The driver did not seem to find it odd, ‘Been away long?’
‘Oh, years—years!’ She heard a wheeze from deep down in her reply; and coughed again.
But felt fulfilled: it was like the sensation of settling yourself inside a cotton frock, between licks at an ice-cream horn, while voices droned on about weather, the wool clip, and the come-and-go of relatives.
‘Dear dear! Aren’t we unfortunate? These terrible accidents!’ Sister Badgery had hurried to the bedside to disengage her patient from a too emotional embrace; intent on professional duties, her least concern was a princess.
While Mrs Hunter, curled on her side in something like a foetal position, was grinning up at her daughter. ‘Don’t worry, Dorothy. It’s not as bad as you might imagine. There’s the macintosh.’ Relief drifted over her face as the water spread inside her bed: for the moment she would not have to think of what to talk about to this stranger; better disgraced by the body than by the mind.
She sighed and said, ‘You’ll have to go into the nursery, Kate, play with the dolls — though mine aren’t as good as yours;’ then listened cunningly for the sound of Kate’s boots tapping across the boards.
Kate Nutley was altogether too simple. Betty Salkeld had never cared for her friend, any more than for Kate’s glacé buttonboots; the Nutleys were wealthier than the Salkelds.
Dorothy Hunter was rent as the nurse dragged the sheet back too quickly and her own babyhood was exposed. Its smell of pitiful flannel and the painful prickling of a rash invaded her far more ruthlessly than the memory of that adult ordeaclass="underline" the trek through a chain of icy salons to the cabinets at Lunegarde; the door which wouldn’t open at first and which wouldn’t shut on the screech of urine, while the belle-mère snored, and Oncle Amédée slit the night and the newspapers with his scissors, cutting out reports of incidents which might be interpreted as Communist conspiracy.
Confused by this collision between her still passive babyhood and some of the most painful steps she had taken in what remained a gawky-schoolgirl marriage, she was relieved to hear a man’s voice. ‘We’d better leave them to it. I dare say they’ll fetch you when everything’s in order.’ She had forgotten the solicitor.
Arnold Wyburd led her out along the passage towards the landing. He was the sort of person you take for granted: a nice bore; so reasonable and honest there is no need to be on your guard against him. She felt remorseful for never having sent a New Year card to the one who had managed their affairs all these years. He appeared dry enough not to look for sentimental attentions from a client. Or so she hoped.
On the other hand, he had known her as her other self: Dorothy Hunter.
He was so kind she might have been recovering from an illness. ‘I expect you’ll want to potter about the house — quietly — by yourself.’
The Princesse de Lascabanes was restored to health, when it should have been Dorothy Hunter.
‘Yes,’ she replied, returning his kindness with a kind smile. ‘Isn’t it ridiculous of me — I’m dying to see my old room!’ She settled her pearls with a practised hand. ‘I believe rooms actually mean more to me than people.’ That was not entirely true, and she hoped it had not sounded shocking to somebody as good as the solicitor.
Looking at her he suspected her of having more of her mother than they credited her with: a horse-faced version of Elizabeth Hunter.
‘They got your room ready for you, if you care to change your mind.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said in her highest voice, ‘I couldn’t impose to that extent — on the housekeeper person. And besides, they have a room for me at the club. Wasn’t it civil of them to make me an honorary member for my visit?’
They looked at each other. Perhaps he did not consider it a visit; he saw her gummed up in the web of nostalgic associations and forced to witness the great conjuring trick to which her mother must soon lend herself. A gust of renewed panic made her determined to cling to her not altogether satisfactory life in Paris: the underfurnished apartment at Passy; a pretence of meals prepared by herself over a leaking gas stove; her art of making expensive dresses continue to look expensive; the rationed sympathy of practical friends (her folly had been to value the friendship of those who respect rentes). All this might change of course, but how quickly? Her flight to the bedside could decide. She had never been a skilled beggar, perhaps because it was only late in life that there had been any need to beg; the alternate solution was something she must not think about, though she often did in terrifying detail.
Making a great effort, and still at a considerable distance, Madame de Lascabanes inquired, ‘How is dear Mrs Wyburd?’ At once she hoped her smile allied to the borrowed adjective would not strike the solicitor as fulsome; and come to think of it, she did have a genuine affection for his wife; in fact, as a child she had loved Lal.
‘Thank you. She’s keeping pretty well. We hope you’ll come to see her.’
‘That will be charming — charming.’ Doubly stupid: the words she used half the time were not her own; but one skates more smoothly shod with platitudes. ‘See the children — and grandchildren.’
The solicitor was so far encouraged as to launch into Wyburd history; but stopped when he saw she was not interested.
She was though, she was: she remembered a picnic smelling of trampled grass when she had stuck her face in a freckled neck and thought she would have liked Mrs Wyburd as mother; till Basil stole the solicitor’s wife, as Basil stole everybody. I’ve been reading Lady Windermere’s Fan don’t tell my mother Mrs Wyburd. Basil always impressed and nobody ever seemed to guess when he was being dishonest. Have you Basil and is there a particular part you think you’d like to play? Fancy Mrs Wyburd lapping it up; or was she too, dishonest in her way? Oh no nothing big interesting enough in Lady Windermere I’ll only ever want the great roles Lear particularly. Mrs Wyburd seriously saying you’ll have to wait a long time for that hut I expect you’ll play it in the end if that’s what you’ve decided. She hated Mrs Wyburd almost as much as she hated her brother, who never looked in her direction unless to make faces or persuade her she was a fool.
‘There’ll be a number of business matters we’ll have to discuss. Not these first days of course,’ the solicitor was reminding her. ‘You’re not in any hurry now that you’re here.’
Why did he have to take that for granted? She looked at him suspiciously.
‘Your brother’s delayed — did you know? at Bangkok. He’ll arrive this evening, according to the telegram.’
‘How extraordinary!’ She adopted the tone used in social intercourse. ‘Bangkok! Where I changed planes. I didn’t run into him,’ she added, and giggled on realizing the inanity of her remark.
She was glad the solicitor was old enough to be her father, equally glad he was not nearly as old as her mother. She wished she had known her father better; probably her mother had not allowed it: Mother was the mouthpiece through which they addressed one another (even Basil fell for that) all so helpless how would you manage I wonder if I weren’t here?
Dorothy Hunter, long-legged and shy, almost of the same shoulder height as the solicitor, confessed with an abruptness which surprised him, ‘Some day I want to talk to you about my father.’
He became as abrupt, expressed the opinion that Alfred Hunter had been a fine man, and announced that he ought to be going along to the office to see what was happening there.