Snow and Roses Read online

  She pushed the food that she had brought for dinner into the fridge. Lalage was coming over in time for lunch tomorrow, they could eat it then. Tonight she would boil an egg if she wanted one, but at the moment she felt as though she had been fed on manna from the skies.

  She wandered about from the kitchen to the sitting room, from the sitting room upstairs to the bedroom, feeling as if the cottage that she loved so much had been given back to her. She changed into a cotton frock that she always kept there, colour between blue and violet that Hugh loved because he said it deepened the colour of her eyes. She went downstairs again, poured herself a drink and carried it into the garden. She wandered about the little patch, glass in hand, picking a flower here and there to make a bowl for the sitting room.

  As she arranged the flowers she remembered how Nan had said that morning, “I didn’t know there was such happiness.” Her own had been enhanced by the threat of losing it. She hoped that Nan would not lose hers. She was afraid it was all too likely. A young man of Ralph’s kind would not insist on so much secrecy about an engagement unless his feelings about it were divided. By the time she had carried the bowl of flowers into the sitting room Flora’s healthy appetite was reminding her that she could not live on moonshine. She made herself an omelette, and then went outside again. She wandered along the edge of the hay-field, enjoying in every nerve of her body the sweetness of the long light evening and listening for the sound of Hugh’s car coming down the lane.

  She was at the far end of the field when she heard it. She turned and ran along the path by the sea of ripening grass. Hugh was just getting out of the car. She threw herself breathless and laughing into his arms.

  “I’m so sorry, Flora. It was maddening Lee Jackson turning up unexpectedly like that. But he was so kind to me over there, and he has to go up to London tomorrow. There was nothing for it but to take him to dine and meet everybody this evening.”

  “Of course. I hope you both enjoyed it. Do you like him?”

  “Very much indeed except for keeping me from you. He’s a charming fellow. I’ve left him talking to the Master and Protheroe.”

  “It was good of you to come over after all that.”

  “I wanted to. I had to see you this week-end.”

  “Yes, this week has seemed like a whole term. Come inside.”

  “I shan’t be able to stay more than a few minutes. Cecily thinks I’m spending the evening in the Common Room, and so I ought to be I suppose. But there’s one thing I so much wanted to tell you myself before you see it in a paper or hear it from someone else. I’ve been asked to do the Garrowby lecture.”

  “Hugh! How wonderful, how lovely! Oh, I’m so glad, I couldn’t be more pleased.”

  She flung her arms round him and hugged him.

  “Yes, it’s quite something. They generally get some distinguished literary figure or some learned old Professor.”

  “Well, they’re getting themselves a very distinguished Tutor, and it will be the best Garrowby they ever had. What’s the subject?”

  “Whatever I choose.” He grinned widely. “Anything connected with English literature. I haven’t had time to think about it yet with Jackson on my hands. I only heard this morning. I haven’t told anybody except Cecily and the Master.”

  “Weren’t they very pleased?”

  “Yes. But I didn’t feel as though I’d really grasped it myself until I’d told you.”

  “Bless you, darling! As soon as you can manage it we must have an evening, so that you can tell me all your ideas for possible subjects.”

  “Yes, indeed we must. Next week. But Flora, I’ve something else I must tell you. I’ve applied for Fordwick.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. I had to. I don’t see any help for it. Cecily had another bad time at the Worcester garden party. I couldn’t get there at the beginning. I found her all alone by the lake crying.”

  “The bloody little fool!”

  “Flora!”

  “It’s too much. You write and say you’ve got good news, and you come here looking happy as a king.”

  “But I am happy … about the Garrowby. I thought you would be too.”

  “Damn the Garrowby!”

  “Flora!”

  “Don’t keep on saying ‘Flora!’ How can you be so stupid? Don’t you realize that I’ve been in agony all the week? What does any stupid lecture matter as much as our being together?”

  “But we shall be together whenever we can.”

  “And how often will that be? When you’ve gone right up there just to satisfy a spoilt woman’s whim.”

  “Flora! You’ve always been so sweet and understanding about Cecily.”

  “I do understand about her. I understand a lot more about her than you do. She’s made a slave of you with her nervous tantrums. You’re afraid of her.”

  “I’m afraid of driving her round the bend which isn’t the same thing.”

  “Yes it is. It is. You don’t stand up to her, and it would do her a world of good. She enjoys her power over you. You subordinate yourself all the time to her fancies.”

  “She is my wife.”

  “And I’m only your mistress; is that what you mean?” She saw a look on his face she had never seen before as he suddenly shouted,

  “Well, what else are you?”

  “I’m the woman you love, or so you’ve been saying for five years.”

  “You are. I meant it. You know I love you. More than anyone in the world.”

  “That can’t be true when you’re just going to ditch me.”

  “I’m not ditching you. I wish you’d try to have some sense of proportion.”

  “Proportion! When you come here so pleased with yourself just because you’re going to give a silly lecture.”

  “Flora, this can’t be you at all talking about silly lectures. You know what the Garrowby means.”

  “To hell with the Garrowby.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve upset you like this. I’ve been clumsy and stupid.”

  “Yes, you are stupid. I never knew you were but you are.”

  “Do stop this. Please let us talk quietly. It won’t be as bad as you think. I shall be here most of the vac. I’ve got a plan for next summer … of course we shall meet often. I shall mind being so much further away from you as much as you will.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “I shall, Flora. You must believe me.”

  “Then withdraw your application for Fordwick.”

  There was a silence. He sat down at the table and covered his face with his hands. After a minute he looked up and said gently,

  “I can’t, darling. It’s the only chance for Cecily.”

  “No it isn’t. Tell her that Oxford is the place where your work is and you’ve got to stay here. Find a better psychiatrist and take her to him.”

  “She won’t go.”

  “Make her. Or get some other kind of treatment for her. Send her away for a time to some sort of Rest Home where she would be looked after by people who understand nerves.”

  “All this for your convenience?”

  “For yours and mine.”

  “You’ve got a nerve to tell me what to do with my wife.”

  “I’m only trying to help you because you won’t help yourself.”

  “Perhaps I’m a better judge of what I ought to do for her than you are.”

  She cried suddenly with anguish,

  “Oh what has happened to us?”

  “We’re quarrelling. That’s what’s happened.”

  “We never have before. Not like this.”

  “I must go. I shan’t be home much before midnight.”

  “You can’t leave it like this.”

  “Cecily will get into a state if I’m very late.”

  “Oh, Hugh. Can’t you see what she’s doing to you? What a cinch she’s got you in?”

  “You’ve never said anything like this before.”

  “I wish I had. Anyhow I’m saying it n
ow. Don’t, don’t go to Fordwick.”

  “Do you imagine you’ve got me in a cinch too?”

  “How can you say that to me? We’ve had the most free relationship.”

  “It doesn’t seem to be free now. Flora, my dearest, do let us stop this. It’s my fault, and I haven’t time now to put it right. When can I come and see you again?”

  “If you’re going to apply for Fordwick you can’t.”

  “Don’t be a bloody fool. You can’t mean that.”

  “I do.”

  “It’s preposterous.”

  “So is the way you’re treating me.”

  “You can’t expect me …”

  “What can’t I expect? Doesn’t loving you for five years give me some rights?”

  “Not the right to dictate to me.”

  “You’d better go.”

  “I am going. For good.”

  He stamped out of the room and she heard the front door slam.

  She sat at the table trembling with fury and humiliation and with a deeper sense of something that mattered far more than either.

  I never want to see him again. He must have pretended to love me all these years if he can just throw me over sooner than speak a word of sense to that pampered little vampire.

  She saw the lights of the car sweep over the uncurtained window.

  She sprang up and dragged the door open. She ran round the house shouting, “Hugh, Hugh.”

  The car was just turning through the gap into the lane.

  He accelerated at once. She tore down the lane in the wake of the car, shouting,

  “Hugh! Comeback! Comeback!”

  Driving much too fast for the narrow lane he swung round into the secondary road. Flora nan after him, still calling to him, but he drew quickly away from her. Panting she leaned on a gate, unaware that the barbed wire on it tore her dress and made a deep scratch in her shoulder. The lights of the car disappeared, at the bend into the main road. Flora burst into a storm of weeping.

  She woke with a jerk, and was at once conscious of an aching head, and of a feeling all over her body as if she had been beaten. The room was full of grey light and the sound of steady rain. She turned on her pillow and glanced at the clock. Nine! The letter propped up beside the clock brought the whole thing back to her. She sprang out of bed.

  She had meant to wake early. She had meant to drive into Oxford about seven and to push into Hugh’s letterbox the letter she had written to him at four o’clock that morning. She wanted him to find it as soon as he first came down, as she knew he always did, to make tea for Cecily. She could not bear to think that he and she should be on bad terms for another day. She had written to say that she was sorry that she had been so egotistical and unreasonable, that of course he must apply for Fordwick if he thought it right; she begged him to forgive and forget and to come and see her again as soon as possible.

  When she was on her feet, splashing cold water over herself and throwing on her clothes, her head ached less and her naturally good spirits revived. She would have the letter delivered in an hour from now. Hugh was the last man in the world to want to keep up a quarrel. He would telephone, from somewhere, she would hear his voice, she could speak to him lovingly again, he would suggest the first evening that he could manage; they would soon be together again and laugh at themselves.

  After all it wasn’t the end. The idea of giving up this cottage and finding some shack or small country pub near Fordwick where she could go for part of each vac flashed across her sanguine mind.

  She was running a comb through her tangled hair when she heard a car coming slowly down the lane, which was hardly used except by the farm traffic. Hugh! Of course. He had hated their quarrel as much as she had, he was JBtíleager to make friends again as soon as possible. She ^^œrjoyfully downstairs and opened the front door.

  The car that crunched to a halt on the stones was not Hugh’s but Lalage’s two-seater. Flora, bitterly disappointed, inwardly cursed Lal, but after all she wouldn’t be in the least disturbed if Flora dashed off at once to Oxford and left explanations till later. Flora grabbed her mackintosh off the peg behind the door, and shrugged it on, calling out to Lalage, who seemed very slow in getting out of the car on the far side.

  She came round the bonnet. Her face stopped Flora with a sudden presage of disaster. Lalage’s face was white and stiff as if frozen by shock.

  “Flora. Come inside and sit down. I’ve got to tell you something. I’ve got bad news for you.”

  Flora’s hand flew up to her throat.

  “Hugh?”

  “Yes. Oh, my dear—Martin telephoned this morning—Hugh was driving along the Woodstock Road last night when two drunken undergraduates going at eighty miles an hour ran into him.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Yes. He died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.”

  Part II

  “If only it hadn’t been my fault.” Flora moved her head restlessly on her pillow. She knew that it was the hundredth time that she had said this, but she was incapable of not saying it again.

  For the hundredth time Lalage firmly and patiently replied,

  “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t Hugh’s either. You know it was proved at the inquest that poor wretched young Fullerton was sodden with alcohol.”

  “Yes, I know. I know all that, but if we hadn’t quarrelled, if Hugh hadn’t driven off in a state, his reactions might have been quicker, he might just have been able to make the one movement that could have saved him.”

  “He hadn’t a chance. Fullerton’s car was going at eighty miles an hour when he hit the wall and rebounded. You know the lorry driver saw it all.”

  “But don’t you see, Lal, don’t you see that if we hadn’t had that quarrel, Hugh wouldn’t have rushed off like that, he’d have stayed a little longer at the cottage and gone more slowly and he wouldn’t have been there on the road when Fullerton hit the wall. Fullerton would have been killed probably, but not Hugh. I destroyed him. With my bad temper and egotism I destroyed him.”

  Flora turned over and pressed her face down into the pillow. Lalage standing in her favourite place by the window sighed inaudibly.

  “It was my fault. Nothing you say will alter that.”

  “No, because you won’t listen to me. You’re determined to lacerate yourself.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “Would Hugh have wanted you to?”

  Flora did not answer for a minute. Then she said in a low voice:

  “He never would have wanted anybody to suffer.”

  “Then shouldn’t you try not to make it worse for yourself than it has to be?”

  There was no answer. Lalage turned away from the window. When she moved, the evening light came full onto Flora’s face.

  “Look, Flora, you must have something to eat. You ate hardly any lunch and you didn’t come in to dinner. You can’t go on like this. I’ve got some fresh eggs. Let me scramble some for you or make you an omelette.”

  “I don’t want anything.”

  “You’re not fit to go on working!”

  “Yes, I am. It’s the one thing that holds me together. Except you, Lal. I know I’m giving you a hell of a time. One day I hope I shall be able to thank you.”

  “Do it now. Oblige me by trying to eat something, and then settling for the night.” Lalage added with assumed sternness, “I’ve got work to do too, you know. I can’t stay here persuading you all the evening.”

  “I know you can’t. Don’t stay. I promise you I’ll get up and drink some milk, and boil an egg and try to eat it. I’d rather do it slowly by myself.”

  “All right. I hope you’ll sleep. But if you don’t, come along to my room at any time you like. You know when it’s getting near the end of term I spend half the night awake reading.”

  The door shut behind her. From what seemed like a remote distance Flora could feel the relief that Lalage must feel when she got out of the room. She herself was relieved. It was only when
she was alone that she could get near enough to Hugh to re-live that last hour together. Why should you want to re-live acute pain? But you did. At least in that hour which seemed to blot out the memory of all the other hours spent together Hugh had been alive. If he could just have had my letter, if he could just have known that it was all right between us. Ah..h. She turned over, writhing, biting the pillow, kicking with her heels against the sheet. She squeezed her breasts against the bed until they hurt; she put her hands under her hair and tugged it as if she would pull it out by the roots, anything, to transfer some of the agony of her mind to her body.

  She heard herself making a noise that must be groaning. She would stay right down under the bedclothes, suffocate and die. She cut off the air from her face with the blanket. Her heart began to beat furiously, her chest felt constricted. She tore the bedclothes off her face and gulped in air. Then she dissolved into one of those long fits of crying that were her only release from the cramping misery. After the first few days she had tried to restrain them when Lalage was with her because they caused her such distress. Flora clung to her sympathy and understanding, nobody ever had such a friend; all the same it was often better to be alone.

  She did not sleep much; when she did waking in the night or in the early morning was the worst of all. Sometimes she knew at once, the shock repeating itself: sometimes she only knew at first that something was deeply wrong; the essence of misery was in her mouth and her veins and her heart. When after a second or two the full realization came she did not know how to bear it. She was accustomed to being happy, she had a gift for it; sometimes now she felt an acute resentment that this should have been taken away from her, as if she had a right to it and had been unjustly deprived. Often she tried to re-live her happy times with Hugh, but against her will her mind played that last quarrel over and over again, as if it was a disc that she could not remove from her inward record-player.

  If this happened early in the morning she got up, and sometimes went out into the garden. If it was in the middle of the night she switched on her light and tried to read, but she found that she could now only read with concentration anything that was necessary for her work. On that her mind functioned independently; occasionally a Whodunnit gave her a few minutes’ relief; when that failed she got up and walked about the room, hugging her body with crossed arms as though she would squeeze the pain out of herself. She had grown irritable—she controlled it when her students were with her, tried to when she was with Lalage; alone she let it rip. Once when she was walking up and down her bedroom in the small hours without a light on she stumbled over a chair which had got out of place and bruised her knee. She picked up the chair by the back, banged it violently down on the floor and threw it against the wall. Then she was relieved by one of her fits of crying.