. 'Well, that's the most important thing, isn't it.'

Wilfrid didn't agree to this exactly. He said, 'He's writing a book about the War.'

'Not like his other book, then,' said Madeleine, who with her head back and her gla.s.ses on the end of her nose was gaping at the shelves above her.

'Not at all,' said Wilfrid. 'It's about Sergeant Bronson.'

'Oh yes . . .' said George vaguely. 'So he tells you about it? How exciting . . .'

The constraints of strict truth felt more threateningly present in this room full of old learning. He wandered off to the centre table with a smile, keeping his answer. 'Uncle George,' he said, 'do you like Uncle Revel's pictures?'

'Oh, very much, old boy. Not that I've seen very many of them. He's still very young, you know,' said George, looking less green now than pink. 'You know he's not really an uncle, don't you?'

'I know,' said Wilfrid. 'He's an honourable uncle.'

'Well, ha, ha! . . . Well, yes, that's right.'

'You mean an honorary uncle,' said Madeleine.

'Oh,' said Wilfrid, 'yes . . .'

'I expect you mean both, don't you, Wilfie,' said George, and smiled at him understandingly. Wilfrid knew his father couldn't stomach Aunt Madeleine, and he felt this gave him licence to hate her too. She hadn't brought him a present, but as a matter of fact that wasn't it at all. She never said anything nice, and when she tried to it turned out to be horrible. Now she tucked in her chin and gave him her pretend smile, staring at him over her gla.s.ses. He leant on the table, and opened and shut the hinged silver ink-well, several times, making its nice loud clopping noise. Aunt Madeleine winced.

'I suppose this is where Granny does her book tests, isn't it,' she said, wrinkling her nose, her smile turning hard.