Dangerous Ages Part 28

CHAPTER XIII

THE DAUGHTER

1

Mrs. Hilary hated travelling, which is indeed detestable. The Channel was choppy and she a bad sailor; the train from Calais to Paris continued the motion, and she remained a bad sailor (bad sailors often do this). She lay back and smelled salts, and they were of no avail. At Paris she tried and failed to dine. She pa.s.sed a wretched night, being of those who detest nights in trains without _wagons-lits_, but save money by not having _wagons-lits_, and wonder dismally all night if it is worth it.

Modane in the chilly morning annoyed her as it annoys us all. The customs people were rude and the other travellers in the way. Mrs. Hilary, who was not good in crowds, pushed them, getting excited and red in the face.

Psycho-a.n.a.lysis had made her more patient and calm than she had been before, but even so, neither patient nor calm when it came to jostling crowds.

"I am not strong enough for all this," she thought, in the Mont Cenis tunnel.

Rus.h.i.+ng out of it into Italy, she thought, "Last time I was here was in '99, with Richard. If Richard were here now he would help me." He would face the customs at Modane, find and get the tickets, deal with uncivil Germans--(Germans were often uncivil to Mrs. Hilary and she to them, and though she had not met any yet on this journey, owing doubtless to their state of collapse and depression consequent on the Great Peace, one might get in at any moment, Germans being naturally buoyant). Richard would have got hold of pillows, seen that she was comfortable at night, told her when there was time to get out for coffee and when there wasn't (Mrs.

Hilary was no hand at this; she would try no runs and get run out, or all but run out). And Richard would have helped to save Nan. Nan and her father had got on pretty well, for a naughty girl and an elderly parent.

They had appreciated one another's brains, which is not a bad basis. They had not accepted or even liked one another's ideas on life, but this is not necessary or indeed usual in families. Mrs. Hilary certainly did not go so far as to suppose that Nan would have obeyed her father had he appeared before her in Rome and bidden her change her way of life, but she might have thought it over. And to make Nan think over anything which _she_ bade her do would be a phenomenal task. What had Mr. Cradock said--make her remember her first disobedience, find the cause of it, talk it out with her, get it into the open--and then she would be cured of her present lawlessness. Why? That was the connection that always puzzled Mrs. Hilary a little. Why should remembering that you had done, and why you had done, the same kind of thing thirty years ago cure you of doing it now? Similarly, why should remembering that a nurse had scared you as an infant cure you of your present fear of burglars? In point of fact, it didn't. Mr. Cradock had tried this particular cure on Mrs. Hilary. It must be her own fault, of course, but somehow she had not felt much less nervous about noises in the house at night since Mr.

Cradock had brought up into the light, as he called it, that old fright in the nursery. After all, why should one? However, hers not to reason why; and perhaps the workings of Nan's mind might be more orthodox.

At Turin Germans got in. Of course. They were all over Italy. Italy was welcoming them with both hands, establis.h.i.+ng again the economic entente.

These were a mother and a _backfisch_, and they looked shyly and sullenly at Mrs. Hilary and the other English-woman in the compartment. They were thin, and Mrs. Hilary noted it with satisfaction. She didn't believe for one moment in starving Germans, but these certainly did not look so prosperous and buxom as a pre-war German mother and _backfisch_ would have looked. They were equally uncivil, though. They pulled both windows up to the top. The two English ladies promptly pulled them down half-way.

English ladies are the only beings in the world who like open windows in winter. English lower-cla.s.s women do not, nor do English gentlemen. If you want to keep warm while travelling (to frowst, as the open air school calls it) do not get in with well-bred Englishwomen.

The German mother broke out in angry remonstrance, indicating that she had neuralgia and the _backfisch_ a cold in the head. There followed one of those quarrels which occur on this topic in trains, and are so bitter and devastating. It had now more than the pre-war bitterness; between the combatants flowed rivers of blood; behind them ranked male relatives killed or maimed by the male relatives of their foes on the opposite seat. The English ladies won. Germany was a conquered race, and knew it.

In revenge, the _backfisch_ coughed and sneezed "all over the carriage,"

as Mrs. Hilary put it, "in the disgusting German way," and her mother made noises as if she could be sick if she tried hard enough.

So it was a detestable journey. And the second night in the train was worse than the first. For the Germans, would you believe it, shut both windows while the English were asleep, and the English, true to their caste and race, woke with bad headaches.

2

When they got to Rome in the morning Mrs. Hilary felt thoroughly ill. She had to strive hard for self-control; it would not do to meet Nan in an unnerved, collapsed state. All her psychical strength was necessary to deal with Nan. So when she stood on the platform with her luggage she looked and felt not only like one who has slept (but not much) in a train for two nights and fought with Germans about windows but also like an elderly virgin martyr (spiritually tense and strung-up, and distraught, and on the line between exultation and hysteria).

Nan was there. Nan, pale and pinched, and looking plain in the nipping morning air, though wrapped in a fur coat. (One of the points about Nan was that, though she sometimes looked plain, she never looked dowdy; there was always a distinction, a chic, about her.)

Nan kissed her mother and helped with the luggage and got a cab. Nan was good at railway stations and such places. Mrs. Hilary was not.

They drove out into the hideous new streets. Mrs. Hilary s.h.i.+vered.

"Oh, how ugly!"

"Rome is ugly, this part."

"It's worse since '99."

But she did not really remember clearly how it had looked in '99. The old desire to pose, to show that she knew something, took her. Yet she felt that Nan, who knew that she knew next to nothing, would not be deceived.

"Oh ... the Forum!"

"The Forum of Trajan," Nan said. "We don't pa.s.s the Roman Forum on the way to our street."

"The Forum of Trajan, of course, I meant that."

But she knew that Nan knew she had meant the Forum Romanum.

"Rome is always Rome," she said, which was safer than identifying particular buildings, or even Forums, in it. "Nothing like it anywhere."

"How long can you stay, mother? I've got you a room in the house I'm lodging in. It's in a little street the other side of the Corso. Rather a mediaeval street, I'm afraid. That is, it smells. But the rooms are clean."

"Oh, I'm not staying long.... We'll talk later; talk it all out. A thorough talk. When we get in. After a cup of tea...."

Mrs. Hilary remembered that Nan did not yet know why she had come. After a cup of strong tea.... A cup of tea first.... Coffee wasn't the same.

One needed tea, after those awful Germans. She told Nan about these. Nan knew that she would have had tiresome travelling companions; she always did; if it weren't Germans it would be inconsiderate English. She was unlucky.

"Go straight to bed and rest when we get in," Nan advised; but she shook her head. "We must talk first."

Nan, she thought, looked pinched about the lips, and thin, and her black brows were at times nervous and sullen. Nan did not look happy. Was it guilt, or merely the chill morning air?

They stopped at a shabby old house in a narrow mediaeval street in the Borgo, which had been a palace and was now let in apartments. Here Nan had two bare, gilded, faded rooms. Mrs. Hilary sat by a charcoal stove in one of them, and Nan made her some tea. After the tea Mrs. Hilary felt revived. She wouldn't go to bed; she felt that the time for the talk had come. She looked round the room for signs of Stephen Lumley, but all the signs she saw were of Nan; Nan's books, Nan's proofs strewing the table.

Of course that bad man wouldn't come while she was there. He was no doubt waiting eagerly for her to be gone. Probably they both were....

3

"Nan--" They were still sitting by the stove, and Nan was lighting a cigarette. "Nan--do you guess why I've come?"

Nan threw away the match.

"No, mother. How should I?... One does come to Rome, I suppose, if one gets a chance."

"Oh, I've not come to see Rome. I know Rome. Long before you were born.... I've come to see you. And to take you back with me."

Nan glanced at her quickly, a sidelong glance of suspicion and comprehension. Her lower lip projected stubbornly.

"Ah, I see you know what I mean. Yes, I've heard. Rumours reached us--it was through Rosalind, of course. And I'm afraid ... I'm afraid that for once she spoke the truth."

"Oh no, she didn't. I don't know what Rosalind's been saying this time, but it would be odd if it was the truth."

"Nan, it's no use denying things. I _know_."

It was true; she did know. A few months ago she would have doubted and questioned; but Mr. Cradock had taught her better. She had learnt from him the simple truth about life; that is, that nearly everyone is nearly always involved up to the eyes in the closest relations.h.i.+p with someone of another s.e.x. It is nature's way with mankind. Another thing she had learnt from him was that the more they denied it the more it was so; protests of innocence and admissions of guilt were alike proofs of the latter. So she was accurate when she said that it was no use for Nan to deny anything. It was no use whatever.

Nan had become cool and sarcastic--her nastiest, most dangerous manner.

"Do you think you would care to be a little more explicit, mother? I'm afraid I don't quite follow. What is it no use my denying? _What_ do you know?"

Mrs. Hilary gathered herself together. Her head trembled and jerked with emotion; wisps of her hair, tousled by the night, escaped over her collar. She spoke tremulously, tensely, her hands wrung together.