The Nutmeg Tree (6 page)

She was there.

3

The villa of Les Sapins, as originally constructed at the time of the First Empire, was a small white building partly of two stories, partly of one. It jutted squarely from the hillside, the upper or front door opening on a terrace at the foot of the vine, the lower door upon a terrace over the kitchen-garden. Below were the dining-room, the kitchen, and the larders; above a salon and three bedrooms. This accommodation had sufficed until about 1890, when a new owner of convivial tastes added a billiard-room and two more bedchambers. He built straight along on the flat, thus turning the original square into a rectangle; and besides elongating the terraces to suit, he joined them by fine stucco staircases, one at either end of the house. With the construction of these staircases the glory of Les Sapins reached its height; and it lasted but two years. The jovial owner went bankrupt, the villa stood empty, or was rented and neglected by a succession of summer tenants; until it finally passed into the hands of an English spinster named Spencer-Jones, who put in a bath. Miss Spencer-Jones knew Mrs. Packett; and Mrs. Packett took it for the summer of 1936.

Even in decadence, the place was charming. A great Virginia jasmine, dropping fed waxen trumpets, concealed the worst deficiencies of the roof. In the deep shadow of the embowering pines the walls still looked white. Tubs of oleander flanked the broken steps, a great lime tree spread shade and perfume over the lower terrace; the rosebushes looked like summer-houses, the summerhouse like a rosebush.

But the glory of the place was the view. From the top of the vineyard, which mounted directly behind the house, one looked straight across a vast circular plain,—mountain-girdled, dotted with villages, varied by little hills, cultivated over every foot,—whose centre was the tiny bishopric of Belley. It was the joke of the village that the back door at Les Sapins was two hundred feet higher than the front; and the pride of the villa that from it one could see Mont Blanc.

4

High up amongst the topmost trees, on the morning of Julia's arrival, stood a tall, fair girl in an old mackintosh. She had been there since six, watching the Ambérieu road as a beleaguered garrison watches for the relieving force; yet as the car at last appeared her expression did not clear. She had called in, not a known ally, but a strange power. By that impulsive letter, posted as soon as it was written, she had invited a stranger to her inmost councils; had tacitly given word to throw down all defences, expose every weakness, in return for a reinforcement whose strength she did not know.

“Have I been a fool?” asked Susan Packett of the pine trees.

There was naturally no answer. But as the gates clanged open, as the car nosed up the avenue, Susan turned her back on the house and began to climb higher and higher, towards the bare rocks.

Chapter 6

1

Under the roses of the porch Julia was received by an elderly Frenchwoman, who at once conducted her into a wide echoing hall. The Frenchwoman, in list-slippers, padded quietly as a cat, but Julia's heels clattered; and it was perhaps then that she received the impression, which never afterwards left her, that she always made twice as much noise as anyone else in the house.

“La salle de bain,”
said the old woman, proudly flinging open a door.

“Je vois,”
said Julia;
“très chic.”

“Madame will take the bath?”

“Toute de suite,”
agreed Julia. “At any rate, as soon as I've got a sponge out.
Éponge, savon. Dans les valises.”

“Madame parle français!”
exclaimed the old woman politely; and a moment later Julia wished she hadn't, for while fetching the bags Claudia let out, in a volley of animated French, what Julia felt sure were messages from Susan, messages from Mrs. Packett, and general instructions for her own procedure. There was nothing for it, however, but to smile intelligently; and this Julia did.

“
Et
—
c'est là la chambre de Madame!
” finished the old woman with a flourish.

Julia stood still in the middle of it and looked about her. It was like no room she had ever seen—large, square, with white walls, bare boards, and two windows open on pines, sunshine and a view to a blue hill. There was a white bed in an alcove between two closets, a tiny dressing-table, almost concealed behind a great bunch of roses, two chairs, and another table by the windows set with a breakfast-tray and more flowers.

“It's a bit bare,” thought Julia, “but there's a lovely lot of room”; and unlocking the larger of her two suitcases she emptied it upon the bed. Her dressing-gown came out at the bottom, but she fished it up, and opened the other case to get her sponge-bag, and moved the roses from the dressing-table to make room for her toilet things. By the time her bath was ready, after only ten minutes' occupation, the whole aspect of the place was so completely altered that even Julia herself felt a slight surprise.

“I've got to be tidy,” she warned herself firmly. All ladies were tidy: they had special boxes to pack their shoes in, and special boxes for their gloves, and bags marked “Linen” for their dirty vests. Julia too would have had these things, if finances had permitted; but as they didn't it seemed bootless to worry over details. A broad general effect was (as always) Julia's aim; and this she now achieved by sweeping everything into a closet and shutting the door. But for the roses on the floor, and a stocking on the window-seat,—and some shoes under the table and a powder-box among the breakfast-things,—one would never have known that she had been in the room at all.

2

And now, surely, as she lay triumphant in that French bath, was the moment for the Marseillaise. But not a note issued from Julia's throat. She was a little tired after her travelling, and a little sentimental still over Fred; but the chief reason for her silence was that she hadn't yet, so to speak, been introduced. She felt odd enough herself, lying stark naked in a house where she hadn't even met her hostess; how would Susan feel, if after such careful plans for their first meeting her mother prematurely announced her presence by a song from the bath? And since splashing would be almost as bad, Julia found herself moving carefully, almost furtively, in the water: washing her back with precaution, lying down by degrees, so that not a ripple lapped. She found herself pretending, in fact, that she wasn't there; and if she closed her eyes the sensation was remarkably complete. Even the water, unscented, unmoving, didn't feel quite real. It was just a warm atmosphere in which she floated disembodied, no more real than anything else.…

“Here!” cried Julia, vaguely alarmed, “I mustn't go to sleep!”

The sound of her own voice aroused her; she at once sat up, listening intently, to see whether anyone else had been aroused as well. But all was quiet, and with a sigh of relief she climbed unobtrusively out and began to dry. There were two bath-towels, beautifully large and white, besides a smaller one of linen, with embroidery on the edge; and though it was impossible to make real use of the lot, Julia had such a damn good try that she heard the maid's slippered feet in the passage, and her own door open and shut, while she was still polishing up her thighs.

“It's my breakfast,” thought Julia; and, anxious to be in the right place at the right time,—another form of self-effacement,—she hurried on her clothes and hastened back to her room. There was no one there, but rolls and honey had appeared on the breakfast-table; anxious to be found in the right garments, Julia exchanged her dressing-gown for a white piqué frock and hastily powdered her nose. And it was a mercy she did so, for the next moment there was a rap at the door, and behind the door was a coffeepot, and carrying the coffeepot was her daughter Susan.

3

At the first sight of her Julia's heart leapt up. For Susan was pretty, and pretty in a peculiarly ladylike way. She had the Packett height and slimness, the fair Packett hair, and eyes of that rare clear grey that is unflecked, unshaded, by any tint of blue. There was nothing of Julia in that face, and nothing of Julia in the sweet virginal voice.

“Good morning,” said Susan.

She was still holding the coffeepot (could it be protectively?) so that Julia, poised for an embrace, had to sink as it were back into herself before answering.

“Good morning,” she said, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. “Good morning, Susan.”

The girl set down the pot (could it be that she felt the danger pass?) and smiled gravely.

“Yes,” she said. “I'm Susan. I hope you didn't mind my not coming to meet you. But—”

“But it's so much nicer here,” finished Julia quickly.

“It shocked Grandmother, but I thought you'd understand.” (That was heartening, at any rate!) “And she's also rather shocked,” continued Susan, smiling again, “because I wouldn't let her get up to welcome you. She's sitting up in bed now, waiting for the moment you've finished your breakfast. But I had to have you to myself first.”

Such pleasant words, spoken in so grave and charming a voice, filled Julia with maternal joy. But it was a joy still a little constrained: as she sat down to the table, and let Susan pour out for her, the odd feeling of the bathroom surged over her once again. Was this truly her daughter, standing so dutifully over the breakfast-tray? Was this strange bare house one in which she herself had truly a daughter's rights? It didn't feel real. Nothing felt real, not even the bread between her teeth, which she had to make an effort to swallow.…

“Are you feeling shy?” asked Susan unexpectedly. “I am.”

Julia beamed.

“Till you said that I was.” Impulsively she got up from the table; but she was still too shy to give her daughter a kiss. Susan, in spite of so much charm, didn't look the kissing sort; and as the thought crossed her mind Julia felt an added curiosity to hear about Susan's young man. “Tell me all about him!” cried Julia impetuously; and sat down on the window-seat with ears and heart open.

Susan, however, had her own plans. She smiled affectionately, but with a shake of the head.

“His name is Bryan Relton, he's twenty-six and a barrister, and he'll be quite well off. You'll see him at lunch. Only it's no use discussing anything now, is it? I mean until you've got to know us both, it's not fair to ask for your opinion.”

Nicely put, thought Julia; but she knew what it meant all the same. “Not fair” meant “no use”; and though the assumption was perfectly sound, such rationality, in a girl in love, struck her as exaggerated. Or was it rather caution? Was Bryan Relton one of those young men for whom nothing much can be said, but who have only to make a personal appearance to carry all before them? So wondered Julia, but not for long; she was too much occupied with observing her daughter. The more you looked at her—and Susan was now sitting close on the window-seat—the more perfect you saw she was. Her beautiful small ears lay flat to her head; her beautiful small hands, brown but perfectly kept, sprang delicately from the wrists as leaves from the slender stem. And then she was so clean! Julia was clean herself, she had a bath every day, so long as there was gas: but Susan's was the cleanliness of a running stream—something as much and as essential a part of her as her height or her grey eyes.

“I don't wonder he's wild about her,” thought Julia, returning, though only in silence, to the forbidden topic. “I expect he's poetical.” She pictured him tall and thin and very serious—the sort that adores once and for a lifetime; and she also pictured him a good deal older than his years, since it is generally to men above thirty that the virginal makes most appeal. “I bet he thinks she's a sort of angel,” mused Julia, highly approving.…

“What would you like me to call you?” asked Susan suddenly. “You look so young to be called ‘Mother.'”

Julia felt a pang of disappointment. Of course she wanted to be called “Mother”—hadn't she come all the way from England for that very purpose? She wanted to be called “Mother,” “Mumsie,” “Mummy,” “Mum”; but from Susan's tone she knew at once that none of these vocables would ever find favour. As before, it was nicely put; but behind the tribute to her appearance Julia divined a shrinking, an embarrassment, which her own warm heart found difficult to comprehend.

Instead of directly answering, she said, a little wistfully, “You can't think how glad I was to get your letter. I know I've never been as much to you as I should—that was my own fault; and it made me so happy that you should still turn to me. I know I'm not really your sort—”

She broke off, for her daughter's embarrassment was now unconcealed. Susan had got up and was staring fixedly out of the window.

“I think you were perfectly right,” she said rapidly. “You wanted to live your own life, and you did. I've no patience with people who sacrifice themselves to other people's ideas. If you want to know, I've always admired you.”

“You—you have been happy with them?” asked Julia anxiously.

“Perfectly happy. Grandmother's an absolute darling, and so was Grandpa. And, I can't help knowing it, I've made them happy too. I've somehow consoled them for losing my father.” She turned back, her face eager. “Will you tell me all about him, please?”

The moment had come—the moment for intimacy, for the long mother-and-daughter talk to which Julia had so much looked forward. But her heart, instead of leaping, sank within her. For when it came to the point—when the image of Sylvester Packett should have sprung fully-formed in her mind—she found she remembered practically nothing about him at all.

4

“He was a first lieutenant in the Gunners—” began Julia carefully; and paused. There had been so many first lieutenants, a lot of them in the Gunners, and they had all been very much alike. Young, tired, reckless in gaiety, but never—never quite all there. Never completely with you, as though they had all left part of themselves somewhere else. You could be out dining with a man, having a perfectly lovely time, and suddenly across the room he would catch another man's eye, or a man would pause by your table, and all at once they were somewhere else and you were left behind. It had seemed as if war were a sort of fourth dimension, into which they slipped back without noticing, even out of your arms.… So you never really knew them—at least the Julias didn't—and how could you remember anyone you hadn't properly known?