14
In the end there was no time to say good-bye to anyone. Girls were scattering, flying about with labels and suitcases, or with flat-irons to press the frocks they were to wear in May Week.
May Week had been fun last year: five nights’ dancing on end, with Jennifer and a young cousin of hers at Trinity, and a boy in the Navy. This year it had not seemed worth while to accept invitations.
While Judith was engaged in strapping her boxes and throwing the accumulated rubbish of three years out of drawers and cupboards into a heap on the floor, a maid came smiling and said a gentleman was waiting downstairs.
It was Martin.
‘Martin! Oh, my dear!’
‘I came on the chance, Judith. I motored up to see a man who’s going abroad. Are you—are you staying up for May Week?’
‘No, Martin. I’m catching a train in about two hours and going straight home.’
‘Really home, do you mean? Next door to us?’
‘Yes. Thank Heaven. It’s not let any more. Mother and I will be there part of the summer anyway. Will you—will any of you be there?’
‘Mariella’s down there now, with the boy. And Roddy and I are going for a bit. In fact I’m going to-day—motoring. That’s what I came for—to see if you’d care to motor back with me.’
‘Drive home? Oh, how marvellous! You are an angel, Martin, to think of me.’
He was as shy as ever, bending his head as he talked to her. Observing him she thought that she herself had grown up. The loss of Jennifer had given her a kind of self-assurance and maturity of manner, a staidness. For the first time she was seeing Martin from an entirely detached and unromantic angle, and she thought: “Then this is how I shall see Roddy. He won’t confuse and entangle me any more. All that sort of thing is over for me.”
‘It’s very nice to see you again, Judith. It’s ages since.... You look a bit thin, don’t you?’
‘It’s those miserable exams, Martin. I did work so hard.... I don’t know why.’
‘Oh! You shouldn’t have.’
He seemed quite overcome.
Dear Martin!... In some corner of her heart a weight was lifting.... Jennifer was suddenly remote.
‘Wait for me, Martin.... I’ll be ready in a quarter of an hour.’
She had not said good-bye to Mabel. She had been dreading that last duty.... No time now, thank heaven, for anything prolonged.... Simplest to write a little note and tell someone to stick it in her door.
‘Dear Mabel,
‘I have been called for unexpectedly in a car. I have only ten minutes to finish packing and do all the last things. I knocked on your door a little while ago but got no answer.’
She hesitated. Was it too gross? It was; but it must stand now; it could not be crossed out.
‘And now I’m afraid I haven’t a minute to try and find you. I’m dreadfully sorry not to see you to say good-bye, Mabel. Won’t it be sad when next October comes to think we shan’t all be meeting again? You must write and tell me what happens to you, and I will write to you. I dare say we shall see each other again. You must let me know if you ever come my way——’ That must stand too.... What else?... Results would be out to-morrow—Better not to refer to them; for Mabel had certainly failed. She had not been able to remember anything in the end. The last three days she had given in one of two sheets of paper blank save for a few uncertain lines.
She finished:
‘I do hope you are going to get a good long rest. You do need it. You worked so marvellously. Nobody ever could have worked harder. We’ve all been so sorry for you feeling so ill during tripos week. It was terribly hard luck.
‘Good-bye and love from
‘Judith.’
Nothing could be added—There was nothing more to be said. Mabel’s face this last week came before her, blank, haggard, still watching her from moribund eyes, and she dismissed it. She had thought she would have to kiss Mabel good-bye: and now she would not have to.
She must be quick now, for Martin.
The car turned out of the drive and took the dusty road.
Almost she forgot to look back to see the last of those red walls.
‘I’m saying good-bye to it, Martin. Ugh! I hate it. I love it.’
The poplars seemed to grow all in a moment and hide it. It was gone.
‘Well, Martin, how are you? What’s been happening to everybody? How are they all?’
She was slipping back, she was slipping back.
They left Cambridge behind them, and she tried to recall it, to make it come before her eyes, and could not. The dream of wake, the dream of sleep—which had it been?
She wondered if she would ever remember it again.
Yesterday Martin had been standing with her under the cherry tree.
Now he was telling her about his home in Hampshire. He acted as estate agent for his mother now that his father was dead. She must really come and stay with them and meet his mother. He was perfectly happy farming his own land: he never wanted to do anything else. He was improving the fishing and shooting: they had just bought a bit of land they had been after for two years: half a mile more river and a biggish wood. Forestry was the most fascinating subject: he was going to take it up more seriously. Martin’s life seemed very happy, very ordered, very clear and useful. He knew what he wanted.
The cousins had all been scattered this last year or so. Mariella had been working with a woman vet. in London. She had spent most of last summer at his home because she had been hard up and obliged to let the house on the river. Peter had been there too. He seemed a nice enough little chap, but nervy. He had a nursery governess now, and Mariella seemed to think more about her dogs than him. At least that was the impression she gave. Mariella, so Martin said, had not changed at all.
Julian he had scarcely seen. He thought he wrote about music for one or two weeklies, but he didn’t know which. Also he had heard that he was writing a ballet, or an opera or something; but he did not suppose it was serious. He had developed asthma since the war, poor chap, and he spent all the winter abroad and sometimes the summer too.
And Roddy. Oh, Roddy seemed to be messing about in Paris or in London nearly always, doing a bit of drawing and modelling. Nobody could get him to do any work: though last year he had done some sort of theatrical work in Paris—designing some scenery or something—which had been very successful. He was saying now that he would like to go on the stage. Martin laughingly said he was afraid Roddy was a bit of a waster. Anyway he was coming for a week or so, and Judith would see him for herself.
At six o’clock in the evening they stopped before the front door of her home. There, waiting to enfold her again, was the garden. The air was sweet with the smell of roses and syringa, the sun-flooded lawn stretched away towards the river, and the herbaceous border was burning miraculously with blue delphinium spires, white and yellow lilies, and great poppies.
‘Good-bye, Martin. It’s been lovely. We’ll meet soon, won’t we? Come and fetch me.’
She went into the cool and shadowed hall. There was the old butler hastening forward to receive her; and her mother’s voice came from the drawing-room saying softly: