An Accidental Man (11 page)

Of course Dorina had, because of Matthew, another source of interest in Austin. Matthew had been one of Mavis's earliest admirers and something had happened between them. Mavis had chosen the nunnery. Matthew had left the country. What exactly had happened was now utterly shadowy even in Mavis's own mind. It had been a muddle. Matthew had vanished forever and communication had ceased. Mavis never spoke of it or even thought of it except when she occasionally realized with irritation how fascinating it had all been to Dorina. Of course it was never discussed. And now here was the nemesis.

Later on it seemed inevitable that Austin and Dorina should want each other. Mavis accepted the situation with a smile but she could not like Austin and this sort of false relation with Matthew was distasteful to her although the marriage occasioned no communication between them. There was something for which she could not forgive Matthew and of which she did not wish to be reminded: perhaps his ineffectual suit, perhaps the fruitlessness of her own choice. Sometimes she thought that her own failure to marry Matthew was actually the cause of Austin's marrying Dorina. It was not just that Austin was an object of interest because of the Matthew legend. Austin's relations with his brother were obscure and intense. Might not this repetition be a highly determined event in some fraternal drama? If so, so much the worse for Dorina. Mavis was not surprised when there were difficulties, though she could not quite see what they were. They never
quarrelled
, it seemed. Mavis was pleased when things broke down. She would not ever have been wholly pleased if Dorina had married happily. What could she have been to a fulfilled Dorina except an ageing maiden aunt? She had never seen herself in that light in relation to her younger sister. As it was she could now be useful to Dorina with a full heart. These unmagnanimous frailties in herself Mavis saw with a cool eye. And in general she welcomed the possibility of perhaps getting rid of Austin altogether.

Not that it was at all clear that this was what was envisaged. Dorina used to come and stay fairly often, relapsing when she came into her old dependence on Mavis. She kept her little room still unchanged at the top of the house. Once she came and said to her sister, ‘I think I'm not going back to Austin, at present at any rate. We are better apart for a while. We both have to sort things out. We need a little holiday from each other.' She added, ‘He's glad I'm here.' Mavis could understand that. Austin was an intensely jealous and possessive man. He probably felt that his young wife was, at Valmorana, almost literally cloistered. Further, Mavis did not ask and Dorina did not tell.

Mavis was at this time distracted by an outburst of problems about the future of her enterprise. The house was still her property. The convent suddenly wished to transfer the whole thing to the local authority. The rich Catholic families objected. The local authority offered to buy the house at a figure Mavis would not consider. Meanwhile the roof needed repairing, the whole house needed rewiring, everything wanted painting. The local authority now offered a grant in return for a short lease. The convent agreed to carry on the old régime pending negotiations. A Catholic businessman said he would pay for repairs. These were now almost finished. The place was empty, the old smell was gone, the welfare people were offering new furniture. Valmorana looked like an ordinary house again and brought to Mavis, suddenly on stairs and landings, memories of her father.

Her own future of course was equally at stake. If she leased the house to the local authority she would not stay on as warden. This was tactfully plain to everybody. A number of good people had approached her offering other posts, some of them very interesting. The last few years had been ruled by necessity. But had they been perhaps a little dreary? The idea was disconcerting. Mavis found herself curiously restored to ordinary life and ordinary choices. There was no reason why she should be ruled by her false reputation for holiness. She had not after all given up the world and a surprising number of things were still possible. Mavis felt that she had emerged again into the light, not really such a different person in the end.

Mavis was now thinking, no, I will not give way about Ronald Carberry. The little boy had a touching face. But he was unmanageable, unworkable, would never be fully a human being. Mavis knew that if she was not careful she would have Ronald Carberry forever. She did not want that sort of responsibility, she did not want to re-enter the hot muddled personal unhappiness of the ordinary human lot. That at least her imitation dedicated life had enabled her to shun.

Mavis had left the big kitchen and repaired to her drawing-room. To keep herself sane she had reserved, in a separate part of the house, her own rooms, full of furniture and pretty things from the old days. She watched now out of the front window as Mrs Carberry walked away slowly down the road carrying her old shopping bag and looking down at the pavement as she walked. Mrs Carberry believed in God and Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary in much the same way that she believed in Walter and Ronald and Mavis. The sun was shining, making a flowering cherry tree at the corner into a winged gallery of rosy light. The petals were falling slowly to the pavement through the still air like autumn leaves. Mrs Carberry walked into the slow rain of petals with her head down, hump-backed with anxiety. Mavis felt relief when she turned the corner. She moved to the side window which looked down on the garden and watched Dorina who was standing barefoot in the middle of the lawn.

Dorina when alone, and Mavis had often thus watched her unseen, had the vague pottering ways of an animal, expressive not of boredom so much as of an absolute absorption in the moment to moment processes of life. Dorina was trying to pick up a twig with her toes. She tried to grip the twig by flexing her toes about it as if they were fingers. This failed, so she then manoeuvred it between the big toe and the second toe, lifted her foot a little and surveyed it. Then she tried to toss it away, failed, and had to lean down to extract it. She remained bent over and picked a daisy. She straightened up and examined the daisy and then pressed it rhythmically against her lips several times. Then she turned on her heel and, still holding the daisy, began to comb out her hair with her hands. She had light brown hair, not very copious but rather long, which made a little rill down between her shoulder blades. She wore it loose usually or in a plait. Beyond her was a yellow privet hedge, red tulips nearly over, a prunus tree, the high white wall. She looked like a young girl in a picture who had eternally nothing to do except wait for her lover. It was hard to believe that she was over thirty. Mavis watched her with annoyance, curiosity, pity, love and a kind of fear. If only she had married an ordinary public school boy with a job in the city, instead of a weirdie like Austin with a funny hand. She was enough of a weirdie herself.

‘Dorina!'

‘Darling!'

‘Come up. I want to talk to you.'

Dorina was in the room. She was wearing a creamy and purple sprigged dress almost to her ankles. She had a long thin pale face and large grey eyes. A Victorian water colourist could have conveyed that frail yet bony look. She was taller than Mavis. Mavis was getting plump. Her hair was fuzzier and shorter than Dorina's and always untidy, fading now into a peppery sandy colour which would one day quietly become grey. Her eyes were less big, her nose less aquiline. Mavis wore a flowery dress too with a frilled hem. Both sisters still dressed to please their father, who had been a lawyer with a spare time passion for painting. He had adored his pretty daughters. He could not have done with a boy. Dorina had done quite a lot of painting too when he was still alive. Neither of them had much talent.

‘Oh dear, I meant to help with the washing up.'

‘Mrs Carberry was here. It's done.'

‘Did she bring Ronald?'

‘No. I'm discouraging visits. She wants to park him here for good.'

‘Well, why not?'

‘Think, child!'

‘He's awfully touching.'

‘He's awfully touching. But he's somebody's lifelong problem and not ours.'

‘I hoped Louis would come this morning.' Louis was Dorina's name for Ludwig.

‘Clara Tisbourne rang up,' said Mavis.

‘Oh. Did she say anything?'

‘Yes. Her mother died last night.'

‘I am — so sorry —' Dorina looked frightened. Any news of a death affected her in a personal way. ‘I hope she didn't suffer — Mrs Ledgard.'

‘No. It was expected after all.'

‘One never expects a death, it isn't possible.'

‘Maybe. And another thing. Gracie's engaged.'

‘Who to? Sebastian?'

‘No. Ludwig.'

‘Gracie engaged to Louis. Oh.' Dorina turned away towards the window. She said, ‘Gracie's lucky. Well, so's Louis. She's nice. But how odd.'

‘Yes, I suppose it is odd,' said Mavis. Her own feeling had been a kind of little dismay on Dorina's behalf. Ludwig was such a thoroughly decent boy and he had comforted Dorina in some way, perhaps by being someone whom she and Austin had discovered and liked jointly. He was a part of their public world. Dorina and Austin had so little social public world in common. Now, it occurred to Mavis, he was gone. Gracie would not tolerate his rather peculiar friendship with Dorina and all those almost daily go-between ministrations. Perhaps it might be a blessing though if it made Dorina make up her mind about Austin. Clara Tisbourne had also told Mavis that Austin had lost his job.

‘Did Clara say anything else?'

‘No.' Let Austin tell her in his own time.

‘Charlotte will have the Villa.'

‘Clara says she thinks it's left to both of them.'

‘I want Charlotte to have it,' said Dorina. ‘Poor Mrs Ledgard. Oh dear.'

‘When are you going to see Austin?' said Mavis. ‘You can't decide anything till you see him again. You're just getting sort of comatose and dreamy staying on here and deciding nothing.'

‘I'll write to him,' said Dorina.

‘You're always writing to him. Don't write to him, see him. All those letters going to and fro and Ludwig arriving with flowers — that's no use —'

‘Don't, Mavis. Do you ever feel that life is empty and awful?'

‘Yes. But it's better to have it empty and awful than full and awful like Mrs Carberry. Oh
Dorina
—'

Dorina was in tears.

‘I'm going to make the lunch,' said Mavis.

She went out not exactly banging the door but closing it briskly. She felt horribly haunted by Dorina's troubles, almost made unclean. Only spirit could break these spells. Perhaps she had better ask Mrs Carberry to pray for them all.

‘We're on an island,' said Austin. ‘You and me, Mitzi, we're on an island. Where's Ludwig?'

‘He's taken Gracie to the cinema.'

‘Good. Was I saying? We're on an island. Man needs a woman, tenderness, nothing like it, always one at the right time. Have's more whisky. I'm thingummybob and you're what's-her-name, years and years on this island and all the time there's a wee wifie waiting —'

‘Austin, you're drunk.'

‘Oh I'll get there in the end, Mitzi, it's lovely there, you know, at least it will be after they're all dead and the old dog will recognize me and wag his tail —'

‘I'd like to have a dog. I've always wanted a dog. Only you couldn't keep one in London really.'

‘And the wee wifie's waiting and turning her spinning wheel like a bloody sibyl and the years are passing and all the time I'm down on the beach crying my eyes out because the great big nymphie won't let me go home.'

‘Austin darling, you've only been here two days and —'

‘I won't ask you to sit on my knee, Mitzi, the chair might bust. Don't you grieve though, one day you'll meet a man who's bigger than you are. You know I'm glad I've lost my job, it makes me feel free. Begone dull care. Oh I've had such awful news, you don't know what awful news I've had.'

‘About Dorina?'

‘No, not about Dorina, no such luck, I mean luck for
you
, dear. Dorina's safe, she's all right, she's safe in her cage and they're feeding her with seed cake through the bars. She'll wait for me, she's got to, bless her innocent little palpitating heart.'

‘What's this news you've had, Austin?'

‘No news. One has always known the worst. In the womb one knows one's doom, one lies in the tomb, shut with the executioner into a little room. Only one forgets it mercifully, it slips one's mind. We all know the day of our death only we forget it. Shall I tell you a story?'

‘About Dorina?'

‘Always on about her, aren't you. No, not about Dorina, she's sacred, she's above us, she's separate from all this, she's an angel, she's on her island and we're on ours. I'll never talk to you about her, never, if I ever talk to you about her may my tongue wither. Pass the bot, there's a good girl. Was I saying? God, I so much wanted a daughter. What was I saying?'

‘Austin, you're drunk, you'd better go to bed.'

‘But not with you, my pettikins. Even big girls can't have everything they want. Keep your dressing-gown buttoned, duckie, I don't want to see your nightie. Shall I sit on your knee?'

‘Austin —'

‘I'm not as drunk as you think. I'm just telling dull care to begone. Shall I tell you a story?'

‘The bottle's empty.

‘Shall I tell you a
story
?'

‘All right, but —'

‘Once upon a time there were two brothers. Now this story isn't about me and Matthew. I know you think it is but it isn't. There were these two brothers and they lived on the top of a high mountain, and down at the bottom of the mountain there was a deep blue lake and at the bottom of the lake there lived a lady —'