Unclouded Summer Read online

  She smiled, a fond and valedictory smile. “Why shouldn’t I be pretty decent where you’re concerned?”

  “Well, after what I said this morning.”

  She raised her hand, shaking it in denial before her face.

  “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have put you in the position of having to say those things. I should have realized, from the start, that there could never be any happiness for you that way. I can’t ruin Henry’s life. He’s done too much for me; he’s too dependent on me: besides he’s an important man, he has important work to do; I make it possible for him to do that work. I couldn’t let him down. I thought there was a way by which I could make a life for both of you. It was silly of me. I see now there wasn’t. But my not being able to make a life for you, doesn’t mean that I’ve got to ruin it for you. Pretty decent of me, oh no, my dear. It was just the repaying of a debt.”

  She was smiling, gently: they were close again, as close as they had been at Villefranche on that rain-soaked morning when they had talked in the little café. But over the moment now was a hush, the luminous hush of twilight. This was the end; he had thought that this morning when they had quarreled. But every quarrel held within itself the seed of reconciliation. There was a finality about this moment that that earlier one had never had. In calm blood, tenderly, she was taking her leave of him, was loosing him from that long bondage which had held him since her gray-green Chevrolet had swung into the square.

  She had loosed her hold, and a feeling, a series of feelings that he could not analyze was about his heart. Was it relief, a sense of release and freedom? In a way it was. It was something, this situation, that he had never willed, had never planned, that he had stumbled into; in which he had been out of character, never wholly in focus with. He had been out of his depth with her. A string of mixed metaphors confused him. It had been a bondage, yes, but a beglamoured bondage. Would he ever meet anyone again so varied, with such a capacity for friendship, such a generosity in friendship? Would he ever again know such a giving person, with so much to give? He thought of that one night in Villefranche; would he ever again know a night which would hold that quality of revelation?

  Next morning over his packing, he discussed with Parker the most suitable London restaurant for a lunch in female company that was to be intimate but unostentatious. Parker was pontifically judicial.

  “I’ll take it that expense is of no account,” he said.

  “On this occasion, no.”

  “How do you think you would be most at ease; at one of those sofa tables, or sitting side by side in chairs, or sitting opposite?”

  “I think I’d rather be sitting opposite.”

  “Then that would rule out most of the West End restaurants. You’d be sitting side by side in them. If you prefer sitting opposite I think I should recommend Soho. Yes, I know the place for you, sir. The Isola Bella, it’s in Dean or Frith Street. It’s an arty kind of place. It’s got real pictures on the walls.”

  He had invited Marion for half-past one. He was there before quarter-past. He wanted to get the feel of the place before she came. He did not order himself a drink. He sat at the table, watching the door, rehearsing the things that he would say to her. He had it all planned out. He would be gay, chatty, entertaining: doing all the talking to begin with, putting her at her ease. He had thought out the things that he would say. He had been noting during the last days the various little differences that there were between New York and London, thinking as he made mental notes, “That might amuse Marion, I could make an anecdote of that.” Everything that he had done during the last three days had had this lunch table as its objective. No travel journalist had ever sought more conscientiously for copy. Marion was bound to feel embarrassed, lunching alone for the first time with him, particularly after that last week end. It was up to him to put her at her ease: to keep her amused and laughing. It would not be till the end, till the very end, till they had reached the coffee that he would say the things that it was the whole purport of the lunch to say.

  He knew so well what it was to be. In the train coming up from Basingstoke, as he had strolled through London, as he had paced his hotel room at night, he had rehearsed and rerehearsed it. “Judy only told you the half,” he’d say. “She told you her half of it. But she didn’t tell you mine. She couldn’t. She didn’t know it. She knew that I came to England, I won’t say feeling under an obligation to her, but to clear up a situation. That’s what Judy knew and what Judy told you. But what Judy didn’t know, what Judy couldn’t tell you, was what I myself was feeling. Which was something that I barely knew myself: that I didn’t begin to suspect till the night of the charade. I’d been so happy with you, we’d become such friends: every day we were becoming better friends. But on the night of the charade …”

  At that point he planned to pause. She might try and say something but he would interrupt her. “No, no, please let me finish. I don’t know how you felt after that evening. I don’t want to know. Anyhow it’s all too close. There’s one thing though that I must say. At the end of next week I go to Spain. Will you let me write to you when I’m there? And will you answer me? And then when I come back here in the fall, perhaps we could have dinner and do a show. But please say that you will let me write.”

  And in those letters, spread over three, four months, he would build up again, but on a firmer basis, the easy affectionate comradeship that they had known at Charlton. Then when he came back in September … But that was looking too far ahead. That was a second stage. It was the letters that mattered now. It was in order that those letters should be written, that the right basis for their writing should be created, that this lunch had been arranged … First things first.

  So he planned as he sat there waiting for her at the Isola Bella. And then she came into the room.

  He stared at her across the table. She was wearing a bottle-green coat and skirt: with a white silk blouse whose collar hung wide over the coat’s lapels, whose cuffs projected low over her wrists. It made her look very young. There was no jewelry at her throat. Her nails were polished but unvarnished. Under the low tight-fitting brim of a gray-green hat blonde side curls showed above her ears.

  A waiter came forward with the menu. “Not now,” he said. “In a minute; bring two Martinis.”

  He could not take his eyes off her. It was the first time that they had been alone, really alone together. Always before they had met in groups, or they had been busy about something else, sketching or playing golf, coming from somewhere, going somewhere, preoccupied with other things, their minds in part elsewhere. This was the first time that he had really seen her. Until now he had caught only glimpses of her. Seated across this table, in this alien room, with not one being that either of them knew within miles and hours of them, as isolated as upon a desert island, she had brought to him in one sudden moment of revelation the concentrated essence of all those glimpses, those premonitions that had embellished and enriched their comradeship. He saw her for the first time complete and whole: saw the rounded arch: recognizing and appraising at its worth, her youth and courage, her basic integrity, her strength, her delicacy. He had never met a finer person. Heat and brain were alight in this moment of revelation.

  Not only his brain and heart were glowing, though. His senses were aflame. He looked at her mouth, it was full and red and moist: he remembered the softness and the freshness of her lips on his.

  Her throat rose smooth out of her blouse. He remembered the strain along its long white line as she had held her head back as though she were drinking thirstily. Her hands were beneath her chin. He remembered how they had taken his cheeks between their palms; they had been warm, a little damp and very soft. The shoulders of her coat were built up and padded. He remembered how soft and rounded they had been beneath his hands.

  The waiter set down the Martinis at their side. They neither of them touched them. Her eyes were watching his. Their expression changed, grew gentle as though she could read what thoughts and
feelings were rendering him at the same moment dumb and eloquent. An inspired mood, a mood of certainty was on him. He had no doubt, not the slightest, of what he wanted.

  The table dividing them was narrow. He moved forward, first his foot between her feet, then his knee between her knees. For a moment she seemed to hesitate; a hesitation born perhaps out of the need for caution that the shame of Saturday had forged for her in self-defense; then with that same trust in which she had taken that half-step forward as his arms went round her, she straightened out her leg. His calves and shins closed on it, with a pressure gentle at first then hardening, out of the need in one all-encompassing and blended gesture to be both fierce and tender.

  As the pressure tightened, her eyes half closed. She drew a long slow breath.

  “How soon,” he said, “can we get married?”

  She sighed.

  “Oh please soon, darling, please, please very soon.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  They were married in late September. A country wedding with the church yellow and white and red with dahlias and chrysanthemums; with the pews crowded with villagers, all of whom directly or indirectly owed their sustenance to Charlton; with Marion in the lace and satin that her grandmother had worn in that same church sixty years before.

  They were to drive straight from the reception to Southampton, to catch a westbound boat.

  It was Marion’s wish that they should make their home in America.

  “There’s no need to,” he had said. “I can work as easily in England.”

  She shook her head.

  “If we were to settle here, it’s I who would be explaining things to you, you who would be turning to me for guidance. I’d not like that. Besides,” she paused, and her eyes were thoughtful, “I’ve always been looking for something. I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know where to look for it. Then I met you, and I knew I’d found it. A new life, a new way of living.” She paused again correcting herself. “A new way of life – with you.”

  It was a small reception. Francis had no friends in England, the Marriotts had so many that if they had asked a few, they would have offended many. They made it a strictly family affair. Only relatives were asked and at Francis’ special request, the Ambroses. He had never seen Nina lovelier. He went straight across to her after the last guest had been shaken hands with.

  “It was very good of you to come,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.”

  “You’re the only two outside the family we asked. It wouldn’t have been complete without you.”

  “I’d have been furious if you hadn’t asked us.”

  “You’ve been so bound up with it from the very start. You were there that first lunch at Mougins.”

  “How surprised we’d all have been if we could have been told it would end up like this.”

  She smiled as she said that.

  “I used to feel a little worried about you sometimes there,” she said.

  “Did you? I was so happy then I wasn’t worrying about myself.”

  “I know you weren’t. Perhaps that’s why I was. Do you remember that night at Eze!”

  “You saved me from near-suicide that night.”

  “There was something that I wanted to say to you so much. I didn’t know how to say it.”

  “You didn’t need to. You said it by being there, by being you.”

  “Did I? I’m glad I did. Good luck, my dear.”

  She held out her hand. Her handshake was firm and friendly.

  There was no need for them to explain things to each other.

  He changed in the same room that he had been given in the spring. Parker had come up to help him pack. It was evident that Parker had availed himself generously of his employer’s hospitality. He was exceedingly loquacious.

  “A great day for me,” he said, “a great day for Charlton. Miss Marion, she’s been a kind of princess to all of us. There’s nothing that’s too good for her. We’re sorry to see her leaving us. We’d rather that she’d married one of her own countrymen. But as that wasn’t to be, well, sir, as I said to Mr. Blore today, ‘Think of how much worse it might have been. It might have been a Frenchie.’ ”

  “I think it’s very nice of you to have said that.”

  “Well, sir, I said it and I meant it. And Mr. Blore, I think on the whole agreed with me. We’ve got a kind of prejudice against the Yanks. I don’t know why we should have, but we have. But as Mr. Blore said and I agreed with him, ‘Parker,’ he said, ‘we get all types down here. Continentals and Indians and what nots. But take it for all in all, the Yanks are more like us than what those Wops and Frenchies are.’ That’s what Mr. Blore said, and what I said to Mr. Blore was this, ‘Mr. Blore,’ I said, ‘if it had to be a Yank, I’d sooner it was Mr. Oliver than anyone. I won’t say he didn’t puzzle me at first, what with his ties and that flask of whiskey and his treating me as though I was just the same as him. But when I got used to him.’ Well, as I said to Mr. Blore, ‘Mr. Blore,’ I said, ‘Miss Marion might have done a whole sight worse.’ “

  He went on in that strain, uninterruptedly as Francis changed.

  At last Francis was ready. He held out his hand. “Thank you for everything,” he said, “and if ever you come over to our side you must look us up.”

  “You bet I shall, but it’s a long way. I don’t suppose I will.”

  “I don’t know why not. There are a great many openings over there for a smart young chap like you.”

  “Are there, sir? Yes, I suppose there are. I must admit I’ve thought of it now and then. But after all, sir, as I’ve told myself, money’s not everything and I like our own way of doing things.”

  There was a tap on the door. It was Richard Marriott.

  “Nearly ready, old boy? Marion’s champing at the bit.”

  The last person that he saw before he drove away was Judy. She was standing on the steps, a basket on her arm. As their eyes met, he hesitated. There was still something to be said between them, but he did not know what. She smiled. She

  dipped her hand into the basket, pulled out a fistful of rose leaves and tossed them over him.

  “Good luck,” she cried.

  He lifted his hand and waved it. He was embarking upon the great adventure of his life. The blood was pounding along his arteries. But even so there was, for that one moment, a sense of something lacking, of unfinished business.

  The sun was lowering as they drove away, a luminous golden haze lay over the gray stone of Winchester. He remembered the first time he had driven here on that first rain-swept morning. How different it all looked today, with the bracken going brown along the rough high banks between the yew trees, and the gardens that had seemed so trite and trivial in March, bright now with sunflowers and pom-poms.

  They drove for the most part in silence, hand in hand.

  It was shortly after seven when they reached Southampton. The ship did not sail till midnight. The boat train from London was not due till ten: the decks and companionways were deserted. There were only twenty or so passengers in the restaurant. There was no other party within earshot of their table.

  “Are you as happy as I am?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t know that but I’m very happy.”

  They went onto the boat deck after dinner. It was cold, too cold even with their coats on to sit down. They began to pace the deck. The cranes were still busily loading cargo. But there was a general desolate atmosphere of emptiness.

  “Do you want to stay up and see the lights of old England fade?” he said.

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  There was a puzzled frown between her eyes. It was for him, now as in the future, to give the lead. He was her husband. It was for him to decide for her.

  “I think it would be better if we went below,” «he said. “Well know when the ship starts. It’ll take some time. We could come up later.”

  She nodded: as he thought, gratefully.

 
“Yes,” she said. “I think that would be better.”

  He left her at the stateroom door.

  “I’ll be back in twenty minutes or so,” he said.

  He went aloft. He was excited, but he was nervous too. How much of the happiness of their life together might not depend upon his handling of the next few hours.

  They were traveling first class by one of the newest ships. He had reserved one of the larger staterooms, with a private bath. He returned to find Marion reading, sitting up in bed: the center light switched off. It was a pleasantly furnished room, paneled in flowered silk, with gilt-framed colored reproductions of eighteenth-century French pictures. There was a small vase of roses on the writing desk. Marion was wearing a pale-blue silk nightdress edged with lace. She looked very young, leaned back there against the pillows, her knees drawn up, with a magazine rested on them, the bedside lamp throwing a soft rose light onto her neck and shoulders and her short fair hair.

  He came across, he sat down on the bed beside her. He took her hand in his.

  “I’m beginning to think you really are my wife,” he said.

  He said it lightly, and it was with a smile that she responded. It was a brave, rather pathetic little smile. Poor kid, he thought, she’s terrified. In spite of her modernity, in spite of her emancipation, in spite of the “little books” that she had read at college, this moment was as frightening for her as ever it had been for a Victorian maiden. He raised her hand, turning the palm over, pressing it against his mouth. Her fingers folded on his cheek. The fact that she was nervous, restored his confidence, making him conscious of his own experience, the experience that must be her guide and mentor. He remembered how once in a moonlit room that looked upon a harbor, his own timidity had been reassured, his faith and confidence in himself restored. I must be very gentle, he thought, and very tender. Who knew but the exercise of far greater tact, far finer delicacy, far subtler perception of mood and of reaction, was needed towards a girl like Marion, equipped in theory, alert, advised, and wary mentally, but in all else ignorant, than ever there had been towards her convent trained great-grandmother. He parted his lips, he let his tongue rest lightly in the hollow of her hand; her fingers tightened on his cheek. He vowed to himself that he would not fail her.