Illyrian Spring Read online

  Her own phrase hit her, as one’s own phrases sometimes do. To respect a person’s individual vision! And abandoning the winged infant stockbrokers, she sat back and thought – Was it just what she didn’t do with Linnet? Must one do that, even with one’s own children, for whom one was so much responsible? And even if Linnet’s individual vision was of a person who habitually sent belated Collinses and missed important trains, and left expensive pochettes and gloves scattered all over London, like a top dressing over a flower bed? Up to a point she had abstained from criticism – but largely because the results of criticism were so painful; from fear, not from any settled principle. She decided to talk to Nicholas about it – he was very clear-headed. And she went back to the formidable cherubs.

  But even while she drew their resolute faces, Linnet, that formidable child, was communing on paper with her best friend.

  It’s really rather extraordinary about Mums. I had a letter from her the other day, from Venice – just ‘Venice,’ like that; no address. She sent me a cheque for my cloak, the late lamented, and urged a velvet (which wasn’t much good, as I’d already got a lamé) and generally wrote a rather sweet letter. But she never said where she was going, or where she was, bar Venice. I told Poppy, because he is really getting into rather a state about her, and he put Aunt Gina up to write tactfully to that God-awful Roseneath woman, who lives in Venice, to find out about her movements. But we haven’t heard yet. I gather Poppy has more or less been driven into a state of confidante-ing with Aunt Gina, and I hope to goodness she takes the opportunity to give him a home truth or two about Our Rose. I’m not at all sure that she hasn’t, because they had a sort of conference the other day, before the Roseneath letter went off, and Poppy came out looking most soured. And next day when I was lunching with him, Grimes came in and announced ‘Mrs Barum on the telephone,’ in his most unctuous voice – and I heard Poppy being firmly unable to do at least six things she wanted him to.

  Aunt Gina takes Mum’s absence rather calmly, it seems to me. I wonder if she’s really been in on it all along. She adores Mums. But she is getting worried about Poppy. He rather overdid it in the States, and he isn’t sleeping, I gather. She’s nagging him to see Sir John Lord, but you know what parents are. If we cut our fingers, off with us to Lord Dawson of Penn! But they themselves go on quietly dying of cancer or something, without a word to anyone, till the hearse is practically at the door.

  When Lady Kilmichael had finished the cherubs in the Duomo she went out through the Porta Marina onto the fondamento again. Nicholas was painting away furiously, and not wishing to disturb him, she went quietly across to the steps at the quayside and sat down to wait. A sort of lane had been left between the mats of flowers, leading from the steps to the fishmarket, but on both sides of her they lay thick. She plunged her hand idly into the soft white mass, picking up the dull creamy heads, sniffing their sharp, rather medicinal smell, and letting them fall again – now and then she glanced at Nicholas, and thought what a good picture she could do of him sitting there, working, his yellow head such a sharp note of colour in its white surroundings, above the dark patch of his own shadow. But she was too tired and lazy even to make a sketch of him – she had been working hard all the morning; and instead she began to think again about his painting. The very fact that it was so good was beginning to present her with rather a problem. She had very little doubt that he could become a good painter; but if his family was determined that he should not, that he must be an architect, was she justified in encouraging him to paint – helping him, teaching him? These two pictures had been a test, an experiment, and quite legitimate; but if he wanted to come on to Ragusa, as she felt pretty sure he would, and go on painting, ought she to let him? It was more than ‘letting’: he would be using her things, he would demand her help; she would be, most directly, aiding and abetting him in a course of which his parents disapproved. But if he had it in him to do really good work, wasn’t it almost a crime to prevent his talent from developing? And at the moment the thing was very much in her hands, she knew that; she had not yet delivered her official verdict on his two pictures, but she realised that that verdict would be in the nature of a casting vote. She had observed during the past week a growing dependence on her judgement on the young man’s part, not only in what concerned painting – he was always asking her opinion on this matter and on that, listening with respect, reverting to her former pronouncements; in spite of his growing freedom about teasing her, delightfully and childishly, he depended on her. If her verdict was unfavourable or discouraging, it would more or less settle the painting question, for the time being at any rate. When they met, his parents’ decision had been accepted, however unhappily – it was her rash offer to let him show what he could do which had reopened the question. But how could she deliver an unfavourable verdict, when she believed that here was a solid, even an unusual talent?

  The artist and the parent thus met and battled in Lady Kilmichael, as she sat on the quay at Traü. And neither would give way. But if anything the artist was the more truculent. And presently the parent turned traitor to some extent. Glancing again at the figure by the easel, content, absorbed, eager, she remembered the listless unhappy young man she had met at Torcello, and contrasted him with the gay companion of the last few days, full of nonsense and high spirits from morning till night. And from some inarticulate depths of consciousness a conviction, unformulated but strong, rose to the working level of her mind – that painting did something more important for Nicholas than the mere gratifying of a wish; that this form of work and liberty of expression straightened out in him something that was tangled, set free in him something that, shut up, turned bad and poisoned him from below. She could not explain this certainty, even to herself – but it existed. Then how could she, could anyone in their senses, with a heart in their body, return a child deliberately to that prison of dejection and gloom?

  There was only one thing to be done, she decided at last – they must have it out, and she must make him let his Mother, at any rate, know that he was painting again. But that – oh dear, that meant letters, and possibly her whereabouts given away! Still, there was no reason to suppose that Mrs Humphries would be in any way in touch with Walter or Gina, though they had plenty of common acquaintances. She couldn’t really ask Nicholas not to mention her name. Or could she? No, not without giving a reason, and she couldn’t give her reason. She must just take the risk. At least then it would all be open and above board. She would not be the slave of her fears!

  Her resolution taken, she felt relieved. She took off her hat, lit a cigarette, and sat looking out over the blue water and the pale shore opposite. Lovely, lovely place, Dalmatia! Every now and then she glanced round at Nicholas, still at work – and each time she did so, she felt that her decision was the right one.

  TEN

  To get to Clissa from Traü one follows at first the shore road towards Spalato, along that strip of fertile coast sheltered from the bora, the bitter north wind, by the mountains behind, and ennobled with the seven fortresses, each with a village at its foot, which still recall the dominion of Venice in the days of her power. At Salona the road forks; the right-hand branch crosses the Giadro towards Spalato, the left-hand one passes through the modern village of Salona, and then climbs in great loops towards Clissa and the pass.

  They halted for tea as soon as they were clear of the plain, just where the road begins to climb, on a little patch of smooth turf under two gnarled and ancient olive trees, whose roots grasped an angle of ruined wall. Here Nicholas lit the Primus stove and set out the tea things, two tasks which he now insisted on performing as a matter of routine; then he went off to look for wildflowers – he knew a good deal about wildflowers and they were, he said, a useful counterblast to the stones. Grace remained to watch the kettle. She took off her hat, and leaning her head against the wall, looked through half-closed eyes at the scene before her – the fine pattern cut by the thin olive leaves against the sky, their lit
tle shadows moving over the tea things set out on the turf, itself patterned with small dead leaves, silvery-brown – below, the plain spread out in the evening sunshine, with the sea beyond. And for the second time that day a phrase of her own arrested her attention. Suddenly the thought, ‘this is like an idyll,’ drifted into her head – and having drifted, stayed; the words stood up like a small signpost in her mind. Yes, it was idyllic, this life she and Nicholas were leading, of hard work and pleasant idleness, of meals in the open air, and – of late – of most serene and unclouded companionship. And for the first time the rarity, the unusual quality of the whole thing struck her. It was very odd that she should find herself wandering through Illyria with this delightful boy. (Nicholas had by now definitely assumed the status of a delightful boy.) But it was more than odd; it had the unexpectedness and simplicity, the tranquil naturalness of some Greek story, set in a clear pastoral landscape. Complete even to the goats, she thought, shooing away an intrusive Nannie and a couple of snow-white kids, which came and sniffed at the tea things. The kettle was nearly boiling – in a moment she must call Nicholas. Pulling out her case, she powdered her nose, rather absent-mindedly – she was getting quite brown with all this marvellous sun! She looked up from the little mirror to see Nicholas standing in front of her.

  ‘You don’t do much of that, do you?’ he said, glancing at the pretty shagreen object with a certain hostility.

  ‘No, I don’t. I can’t be bothered to do it very thoroughly,’ said Grace, putting the flap-jack away. ‘It takes so long.’

  ‘Thank goodness you don’t,’ he said, regarding her thoughtfully. ‘I do hate it so. I can’t think why women make up as they do.’ He sat down beside her. ‘Does Linnet do it much?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes – about the usual amount for her age.’

  ‘Red nails?’

  ‘Yes, red nails.’

  ‘Pity,’ he said judgementally. ‘I like the sound of your Linnet, bar that. Why do you let her?’

  ‘It isn’t easy to stop them doing things, unless they’re actually wrong,’ said Grace. ‘And besides, I’m not sure that it’s fair.’

  ‘How do you mean, fair? I should have thought it was unfair to let a girl of nineteen – that’s what she is, isn’t it? – make a sight of herself. Or has she got a very bad complexion?’ he asked, with practical interest.

  ‘No, a very pretty one,’ said Grace.

  ‘How you do adore her, don’t you?’ he said, looking at her with amusement. ‘Do you know that you always smile a little when you talk about her?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ Grace’s tone, not unkindly, rather brushed this aside. ‘But Nicholas, the thing is this – I was wondering about it this morning, after I’d been looking at your picture. In painting, teaching a person, one has to let them go their own way to a great extent. I can’t dictate to you how you’re to see a thing – I can only help you to do what you’re already trying to do, and have seen for yourself. And mayn’t it be the same, in a way, with one’s children? That one must let them go their own way, and be the person they want to be – at least in small things?’

  ‘I don’t know. No, I shouldn’t have thought so,’ said Nicholas. ‘I should have said it was just in the small things you ought to dragoon them for their own good. It’s no injury to anyone to be sent to school. There’s all the difference in the world between teaching people how to behave and dress and all that, and trying to shape their lives for them. That’s what seems to me intolerable, and really wrong – interfering in the big things. Hullo, that kettle’s boiling.’

  This was a new point of view to Grace, and while Nicholas made the tea she considered it. It was the very importance of the big things that had always seemed to her the justification for parental control there, hard as it sometimes was to exercise. But it was rather startling to find Nicholas a champion of discipline in minor matters. And her thoughts went back to his remarks about Celia and her Mother, and her own meditations on them.

  ‘Then you think one ought to force them to be tidy, and catch trains, and things of that sort,’ she asked, ‘however cross it makes them?’

  ‘Certainly. But surely Linnet isn’t often cross with you?’ he said, studying her face.

  ‘Oh yes, she is – and I’ve been wondering how far it was my fault. Do you remember what you said going to the Museum, about your Mother doing things for Celia being a sort of self-indulgence? I’ve been wondering since then if my wanting Linnet to be – well, rather perfect – wasn’t a form of self-indulgence too.’

  He looked at her thoughtfully, saying nothing. At last – ‘I should think you were entitled to expect a rather perfect daughter,’ he said. ‘But I think you’re getting this muddled up, Lady K. Discipline is one thing, and fussing round is another. What Celia hates is being fussed round. And then there’s the whole business, there, of she and my Mother being across one another. Mother’s frightened of her, and so she isn’t quite straight with her; that’s what really maddens Celia. She’s often afraid to ask Celia outright about a thing, so she steers round the subject, and sort of lies out for her. Of course Celia sees what she’s up to, and she loathes it.’

  ‘But they loathe being asked things outright, too,’ said Grace, remembering how disastrous were the results with Linnet when she did occasionally break her rule of not asking anything unless she was told of it first – the cold offhand tone, the few careless uninformative words, the icy reproof in the whole manner; worst of all, the clam-like silence on every subject for days afterwards. And she remembered, with a curious sense of guilt, occasions when she had ‘lain out’ for Linnet too. They had provoked no explosion at the time; but had Linnet also seen through them, and been maddened as Celia was maddened? Remembering all this, the old pain returned sharply, and with it the old questions she asked herself so perpetually and so vainly at home; and on a sudden impulse, she slipped one of them out – ‘I wonder why they don’t want to tell us things?’

  ‘I think very often they do want to,’ Nicholas returned readily. ‘And they would if people left them alone. But no one likes being catechised. It’s this assumption that parents have a right to know that rots everything up. There must be a proper way of asking just the right questions, if only one’s parents could tumble to it. I shouldn’t mind what you asked me – in fact I tell you all sorts of things without being asked, because I like to.’

  ‘I’m not your Mother, though,’ said Grace.

  ‘Sez you!’ was Nicholas’s reply to this exercise in the obvious; Grace laughed. ‘Lady K., you know you do make most frightful bromides sometimes. Why do you?’

  ‘I don’t know – I don’t think before I speak,’ said Grace, quite unoffended. ‘But Nicholas, why don’t you mind telling me things? Could you tell me?’

  ‘Well – apart from the great truth you’ve just enunciated – I think it’s because you don’t treat me like a child,’ he said, looking thoughtfully in front of him. ‘I don’t generally tell people of your age about anything, mothers or not. But you see you treat me like a person. If only parents could learn to treat their children like people, when they grow up! But the trouble is they don’t really believe that their own children ever do grow up; I’m sure at the back of her mind my Mother always thinks of me and Celia as tots,’

  Grace laughed a little – Nicholas’s very considerable length, stretched on the grass beside her, was extremely un-tot-like. He turned his head at her laugh, and looked up into her face.

  ‘You don’t make me feel how young I am all the time,’ he pursued. ‘If you only knew how loathsome it is to be made to feel young! Most people never let you forget it for a minute. You aren’t like that.’

  Grace recognised that this was true. Her normal method with young people was to talk ‘rather ordinarily,’ as she herself put it, to them, partly because her natural modesty gave her no sense of a pedestal from which to patronise, partly out of an instinctive fastidiousness. But though she had all along thought of Nicholas as a child – at
first as an unhappy child – her very sense of his need of encouragement had made her talk to him even more ‘ordinarily’ than usual; she had deliberately put him entirely on an equality in all her dealings with him. She had wondered a little if this would spoil him, make him tiresome, recalling his assurance and offhandness when they first met; but in her strong sense of his need she had risked it. And the risk had been justified – his response had been an extreme openness and even freedom in his speech and behaviour to her, but he had never been uppish; his criticisms, his teasing, were always made in an ingenuous confiding manner which she found rather charming. Indeed there was a subtle flattery about his openness with her which in its turn made her more at ease than she had ever expected to be with anyone of his age; she sometimes spoke her own thoughts to him in a way that surprised herself. It was very restful, not to have to watch your step all the time, to be so careful of giving offence, as she was forced to be with her own offspring.

  ‘No, I know I’m not,’ she said, reverting to his last remark. She smiled a very little. ‘I think I spoil you rather, Nicholas.’

  ‘I think you do,’ he said, looking at her now with immense gravity. Then he gave his sudden grin. ‘I adore being spoilt! That’s what’s so nice. But I hope I don’t’ – he paused, and looked away, out over the plain to the sea – ‘I hope I don’t ever seem to you to take advantage of that, in any way. You would bite me if I did, wouldn’t you?’ he said, turning to her again. ‘I rely on you for that. This growing-up business is really very difficult, you know.’