North Face (7 page)

“It must be a little inconvenient for Mrs Kearsey,” she said, “not to know if she can get to bed.”

“Men never think, do they? It’s just the same in hospital; waste an hour of yours to save two minutes of theirs, if you let them get away with it. These things
are
sharp. Do have a spot more.”

“Thank you, they’re just as I like them, now.”

Lettice Winter was discussing a film with her mother. It seemed she had found it more stimulating than anything which had appeared in the conversation till now. At the end of the meal, she agreed that they must both have an early night in view of the journey tomorrow; yes, she would look into Mummie’s room on her way to bed. She slid a hand into the hip-pocket of her blue dress, produced powder and lipstick, and unconcernedly applied them. When the two had gone out, looking like a Siamese cat strolling behind a pomeranian, Miss Fisher and Miss Searle loitered, by some common impulse, behind.

“At the risk of being thought conventional,” said Miss Searle, “I do feel that for a woman to make up at table is needless, and a little repulsive.”

“What I always say is, it’s little things like that that give away the sort of homes people come from. Made their pile in the black market I should think, wouldn’t you?
You
know the sort—sit down with real pearls on, eating fish and chips off the grand piano.”

“Er—very probably,” said Miss Searle faintly, but without rebuke.

In the Lounge Miss Fisher got out her knitting, and Miss Searle her Trollope. Mrs Winter had already gone upstairs, for the early night or perhaps to pack. Lettice Winter, forsaking her usual sofa, had curled up on the divan at the other side of the room. It was, perhaps, more comfortable; it gave also more space, and a better light, to her long legs and silk stockings. Miss Fisher, who was an expert in these matters, decided that the stockings were from Cairo, and that Miss Winter had acquired them there. She had brought
No Orchids
with her from upstairs. Miss Fisher allowed herself a marked look from the book to Miss Searle, who, unable at that distance to read the title which would have conveyed nothing to her in any case, related the look to Miss Winter’s uncovered knees and gave a slight, corroborative nod. Miss Fisher liked her the better for this sporting admission of her lighter reading.

This little exchange made them both miss the sound of footsteps on the path outside. Both of them, however, heard the slam of the front door. A moment later Neil Langton hesitated on the threshold of the Lounge, gave a quick glance at the empty sofa, and came inside. It was a windy night, and he was a good deal blown about. He must, Miss Fisher thought, have decided to do a little more walking after all; he had the interior glow, and a dark shine about the eyes, which distinctively comes with this exercise at night. Perhaps for this reason, or because of the high-necked pullover he had put on under his jacket, he looked much younger than he had seemed so far. It was possible to surmise that he had been a not unattractive young man, at a date not so very far remote. One could imagine him, now, in his twenties, physically saturnine over a basic good-humour, and superficially unkempt over a basic respect for razors and soap. He was a little out of breath; when Miss Searle and Miss Fisher looked up from their chosen pre-occupations, he distributed between them a smile which was nearly a grin.

“Whew,” he said, “I thought I was sunk. Tried one of these spurious short cuts and had to spend half an hour picking my way out of a bog.”

“I’m told,” said Miss Searle, “that some of them are really quite dangerous.” She felt, suddenly, almost protective.

“Well, they need watching up on the moor. There wasn’t anything to this one but waste of time. It was Mrs K I was worrying about.” He had already picked up from Miss Fisher this abbreviation. “She’s a great one for knowing what to do about the locking-up.”

“She was asking after you,” said a cool clear voice from the divan in the corner.

Neil turned round. His eyes had still the half-focussed look of people who have come indoors from wide spaces and the dark.

Lettice Winter did not smile. She looked at him, quite pleasantly and with perfect self-possession, as one might look at a hat in a shop-window which may possibly do: one will need first to turn it round and then perhaps, if it seems worth while, to try it on. It was not an arrogant look, but almost purely a conditioned sexual reflex. It said, in a voice as clear as the one in which she had spoken aloud: “Application received; state qualifications.”

It had never probably, achieved so quick an effect. The relaxed casual air, which had given the brief illusion of youth, went out like sun in a room where someone has snapped down a blind. His loose stance changed, with a stiffening like that of age. No one would have taken him now for anything but a schoolmaster.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’d better go and set her mind at rest.” The second sentence was addressed to Miss Fisher. He went out.

Lettice Winter turned a page or two of
No Orchids
and stifled a yawn. When, half an hour later, the door of the Lounge closed behind her, two mouths opened simultaneously, as if a starting-gun had been fired to set them off.

T
HE WIND HAD DROPPED
, and the fumed-oak barometer in the hall was set at Fair. Barlock, sheltered from what little breeze there was in its half-basin of hill and wooded cliff, shimmered in an autumnal heat-wave. The only coolness was to be found in the water, or high up on the precipitous jungly cliff-paths and overhung rides, approachable only through masked gaps in bramble hedges, beyond rough fields, after a hard perspiring climb. Neil, who had discovered for himself secret miles of such territory, found himself developing an adolescent secretiveness about it, and went perdu there all day. For climbing in the technical sense there was not much scope; this did not trouble him, since he had come neither expecting nor wishing any. His map was coming on well. The steep woods rustled in a breeze unfelt below; he found a new gully, overhung by an interesting rock-face, which he found his mind filing for reference. The hours slipped by, marked only by the slow shifting of the light-spars between the trees, and by the first respites of an extroverted peace, brief escapes into a contentment too instinctive to be broken by awareness of itself.

Miss Searle endured without exaggerated grief the news of Miss Fisher’s defection from the day-trip. She had been truthful in saying that solitude within reason did not bore her; she preferred it, at least, to company sought for company’s sake. The effort to talk down to Miss Fisher’s understanding, without offensive obvious-ness, had increasingly become a strain; she was unused to carrying on such conversations for more than ten minutes at a time. Miss Fisher had, besides, a habit of bursting into comment at the wrong moments; sudden graces or light or landscape were transformed, before one had time to assimilate them, into terms of the Beauty-Spot or the View.

Miss Fisher, who had been shielded from these reactions by Miss Searle’s good manners, watched her departure with a vague sense of guilt, which she did not acknowledge at a level conscious enough for argument. Still, in the guise of inconsequent thoughts, the arguments slipped in and out of her head. The trouble was that Miss Searle’s refusal (as Miss Fisher saw it) ever to get down to realities, made her such pathetically easy game. She was the kind of woman who, with more than enough intelligence to play her cards well, would play them badly sooner than admit to herself that she was playing at all. On the other hand she had been given what Miss Fisher described to herself in all good faith as Every Advantage; her helplessness was therefore of her own construction. Miss Fisher, as she walked down to bathe, signalled a clear conscience by humming
Yours
under her breath.

The beach offered nothing of interest except itself and the adjacent sea. Indeed Miss Fisher had hardly expected it; the wet bathing-trunks always appeared on the tower steps at a discouragingly early hour. Miss Fisher’s constitution was equal to a seven a.m. plunge; but her self-confidence, social and physical, was not. That morning, as usual, she had heard his footsteps passing her door, considerately quiet but without fussy tiptoeing, and had turned over regretfully for another nap. Breakfast had been, as usual, disappointing. With unaccustomed hope, however, she settled herself in the garden, after her bathe and coffee, to wait for lunch.

She was well-placed to witness the departure of the Winters, in an opulent hired car. After this nothing happened until the gong sounded, when she found she had the dining-room entirely to herself. The maid served her lunch with an air of patient reproach, on a tablecloth spread over one end of the table.

Miss Fisher put on her sun-glasses (the glare was beginning to be uncomfortable) and went back into the garden again. After all, she thought, the Winters might not have been leaving till after lunch; the afternoon would be the time for anyone to come back who might be hoping for a bit of peace. The end of the afternoon (she added to herself an hour later) in time for tea. The time passed slowly; she wondered whether the heat was making her wrist-watch lose.

Only one more event, however, broke her siesta before teatime; and, somnolent with boredom and sun, she gave it the briefest attention. It was the arrival of a young woman with a rucksack and traveling grip, who crossed the garden to the front door. She was slight, with a fair skin and intermediately coloured hair; neither short nor tall, nor striking in any way. She had on a grey flannel suit, evidently worn to save bulk in packing; this had made her hot, and she had sought relief by opening at the neck a blouse not designed for it. Her hair was limp with the heat and falling across her forehead; a few highlights, bleached by the sun, saved it by a shade from being classified as mouse. The general effect was timid, neutral, and untidy.

As she came up the path she saw Miss Fisher, and for a moment turned hesitantly towards her; shyness seemed to check her, and she passed on to the door. Miss Fisher took her at a first glance for twenty-one, and at a second for twenty-five; the expression, rather than the contours of her face misled. It had something left of the adolescent’s defensive uncertainty, which her carriage bore out; but whereas some women of this age seem to repel maturity with a religious conviction, she had an odd, wavering air of having somehow lost herself on the frontiers, as if a good push might send her either way. Her grey eyes, when they met Miss Fisher’s, were direct, but turned away quickly. A fine skin, and a clear shapeliness of the cheek and jawbones, redeemed her from plainness: but Miss Fisher’s verdict, which she arrived at without disturbing herself to full wakefulness, was “Very-ordinary.” She had been looking at Lettice Winter only a few hours before.

The girl had apparently come alone; as Miss Fisher settled down into torpor again, she thought this might be very nice company for Miss Searle; the college type; they could talk about books together.

In fact, when she came down for tea after repairing the effects of lethargy in the sun, she found them already in conversation. Miss Searle had said distinctly that she did not intend to be back till evening; Miss Fisher, whose afternoon now looked in retrospect more pointless than ever, greeted her without warmth. The result was a certain restraint between them, which both relieved by talking mainly to the girl.

She looked, by this time, a good deal more presentable; and, indeed, she had evidently made some effort about it. She had changed into a plain dress of light green linen, had brushed her hair (its length, like so much else about her, was intermediate, reaching the nape of her neck) and had put a little make-up on. The result was a freshness concealed before; she could have seemed delicate, even fragile, with a little poise. Now that she was less covered in loose clothes it could be seen that she had good slender bones, a well-shaped neck and neat little breasts above a small waist: but she was ill at ease (she was evidently very shy) and this had induced an awkwardness which had set her arms and legs in hard angles, cancelling all structural grace. By separate internal processes, both Miss Fisher and Miss Searle decided that by contrast with Miss Winter she seemed very pleasant and harmless. Her nervousness impressed them as a likable quality. They proceeded to draw her out.

She was neither secretive about herself, nor particularly expansive. Miss Fisher’s guess about college had somewhat overshot the mark; she had sat the entrance exam for Oxford, she told Miss Searle, but had been prevented from going up by the war. She had worked in an aircraft factory; she added that her mother (of whom she spoke in the past tense) hadn’t wanted to be left alone.

“How extremely interesting,” said Miss Searle. “Did you work in the drawing office, or at some kind of research?”

“No, I just worked on a lathe.”

Miss Fisher, warming at once, noticed that Miss Searle looked at a loss, and took over. It turned out that the factory nurse had trained at her hospital; the girl seemed shyly pleased by this link.

Tea came in, and was amicably taken. No addition to their number appeared. Both Miss Fisher and Miss Searle had almost forgotten to notice it. Each felt that she had gained in some sort an ally, a support not irritatingly intrusive, but comforting in reserve. At the same time each felt that here would be someone on whom the other could be dumped without difficulty or the creation of resentment. She had a foot, as it were, in both their camps.

It was only a step, from this, to recommending walks or excursions which they felt sure she would enjoy. Each was privately considering an invitation when better occupation failed, but awaited the absence of the other in order to avoid an awkward threesome. At this point, however, the girl’s shyness seemed to descend with more than its first acuteness. She said she had brought a map and things with her, and had a few plans worked out. Her voice was suddenly like a civil boy’s when his arrangements are intruded on by well-meaning adults. Had her nervousness not been so evident, they would have thought her rude. As it was, they renewed their efforts to put her at her ease.