The Nutmeg Tree (7 page)

“Don't, if it hurts you,” said Susan gently.

In spite of her self-justification, Julia felt ashamed. She cudgelled her brains.

“He liked the Piccadilly better than Murray's,” she said at last. “Most of them didn't. But then he wasn't like the rest in lots of ways.”

“No?” prompted Susan.

“He was very serious. And he had very good manners. He was so good to me—” Julia broke off: impossible to tell his daughter exactly
how
good! And overcome by the effort, and by self-reproach, and by easy yet sincere regrets, she accidentally did the only right thing. She put down her head and burst into tears.

“Oh, don't!” cried Susan remorsefully. “Please,
please!
”

But Julia wept on. She might forget Sylvester for years on end, but when she did think about him it was properly. He was the best man she had ever known, he had taken thought for her, he had left her his name and—had she wished for it—the protection of his home. He had married her! No one else …

“Except Fred,” thought Julia.

The events of the previous evening—at the Casino Bleu, in the taxi going to the station—rose incongruously in her mind. She thrust them back, but not before they had given her, oddly enough, something she wanted.

“I've remembered another thing,” she sobbed. “Something that was really
him
. Whenever he was upset, he used to bite his thumb. Not the nail, you know, but down by the joint.”

With a quick movement Susan stood up.

“You'd like to go in the garden,” she said abruptly. “No—you'd like to see Grandmother. I'll see—I'll tell her. It's lovely in the garden. I'll tell you when Grandmother—”

Her lips trembled, she seemed to be speaking at random. Suddenly she spread out her hands and looked at them with a kind of awe.

“They got
me
out of it when I was ten,” she said; and went quickly from the room.

Chapter 7

1

Julia did as she was bid. When she had made up her face—and it needed it badly—she went out by the porch, and down the broken flight of steps, and so found herself on the lower terrace. She had no impulse to explore: her instinct bade her keep close to the house; and a chair under the lime tree at once attracted her eye. It was very comfortable, and by pulling it forward she could rest her feet on the low stone wall. Emotion did not as a rule tire her—it bucked her up; but the emotion of the last hour was different. It had been constrained, not expansive.…

“I'm a fool!” Julia told herself sharply. “Did I expect her to fall on my neck?”

The truth was that she had so expected. After that letter, after her own swift response, the actual meeting with Susan had been an anticlimax. There had been tears, indeed, but tears of the wrong sort; and none shed by Susan. “She doesn't cry easily,” thought Julia. “She'd never cry before a stranger.…” There was the rub: that Julia, who could get intimate with a trapeze artist after five minutes' conversation—who was intimate with a salesman after buying a pair of shoes—had talked for an hour to her own daughter, about the girl's own father and lover, without the least intimacy at all.

“I'm a fool,” thought Julia again. “It's just because she's such a perfect lady. And what
I
need is a good sleep.”

She did not sleep then, but the quiet of the morning, the sunshine, the warm odours that rose from the kitchen-garden below, gradually soothed and raised her spirits. From where she sat she could see no further than the roofs of the village: she was in a little tree-encircled world, strange but delightful in its picturesqueness. A lovely world! Julia had no eye for detail; she could appreciate only such obvious effects as the bright clear green of the tree-tops, the flaming mass of the jasmine against a white wall; but what she enjoyed she enjoyed thoroughly. She liked the oleanders—the pink ones better than the white; she admired the showy intention of the broken staircase; and it also struck her that her own white figure, against the dark blue cushions of her chair, must be making a very pleasant effect.

Here Julia paused. Beneath the agreeable surface of her thought stirred the consciousness of something lacking. What was it? She was very comfortable, she had ceased to worry about Susan, yet that wasn't enough. She wanted something more. What was it?

“Of course!” thought Julia, surprised at her own obtuseness.

There ought to be a man there. There ought to be a man to enjoy her white frock, to admire her sensibility when she pointed out the jasmine. It wasn't because she, Julia, couldn't do without one. She didn't want a man
personally
, but because in that lovely place—with its roses and terraces and no doubt lots of little hidden nooks—the lack of one seemed such a waste.

At that moment, a man appeared.

2

Julia admired him greatly. He was young, deeply sunburnt, and dressed in a blue shirt, tan-coloured trousers, and sandalettes that had once been white. Over his shoulder was slung a light jacket, on his head he wore one of the coarse straw hats, shaped like sun-helmets, which Julia had noticed in the village. This, as he approached, he respectfully doffed.

“Bonjour, Madame!”

Julia nodded affably. She hoped he was a gardener, for though obviously not a man to sit on the terrace with, she felt he would be nice to have about. He could carry cushions for her, light her cigarette; perhaps pick for her, and shyly present, bouquets of wild flowers.…

“Bonjour, mon homme,”
returned Julia graciously.

The young man grinned. The change was so sudden—the flash of white teeth so altered, while illuminating, his countenance—that Julia received quite a shock. Though the hat was still in his hand, he now looked scarcely respectful at all: his regard was frankly admiring. He looked her over, evidently liked what he saw, and gave her what was practically a glad-eye. The French were like that, Julia knew, and one had to make allowances; but in a gardener it was—well, unsuitable.

“Go and get on with your work!” she said sharply.
“Allez-vous en!”

He went at once (but apparently unabashed) towards the kitchen-garden gate; and in spite of her disapproval Julia could not help acknowledging that his figure, in its gay foreign clothes, lent a touch of picturesque interest to the landscape. Though not tall, he was very athletic: when he reached the gate he did not open it, but vaulted over. Julia heard his voice uplifted in French, apparently addressing one of the maidservants; a woman called back, a dog barked, and then all was still again.

“I bet he's a terror in the village,” thought Julia.

The incident had quite woken her up, and she had just decided to go for a walk round the house when Susan reappeared at the other end of the terrace. Julia went towards her, and when they had met—not calling out, vulgarly, from a distance—Susan gave her message.

“Would you like to come and see Grandmother? I'm afraid I've been a long time, but she'd gone to sleep again.”

“I nearly slept, myself,” said Julia, as they walked up the steps. “It's so lovely and peaceful.”

“I do hope you won't be bored here,” said Susan.

“I'm never bored where there's scenery,” returned Julia grandly. “I just love a nice view.”

Susan smiled, but did not look particularly reassured. “Grandmother's room has the best view of any,” was all she said; and opening the door she ushered Julia in.

3

Mrs. Packett was sitting in bed wearing a very smart boudoir-cap and a woollen cardigan. She smiled as Julia came in, and held out her hand; but she also had a complaint to make, and with the frank egoism of age at once made it.

“I have been to sleep again,” she announced severely. “Of course I go to sleep if Susan forces me to have breakfast in bed. It's very bad for me, and there are crumbs among the clothes.”

“You'll be up in ten minutes,” said Susan consolingly. “Claudia's seeing to your bath now.”

“I wanted to get up
early
,” insisted Mrs. Packett. “I wanted to be up to meet you, Julia, but Susan wouldn't let me. She's not going to let me lunch with you either, because—”

“Grandmother!”

“Go away, Susan.” Mrs. Packett watched her granddaughter out of the room and went on where she had left off. “—Because she wants to put this young man through his paces all by herself. I'm supposed to be a disturbing influence—like in table-turning. As you'll very soon find out, my dear, Susan does anything she likes with me.”

Julia smiled.

“Not altogether. You know why
I
'm here?”

“Of course I do, and I'm very glad. Draw that curtain back and let me have a look at you.”

Julia did as she was told and let in a burst of sunlight not only on herself but also upon Mrs. Packett. The old woman stood it well; her plump weather-browned face was fresh and lively, her small grey eyes looked interestedly on the world. Age suited her. As a girl she must have been pretty; in middle life, as Julia remembered her at Barton, she was scarcely distinguishable against the general background of well-bred dowdiness; now she had emerged again, complete and individual, with her prejudices elevated to principles and her dowdiness ripened into distinction. “She's
tough
,” thought Julia admiringly.…

“You've put on weight,” remarked Mrs. Packett. “But you look well. What have you been doing with yourself all this time?”

Julia paused. The figure of Mr. Macdermot (and of many another) passed rapidly before her inward eye. The day at Elstree when she fell into the fountain (five times in three hours) was fresh in her memory. So were several other episodes, all as poignant and interesting at the time as they were now unsuitable for relation.

“Nothing much,” she said. “I've just been living in town.”

“You don't keep a cake-shop?”

“A cake-shop?” Julia was surprised. “I've never thought of it.”

“I have,” said Mrs. Packett energetically. “I was thinking of it only last night. It would just suit you—and you've got the capital.”

Here was some of the thin ice Julia had been dreading. She cut a daring figure on it.

“Suppose I lost the lot?”

“You wouldn't, if you had any sense. Everyone I know in London complains that they can never get a homemade cake. I could give you twenty addresses now. I'd write to them all personally. And if you like, while you're here, I'll show you my special maids-of-honour.”

Julia listened to these plans with astonishment: she had never credited her mother-in-law with so much enterprise. But a topic involving capital was not, in her opinion, one to be too closely pursued.

“I'll think about it,” she said. “At the moment I can't think of anything but Susan. I'm afraid you'll feel I've come to interfere.”

“Of course you have,” said Mrs. Packett. “Not that I blame you. Nor do I blame Susan, though I think she's behaving most unreasonably. I expect you thought she was locked in her room on bread and water?”

“I expected to find her … worse,” Julia admitted.

“Instead of which I'm feeding them both twice a day on the fat of the land. You'll see at lunchtime. You'll see
him
. Susan made me promise not to speak about him until you'd met, in case I prejudiced you; but you know I disapprove, because she must have said so in her letter. Isn't that so?”

“Yes,” agreed Julia, “but she didn't say why.”

Mrs. Packett looked surprised: “Simply because she's too young. I've nothing against Bryan personally. But no girl should get married at twenty.”

“Then you don't object to an engagement?”

“Until Susan is twenty-one I do. If they would like to announce their engagement next year, and get married when Susan is twenty-three, I have no objection at all.”

This was a new light on the subject, and Julia considered it thoughtfully. Susan's birthday was in March—only eight months away—and after a formal engagement the time of waiting could probably be abridged. Then why wouldn't Susan wait? Why so desperate a measure as the fetching of her mother from London? She wasn't'—Julia could have sworn it—consumed by the impatience of passion. She was escaping from no present ills. Then why …?

“I can't understand it,” said Mrs. Packett, meeting her thought. “She's enjoying the life at Girton, she loves it. Another two years, and one getting ready, shouldn't seem long to her. And at the beginning she agreed with me; it's only in the last few weeks that she's become so—so heady.”

“And the young man?” asked Julia. “Is he willing to wait too?”

“If he is, my dear, he can hardly say so, with Susan clamouring to get married next month.” Mrs. Packett sighed. “Perhaps I'm being selfish. Perhaps, when I say I want her to have her girlhood, I really mean I want to keep her a little longer for myself. You know, my dear, we've always been very grateful to you?”

Julia moved uneasily. What a family they were for distributing nonexistent virtues!

“I'm grateful to
you
,” she said almost curtly. “When I see Susan now I know I could never have done half as well for her. She's her father's daughter much more than mine—and a very good thing too.”

The old woman's glance was suddenly so shrewd that Julia was taken by surprise. “I bet it was she who wouldn't let Sue come and stay with me!” she thought. And quite right, all things considered: there were some people who shouldn't mix, however nearly they were related; the tie of the spirit was closer than the tie of the flesh, and in spirit Susan was pure Packett. Julia's spirit—“If I've got one!” she thought suddenly. “If you ask me, I'm all flesh!”

Mrs. Packett put out her hard old hand and touched Julia's plump one.