XII
The next thing that happened was Guy’s twenty-first birthday. He had been at Oxford two years by then, and Hugo was just leaving Winchester.
It was on the 15th of July, and there was a party at Yearsly.
On the day before there was a dinner to the tenants and a school treat, but on the day itself there were no official festivities, just a party of people Guy wanted, mostly staying in the house, and a dance in the evening in the hall.
Hugo and I had come back from school for it, for the school terms were not quite over. It was my first real dance, and I was very excited.
A good many people were staying in the house. There were three Oxford friends of Guy’s—Ralph Freeman, John Ellis and Anthony Cowper. Ellis and Cowper had been at Winchester with him too, and stayed with us before. Ralph Freeman was new. Then there were Mary and Margaret Lacey, second cousins of Guy and Hugo on the other side, they too had stayed at Yearsly before, and Faith Vincent, the Vicar’s daughter, and Claude Pincent, who was also some sort of cousin of Cousin Delia’s. There were no other Laurier cousins, for my grandmother and Hugo’s grandfather had no other children but our fathers.
Claude Pincent too had come before, but not often. He was older than Guy and had been at Cambridge. He was supposed to be a very brilliant young man, and we were a little bit in awe of him. He was distinguished looking, with bright, big eyes and a crest of hair. He seemed much more mature and experienced than we were, and that impressed us too.
In the afternoon we bathed in the fishing pool by the willow, and then we had tea down there by the stream. Cousin Delia and Cousin John were at the picnic, and we liked them to be there. They never spoiled the fun of what we did—even rather silly young parties like this one.
It was a perfect day, hot and almost cloudless, and the hay was not yet cut. Buttercups danced in the long grass, just as they had on that day nine years before when we heard that Hugo was going to school.
The pool was hardly big enough to swim in, but it was clear and deep and very lovely, and the dogs came too. Maurice, the deerhound, stood on the bank and watched us, but Libbet and Oscar, the spaniels, jumped in after us and swam all about. Then we lay in the long grass—we were allowed to spoil the hay for this occasion—and had tea, and laughed a great deal at silly jokes, and then we lay still and were lazy, and before we knew where we were it was time to pack up the tea things and get ready for the dance.
The Hall had been decorated since the morning. Cousin Delia and old Joseph had done it together, and I had helped them for a bit. There were big clusters of roses in silver vases—light coloured roses against the dark wood of the stairs and the panelled wall—and four white lilies in pots at the four corners, and there were sconces with pale green candles fixed up along the walls to light later on, when it got dark.
Mary and Margaret were sharing a room, and Faith Vincent, who was a special friend of theirs, had brought her dress to change in their room. I was alone in mine and I was glad. It was always the same room, looking out into the beech trees on one side, and the big light window to the north, and the shiny chintz curtains were the same that I had always had, and the little comfortable arm-chairs. There was a special jug and basin too—rather too small for general use, but pretty—very fine clear china and hand-painted flowers. Cousin Delia had put it there for me when I was little and I would not have it changed. Now there was a shining brass can of hot water waiting for me and a thick soft towel over it, and Nunky came in to help me dress.
I had a pale yellow dress, very pale yellow and very soft and plain. It was the first time I had worn a low-cut evening gown. The first time too that my hair was to be done up.
Nunky was as pleased dressing me as though she had been dressing a doll. I had yellow stockings and satin shoes too, and Cousin Delia had given me a coloured Spanish shawl, which belonged to Mary Geraldine. It was a beautiful shawl. The colours were a little faded, but still brilliant. It had a creamy background and a quaint intricate pattern of bright flowers upon it; red and pink flowers and bright green leaves.
I sat in front of the looking-glass while Nunky did my hair, and laughed at myself and her, reflected smiling at me in the glass.
My hair was not difficult to do, for it was always curly—a little bit curly, so that it stayed where it was put—and very bright golden brown. I know that it was pretty hair. It is so long ago now, that it is not silly to say so, for it isn’t like that any more.
I was pleased with my hair done up. It looked much nicer, I thought, than just tied behind with a ribbon. And with the stockings and the satin slippers and the dress. I was pleased with my bare neck and arms. I had a dark blue enamel bracelet that was almost black, and a little necklace of yellow topaz, that my father had brought back from India for me when I was a baby.
Then Cousin Delia came in to see me, and she turned me round and round, and then she kissed me, smiling as though she were pleased.
‘Dear heart,’ she said.
I put the Spanish shawl round my shoulders: I loved its many colours and its softness and we went downstairs.
They were mostly there already, standing about in the hall. Hugo was in the furthest corner talking to Anthony Cowper and Faith Vincent. Guy was standing at the foot of the stairs with Claude. They looked up at us as we came down. Cousin Delia came first, and I followed her. The candles were not lit yet, for it was still broad daylight, but the hall seemed filled with light, as though it were illuminated—coming down into it, with its flowers, from the shadow of the stairs. They both looked up at me and smiled.
Guy said:
‘That’s splendid, Helen. You do look nice’—and he too looked pleased.
I laughed and went past them into the hall, and as I passed I heard Claude say to Guy:
‘I say, Guy, that little cousin of yours is a beauty!’
And I felt all warm and glowing, and as though I was stepping on air. I ran across to Hugo, and he turned to look at me.
‘Jolly,’ he said, ‘and that shawl is just right. I love that shawl.’
There was supper first, two long tables in the dining-room; and after supper more people arrived, various neighbours, and the dancing began.
The music was in the drawing-room with the doors open, and we danced in the hall. The floor was polished oak, very smooth and perfect for dancing, and there were chairs at the end for the older people who were there.
Claude came up and asked me to dance, and I said, ‘Oh, the first is for Hugo’—but I danced with him afterwards, three times, and then with Guy.
Guy was the best dancer I know. It was like his riding and his singing and everything he did—a complete mastery and ease, as though it all came naturally to him with no trouble or effort at all.
Hugo was not so perfect, but I loved dancing with him, and we danced together a great deal.
Later the candles were lit, the pale green candles on the wall, but it was not dark outside, hardly twilight, and the big doors were open at each end of the hall, and people went out between the dances and walked about or sat in chairs on the lawn.
Hugo and I went out into the garden. We were hot with dancing and it was cooler outside.
There was a crescent moon, low down still over the walled garden, and a long line of pink sky where the sun had just gone down. There were stars beginning to show, pale stars in the light sky, and the air was very warm and still.
We turned towards the walled garden. Cousin Delia’s roses smelt sweet as we passed them, and we stopped and wandered about on the little flagged paths among the cupids. The tune of the last waltz kept echoing through my head, and my feet seemed to be dancing while we walked.
‘It is too hot to go in for a bit,’ said Hugo, ‘and awfully nice out here.’
And I said:
‘Yes, it is nice out here too.’
The jasmine on the Jasmine Gate smelled strong in the warm air. We stopped to smell it. There was something strange and exciting in the strong scent—all the garden round seemed excited that night, still and expectant and waiting for something, and I was excited, and Hugo. He pushed open the Jasmine Gate and we walked through into the walled garden. A spray of jasmine was hanging down. It caught in my hair as we stepped under it. I put up my hand to pull it away, but I couldn’t at first. Hugo undid it for me. He broke off the spray and gave it to me, and I stuck it into the front of my dress. The Spanish shawl slipped down from my shoulder and Hugo lifted it up. The music had begun in the house again. We could hear it, dimmed by the distance and the high garden wall. Up in the High Wood the owls had begun to call.
I looked up at Hugo and found him looking at me. There was something strange in his eyes that I had never seen before. I felt elated and a little frightened, and still very excited and happy. We stood and looked at each other, without speaking, and then Hugo touched my arm.
‘Oh, Helen, how lovely you are!’ he said suddenly. ‘I never knew you were like this!’
There was an odd excitement in his voice, and his face was very white. He was breathing fast.
A thrill ran through me, and then I was afraid. I looked at Hugo and he looked at me, and I felt his fingers, warm and strange, on my bare arm.
And it seemed to me suddenly that he had become strange himself—that he was not the Hugo I knew at all. I found that I was trembling all over, and could not stop. I could not bear his fingers on my arm. I wanted to pull it away, but I did not dare.
Then Hugo stepped back and took his hand away, and it seemed as though something had snapped. It seemed as though a barrier had come down between us, and we were suddenly very far apart. Something had happened to us that I could not understand. We had become strangers to each other and to ourselves, and for the first time in our lives we were afraid of each other, and shy.
Again I had the sense of a door closing, of time passing and not to be called back. It will never be the same again, never in all our lives, I said to myself, and a sense of complete desolation came over me. It seemed to me then that the best thing in my life had gone irretrievably. We had broken something that could never be mended.
I shivered, and Hugo asked if I was cold.
I said:
‘Yes, a little,’ and we turned back towards the house.
Hugo felt the same as I did, or something like it.
I knew that, and he knew that I knew, but we could not speak of what we felt. For the first time in our lives we had something to hide.
We turned back towards the house, through the Jasmine Gate, and past the rose garden. Francis, the cat, ran silently across the lawn in front of us. Two people were walking about by the statues at the end of the path. I think they were Anthony Cowper and Mary Lacey, but they did not matter. The light streamed out from the windows of the drawing-room, and in a great shaft from the open garden door. The music was stopping again as we reached it, and more couples came out, laughing, and some wiping their faces, for the night was still very warm. Hugo and I went in. We did not dance together again that evening, and the light had gone out for me.
I did not know what I had done, but I felt miserable, and somehow oddly ashamed.
The next day both Hugo and I went back to school.
We did not meet again till the end of the summer, for that August Guy and Hugo went abroad, to France and Italy.
My grandmother came to Yearsly with me, and part of the time the Lacey girls were there, but the place seemed empty and all wrong without Guy and Hugo.
They came back in September only a week before I went back to school, and two other friends of Guy’s came too.
In October Hugo went up to Oxford with Guy, but I did not see them there till the next spring.