The Woman Who Had Imagination Read online

  ‘Oh! It’s going to be marvellous,’ she said.

  ‘What is?’ he said, ‘Don’t poke me in the eye with that sunshade.’

  ‘The choir, the house, everything.’

  ‘Glad you think so,’ he said.

  The brake had begun to move again, the shouting and excited laughter of the passengers half drowning the girl’s voice and his own. And above the din of the brake’s departure there arose the sound of insistent argument.

  ‘I tell you it’s right! Seen it times with my own eyes.’

  ‘You dreamt it.’

  ‘Dreamt it! I seen it. Plain as a pikestaff.’

  ‘In a churchyard? Tell your grandmother.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t believe me, will you bet on it? You’re so cocky.’

  ‘Ah, I’ll bet you. Any money. Anything you like.’

  ‘All right. You’ll bet as what I’ve told you ain’t on that tombstone in Polwick churchyard? You’ll bet on that?’

  ‘Ah! I’ll bet you. And I know it ain’t.’

  ‘Well, go on. How much?’

  ‘Tanner.’

  There were shouts of ironical laughter and reckless encouragement. A little black frizzy-haired man was bobbing excitedly up and down on the brake seat urging a large blond man wearing a cream tea-rose in his buttonhole to increase the bet. ‘Go on. Make it sixpence ha’penny. You’re so cocky. How can you lose? You know it ain’t there, don’t you? Go on.’

  ‘Sixpence,’ said the blond man. ‘I said sixpence and I mean sixpence.’

  ‘You’ll go to ruin fast.’

  ‘I dare say. But I said sixpence and I mean sixpence. And here’s me money.’

  ‘All right! Let the driver hold it.’

  The blond man handed his money to the fishmonger, who had climbed up to sit by the driver, and then began to urge the little man:

  ‘Give him your money. Go on. And say good-bye to it while you’re at it. Go on, say good-bye to it. Ah, it’s no use spitting on it. It’s the last you’ll ever see o’ that tanner.’

  ‘You’re so cocky. Why didn’t you bet a quid?’

  ‘Ah, why didn’t I?’

  Up on the driving-seat the driver and the fishmonger rolled against each other in sudden storms of laughter. Women giggled and men called out to each other, making dark insinuations, urging the driver to stop at the churchyard.

  Opposite Henry and the girl a handsome man with a dark moustache and wearing a straw hat at a devilish angle had rested his hand with a sort of stealthy nonchalance on the knee of a school teacher in pink. She in turn averted her eyes, trying to appear as though she were thinking profound, far-off, earnest thoughts.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

  ‘It’s so hot,’ she murmured.

  ‘So are you,’ he whispered.

  The school teacher’s neck flushed crimson and the blood surged up into her face.

  And as if to cover up her own embarrassment the girl at Henry’s side began to talk in a rather louder voice to him, but her prim banal voice became lost for him in the giggling and talking of the other passengers, the loud-voiced arguments about the bet, the everlasting sound of wheels and hoofs on the rough, sun-baked road. Down in the valley the sun seemed hotter than ever. The brake passed a group of haymakers resting and sleeping in the noon-heat under the shade of a great elm tree. They waved and called with sleepy greetings. A woman sitting among them suckling a baby looked up with sun-tired eyes. Further on a group of naked boys bathing in a sloe-fringed pond jumped up and down in the sun-silvered water and about the grass pond-bank, waving their wet arms and flagging their towels. In the brake there was a thin ripple of giggling, the women suddenly ducking their heads together and whispering with suppressed excitement. The blond man and the frizzy-haired dark man argued and taunted each other with unending but friendly vehemence. And under the intense sunshine and the dazzling fierce July light the slowness of the brake was intolerable. Up the hills it crawled as though the horses were sick. Down hill the brakes hissed and checked the wheels into the deathly pace of a funeral. Henry sat drugged by the heat and the wearisome pace of progress. Faintly, through the sun-heavy air, came the strokes of one o’clock from a church tower. Already it was as if the brake had travelled all day. And now, with the strokes of the clock dying away and leaving the air limitlessly silent beyond the little noises of the brake it seemed suddenly as if the journey might last for ever.

  Twenty minutes later the brake went down hill through an avenue of elms towards a square church tower rising like a small sturdy grey fortress out of a village that seemed asleep except for a batch of black hens dust-bathing in the hot road. The sudden coming of the brake sent the fowls squawking and cluttering away in panic-feathered half-flight.

  ‘Ah! Your old horses are too slow for a funeral. Might have had a Sunday dinner for nothing if you’d been sharper. What d’ye feed ’em on? Too slow to run over an old hen. Gee there! Tickle ’em up a bit.’ And mingled with these shouts the repeated cry:

  ‘And don’t forget to stop at the churchyard.’

  The frizzy-haired man began to stand up and wave his arms. He became ironically tender towards the blond man. ‘I feel sorry for you. It’s like taking money from a kid. Pity your mother ever let you come out.’ The blond man kept shaking his head with silent wisdom. The brake crawled slowly by the churchyard wall. ‘A bit farther,’ cried the dark man with excitement. ‘T’other side o’ that yew-tree. Gee up a bit.’ The passengers were craning their necks, laughing, standing up, bantering remarks. With mock sadness the frizzy-haired man patted the blond man on the back, shaking his head. ‘Feel sorry for you,’ he said in a wickedly dismal voice. The blond man airily waved his hand with a gesture of pity. ‘Not half so sorry as you’ll feel for yourself in a minute,’ he said.

  The frizzy-haired man did not listen. He was beginning to survey the tombstones with great excitement, craning his neck. Suddenly the blond man seized him and held him aloft like a child.

  ‘Now can you see, ducky?’ he cried.

  ‘A bit farther! Farther! Steady now. Whoa there! Whoa!’

  The brake stopped. The small man wriggled down from the blond man’s arms. There arose a pandemonium of laughter and shouts in the brake. The driver stood up and chinked the money in his hand. The small man spoke with twinkling irony.

  ‘Oh! No, it ain’t there, is it? It ain’t there? It’s melted. Well, well, I must be boss-eyed. The sun’s so hot it’s melted. Would you believe it? Fancy that. Just fancy that. It ain’t there.’

  The blond man was staring with dumb gloom at a gravestone.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ began the small man mercilessly. ‘What? — If it ain’t a tombstone I’ll never. Well, well!’

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ the blond man was saying slowly. ‘I’ll be damned.’

  ‘Read it!’ yelled the little man in triumph.

  ‘I’ve read it.’

  ‘Read it out loud,’

  ‘Ah, what d’ye take me for? Three pen’worth o’ tripe? You read it.’

  ‘All right. It’s worth it.’ Solemnly the small man read out the rhyme on the tombstone:

  ‘Let wind go free where’er you be:

  In chapel or in church.

  For wind it was the death of me.’

  Suddenly the driver clicked at the horses and the brake jerked violently on. The women shrieked, the blond man sat disconsolate, the small man piped in triumph above the bubbling and spluttering of laughter.

  Henry sat with a little smile on his lips, faintly aloof, his thoughts lofty and cool. He felt wonderfully above and detached from the puerile jokes and empty laughter of the rest of the brake, his brain manufacturing little self-conscious philosophies which seemed very clever, and when the mood seemed to be dying at last it was suddenly revived by the spectacle of his father standing up in the brake, signalling the driver to halt for a moment and delivering his final words of advice and admonition to the choir.

  ‘Well, we
shall be there in a few more minutes. And I just want to remind you of a few things. We’ve had our little jokes. And now I want to be serious for ten seconds. This is a serious business. We are down to start singing at four o’clock. All hear that? Four o’clock. Four o’clock on the big lawn in front of the house. We shall start off with “Calm was the Sea”; and then after that it will be “On the Banks of Allan Water” and then last of all “My love is Like a Red, Red Rose”. We shall sing these three in the afternoon. And then in the evening, at seven o’clock, we shall sing a test piece chosen from one of these and three others. It might be one of these three. It might not. It might be anything. We don’t know. We’ve got to stand ready to sing anything at a moment’s notice.’ He waved his arms up and down constantly in his excitement. His voice was like that of a little chattering ventriloquist’s doll. ‘And one more thing. Remember the words. When it says “Calm was the Sea” don’t sing it as if it were “The Wreck of the Hesperus”, but sing it as if it were calm — calm and soft. Imagine it. Lovely day. Boats hardly moving. Softly, softly, does it, softly. Imagine it. Imagine you’re on Yarmouth pier if you like, looking at the sea. Water hardly moves. And then “the wandering breezes”. Soft again, very soft. Let them wander. Let them flow from you. And breezes — remember it’s breezes. Not a thunderstorm. Still soft — you’ll see in the copy is marked dulce. Italian word — means sweet, soft, gentle. Remember dulcimer. Close your eyes if you like. Sing it as if you was dreaming.’ He closed his fair-lashed eyes and put on a wrapt, dreamy expression of soft ecstasy. ‘Dah — dah-dah — daaah-dah!’ he sang in a soft falsetto. ‘Wand’ring bre-e-e-zes.’ He opened his eyes. ‘Feeling — that’s it — feeling. Expression. That’s everything. Anybody can bellow like a bull. But that’s not singing. That’s not interpretation. Not feeling. And don’t be afraid of how you look. The judges aren’t looking to see how pretty you are. They’re listening. Well, make them listen, soft, softly does it, remember, softly.’

  His voice trailed off to a fine whisper and he sat down. Henry smiled and the brake went on, the passengers in a changed mood after his father’s words, the women tidying their hats and smoothing their stiff puff-sleeves and long dresses, the men fingering their buttonholes, clearing their throats and sitting in silence as though suddenly musingly nervous of the thought of the singing.

  The country began to change also. The yellowing wheat-fields, the dark fields of roots shining and drooping in the hot sun, the parched hayfields and woods were replaced by an immense park of old dark trees under which the grass was still spring green and sweet. Far off, timid and startled, groups of young deer, palest brown against the dark tree-shadows, with an occasional dark antlered, resentful stag, stood and watched the brake go past with glassy, wondering eyes. Soon, through wider spaces between the trees, there was the big house itself, a square, stone tall-windowed place, with a carved stone balustrade round the lead roof and immense black cedars encircling the lawns. It looked cold and sepulchral even against the rich darkness of the trees in the hot sunlight.

  The brake turned into the park through high iron gates on which the family crest blazed in scarlet and gold. It was as if it had driven into a churchyard. The passengers were suddenly transformed, sitting with a stiff, self-conscious silence upon them. As the brake drove along under a great avenue of elms extending like a sombre nave up to the lawns of the house, the horses fell into a walk. The fishmonger sat very upright on the driver’s seat, preening his buttonhole, and the fat woman, sucking her last cachou quickly, wiped her lips clean with her handkerchief. The handsome young man in a rakish straw hat, taking his hand away from the school teacher’s knee, ceased his seductive whispers. The carriage-drive emerged in an immense sweep from under the dark avenue into the sunlight and curved on between the lawns and the house. The brake pulled up behind a row of other brakes standing empty by a tall yew-hedge and the choir began to alight, the men handing down the ladies from the awkward back-step and the ladies giving little delicate shrieks and pretending to stumble. Henry’s father dragged out from under the brake seat an immense portmanteau of music. From over the lawns gay with parasols and flowing frocks, there came a scent of new-mown grass and women’s dresses, the swooning breath of lime trees and a hum of human voices like the sound of bees.

  Across the lawn also came a man in an old panama hat, a yellowish alpaca suit and a faded green bow, beaming with smiles and gestures of aristocratic idiocy.

  ‘Oh, pardon, pardon me!’ he cried. ‘But ’oo are you? Oh! Orpheus choir! Yes! Orpheus! Marvellous! T’ank you a t’ousand times for coming. Yes! And if you desire anyt’ing please come to me. Anyt’ing you like. Anyt’ing. And T’ank you a t’ousand times for coming! T’ank you a t’ousand times! And eez it not ze most marvellous day? Most marvellous!’

  II

  In the full heat of the afternoon, tired from walking about the crowded lawns in the fierce sunshine and even more bored that he had been in the brake, Henry saw people passing in and out of the house through a side door on the terrace. Following them, he found himself in a wide lofty entrance hall that had about it the queer half-scented coolness of a church and the same hollow silence broken at intervals by the sound of voices and strange receding and returning echoes. He took off his straw hat and wiped his sweaty forehead with his handkerchief. The air felt as cool as a leaf on his hot face. In answer to his question a negative-faced manservant standing at ease like a tired soldier at the foot of a wide stone staircase told him that the house was open to visitors till five o’clock. He walked quietly up the stairs, his feet soundless on the heavy carpet, staring at the magnificence of gilded ceilings, dim tapestries, old dark portraits, immense sparkling chandeliers, touching the flower-smoothness of old chests and chairs with his finger-tips as he passed. Upstairs he went in and out of innumerable rooms, staring at vast canopied bedsteads, lacquered cabinets filled with never-opened books and fragile china, dim painted screens and ornate fireplaces of cold blue-veined marble. He wondered all the time who had ever lived and slept there, contrasting it all unconsciously with the room behind the shop at home, with the cheap German silk-fronted piano, the brass gasbrackets, the cane music-rack, the broken revolving piano stool, the flashy green jars containing aspidistras whose leaves his mother counted and sponged religiously every Saturday. The place had an air of unreality. The yellow blinds, drawn to keep out the sun, threw down a strange shadowy apricot light. Here and there rents in the blinds let in streaks of dusty sunlight. When he put his hand on the walls they struck cold and damp. Across the floors he noticed trails of candle-grease dropped perhaps by some servant coming in to lower the blinds at night or let them up again in the morning. How long ago? he wondered. There was a melancholy air of the past, of vague, dead, forgotten things. There was also a curious feeling of poverty about it all in spite of that rich magnificence. The blinds were old and stained, the paint was cracked and dirty, and here and there a ceiling had crumbled away, revealing naked laths draped with black skeins of cobweb.

  Going slowly up the second flight of stairs, he stopped now and then to look at the prints on the walls. A clock in the house struck four, the notes very soft and delicate, a silver water-sound. Some visitors passed him, coming down, their voices dying away down the two flights of stairs like a vague chant. Going up, he found himself in a bare corridor.

  Walking into a room by one door and out by another he turned along a narrow corridor in order to return to the stairs, but the passage seemed contained within itself, to lead nowhere. And in a moment he was lost. Trying to go back to the room through which he had come he tried a door, but it was locked. He began to try other doors, which were also locked. It was some minutes before he found a door which opened.

  Relieved, he hurried through the room. But halfway across the floor, thinking of nothing but escaping by the opposite door, he was startled into a fresh panic by a voice:

  ‘But unfortunately, in bestowing these embraces, a pin in her ladyship’s headdress slightl
y scratching the child’s neck, produced from this pattern of gentleness, such violent screams, as could hardly be outdone by any creature professedly noisy. The mother’s consternation was excessive; but it could not surpass the alarm. …’

  At the word alarm he stopped. The voice stopped too. He felt himself break out into a prickling sweat. Across the room, with his thin fingers outstretched to a low wood fire, sat an old man in a torn red dressing-gown. He was sunk into a kind of sick trance. By his side there was a woman, a young woman. Arrested in the act of reading, she sat with her averted head still and intense, looking across the room with the blackest eyes he had ever seen, black not only with their own richness of colour but with an illimitable darkness of sheer melancholy.

  ‘I’m lost,’ Henry said.

  ‘Lost?’

  She stood upright as she echoed the word, rubbing the fingers of her left hand up and down the yellow leather binding of the book. Trying to face her he was sick with confusion. The old man turned stiffly and stared at him also. The old eyes were pale and vacuous.

  Suddenly the woman smiled.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said.

  For some reason or other Henry could not answer her. He stood half-foolishly hypnotised by her figure, tall and wonderfully slender, her very long maroon-coloured dress, her unspeakably brilliant eyes. Her voice had in it a kind of mournful sweetness which held him fascinated.

  At last he attempted to explain himself. He had no sooner begun than she cut him short:

  ‘I’ll show you the way,’ she said.

  He still could not answer. She turned to the old man:

  ‘Sit still. I’ll come back.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ he muttered querulously. ‘Who’s that young man?’