Henry Green: Loving, Living, Party Going

Evelyn did not reply. Claire seemed to ponder for a moment. ‘D’you think it would do any good if we tried to make her sick again?’

‘Oh, no, I shouldn’t.’

‘Well, after all, that’s what the doctor said was the matter, didn’t he? But then it’s so impossible, Evelyn darling, why I’ve known Auntie May all my life, she couldn’t be like this because of that. And I couldn’t tell my own nanny about what the doctor said about mother’s sister, could I? You do agree, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘But then you see I can’t help feeling they may be right. After all, what could that doctor know about poor Auntie May, he may have just said to himself here’s another old lady who likes port too much. And we can’t get her out of here, and any minute just because Julia’s uncle or guardian is a director of the railway they may come and tell us we must go. D’you think I ought to stay, behind and perhaps come on afterwards?’

‘Well, she lives alone, doesn’t she, I mean she hasn’t got anybody.’

‘Those nannies could look after her, they’ve got absolutely nothing to do, you know, they are pensioned off, mine just lives at home, at number nine I mean and drinks tea all day. Besides she nursed me through several very serious illnesses and with all that experience and being so fond of the family she would be better than any trained nurse, they never care whether you live or die.’

‘You mean there’s no one else to look after her.’

‘No, there’s absolutely no one. There’s her maid and I don’t know why we didn’t make her come round when it first started, you remember I rang her up telling her to stay away. I can’t imagine why but of course she has fits, no, absolutely everyone else is dead and mother’s abroad as you know. It’s rather touching, that’s why she came to see us off really, it’s her only link. No, but it’s not touching actually because she goes and gets ill. Oh, Evelyn, it’s so unfair, isn’t it?’

And as she said this surprisingly she began to cry, not sobbing or that free flow out of a contorted face, but it was as though some miracle had occurred, as though tears were gently one by one rolling down graven image features which had stayed dry under cover for centuries, carved out of hard wood, so that these tears threatened to crack a polished surface it looked so unused to being wetted, only creamed.

‘Oh, my dear,’ said Evelyn, ‘you mustn’t let yourself get upset about this business and besides I think you’ve been perfectly wonderful about it all the way through, you’ve hardly left her for an instant.’

‘It’s not that,’ she said, and she spoke as though she were not crying, her tears seemed to be quite separate from her, only a phenomenon, ‘it’s that I feel the whole thing is so unfair. I do know Julia is rather counting on having me with her this trip and now that Amabel has dropped out of the sky I do deeply feel I can’t let her down.’ This was untrue. She went on and as people will when they have just lied she began to speak out genuinely for once what she did really feel. ‘What I’m so afraid of is that doctor had no idea what he was talking about, that Aunt May is very bad and that I ought to get her to hospital and I am doing nothing about it. I ought not to be here,’ she said, ‘but you know how it is, I thought it was just a faint and that she would come round and that after a bit of rest she would be able to go home. One thing you can be quite sure of is that she’s not drunk, poor darling, she probably felt it coming over her whatever it is and took something to keep it off.’ Her tears had stopped now. ‘But then you see,’ she went on, ‘there’s no way of getting her out of here though if she was really bad of course the hotel would manage it somehow you know how they are.’

‘Don’t’

‘Well, there’s no blinking it you know, they would if they thought she was going to die.’

‘Then oughtn’t we to send for her maid whatever her name is?’

‘Yes, if she could get in. And then she has fits.’

‘Good heavens, we don’t want two on our hands.’

‘She probably had one when I rang up an hour ago. I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘Sorry for crying,’ and she began to powder her nose.

‘I think what we are both afraid of,’ said Evelyn, ‘is that parcel she had and what was inside it. She never belonged to any societies for animals, did she? She never kept pigeons herself I mean?’

‘Of course not. Besides she used to shoot.’

‘You know I have absolute faith in searching out whatever it is that is really worrying one underneath what seems on the surface to be the matter with anything if you understand me, Claire, my dear. And I know in my case it was her having picked that pigeon up somewhere and then seeming so ill. She can’t have bought it or she would have had it delivered, unless she got it off a barrow, but then they don’t sell them on barrows. D’you see what I mean? But if she just found it dead and picked it up what did she want it for, it was so dirty? I’m sure that’s what’s been worrying us, but when you come to think of it, darling, there’s nothing in it, is there? What is it after all? Now if it had been a goose or some other bird. No, that isn’t so I don’t suppose it would have been any less odd. Anyway it is definitely not a thing to worry about.’

At this moment Max came out of her room.

‘She’s better,’ he said.

‘Max, dear,’ said Claire, ‘you’ve been too sweet about it all, getting her this lovely room and everything, I don’t know how to thank you, it’s been too kind of you.’

‘Nonsense,’ he said, ‘bad business. Where’s Robert?’

‘Oh, my dear,’ she said, ‘don’t ask me that. Where do you suppose, in the Bar I should think.’ At this Amabel appeared in a fur coat and drew him away, and as Claire hurried back in with Evelyn she said to herself how like a man to come out as if he had settled everything and made her better just by going in.

She was better, but they could not help feeling that she was improving only to get worse. She lay fretful and conscious, propped up in bed.

‘Why am I here?’ she said.

‘Oh, Auntie May, you are ever so much better, aren’t you? Now you mustn’t lie there worrying, just relax?’

‘Where am I?’

‘Now don’t bother your head about anything, you’re quite all right and now you are going to have a nice long rest.’

‘What happened to me?’

‘You mustn’t bother your head about anything like that. Nothing happened to you really, you just fainted. Now lie back and get back your strength.’

‘Excuse me,’ she said, and her one eye you could see looked agitated, ‘no, child I never fainted, I never have.’

‘Oh, Auntie May, how could you be so naughty, you’ll upset yourself in a minute, do be careful after all. You’ve made us all quite anxious, well not that exactly,’ she said, because those two old nannies had shaken their heads at this, ‘but, of course, we were all distressed, shall we say you were not feeling quite the thing?’ she said and went rambling on while her aunt, who had given up wondering and had given up listening and whose only feeling was of exhaustion as though she had been pounded for days, had enough strength left to know she had always disliked Claire, just as she had never got on with her mother.

When they were in that room upstairs where Julia had asked him not to muss her about, Amabel’s first words were ‘kiss me’ and this more than anything showed the difference between these two girls, not so much in temperament as in their relations with him.

After some time she drew back and powdered her nose. He walked round and round where she was sitting as though she were a river and a bridge off which he felt impelled to jump to drown.