Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner [27]
As her colour faded and her eyes took on their haze of reminiscence (‘You need glasses, Edith!’ Penelope would say), Mr Neville leaned forward.
‘After I have ordered tea for these ladies,’ he said, ‘I wonder if you would care to walk a little? It is too good a day to waste. We may not get another like it.’
Edith paused. ‘Yes, you go, dear,’ said Mrs Pusey in a remote voice, as if to signify the intensity of her reading. ‘I expect we’ll see you after dinner.’
A crowded day, thought Edith, grateful for the silence of her companion, as they walked slowly away from the little town, along the water’s edge. The castle, dour, grim, a rebarbative silhouette, a corrective to the dazzle of the water, occupied a spit of land which advanced into the lake as if to impede further progress. Soon it would obliterate the sun, and its massive shape would darken and seem to advance towards them. Instinctively they stopped, unwilling to witness this ritual extinction, and turned to the parapet, over which they leaned. The day was very slowly losing its colour, the blue of the sky whitening in that neutral hour which signifies the end of the afternoon. The sadness that comes with the approach of evening stole over Edith. Her companion glanced at her. ‘Shall we sit down for a moment?’ he suggested, guiding her to a stone bench. Crossing his elegant ankles, he asked her permission to light a small cigar.
‘Now, Mrs Woolf,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced. Philip Neville,’ he added calmly.
Edith shot him a sharp glance, for the first time registering his existence above ankle level and the profile usually presented to her as he gave his attention to Mrs Pusey.
‘Or may I call you Vanessa Wilde?’ he went on.
For the first time in weeks Edith laughed. The sound, so long unheard, surprised her. Once started, she could not stop. Mr Neville surveyed her with a pleased expression as submerged gusts found their way to the surface. Finally, he joined in, his smile lingering while Edith wiped her eyes.
‘Now that, if I may say so, was a considerable improvement on your usual expression.’
Edith looked at him in surprise. ‘I wasn’t aware that anyone was interested in my expression,’ she said. ‘I rather thought I was useful as an audience, but only as a lay figure is useful to a painter: both can be put aside when no longer required.’
‘And you think of yourself as a lay figure?’
‘No. That is how others think of me.’
‘And you are required to be seen and not heard?’
‘I am required to listen and not speak.’
‘Then for someone who is not speaking, you are giving away volumes of information.’
‘I was not aware …”
‘How stately you are. I don’t mean that you can be seen to be mopping and mowing. I don’t imagine you do much of that.’
‘Don’t be too sure,’ said Edith, suddenly sombre.
‘No, no. I don’t perceive you as a distracted being. I mean that if I were younger and more trendy I should probably say that I could deconstruct the signifiers of your discourse.’
Edith gave a grudging smile.
‘That’s better. I should say that you were rather bored.’
The mildness, the approximate kindness of this remark, brought a flush to her cheeks. She took a deep and steadying breath, then, her eyes brilliant, she nodded at him.
‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Quite. Then I suggest we go out one day soon. Do you know the hills to the south of us?’
She shook her head.
‘Wine-growing country,’ he said. ‘And there are some very good restaurants. I’ll telephone you, if I may.’
They retraced their steps to the hotel. On the terrace, Mrs Pusey and Jennifer were about to take their leave. Non-committal gestures were exchanged. Of Monica there was no sign. Mme de Bonneuil, her smile now tinged with anxiety, sat while her son and daughter-in-law discussed matters common only to themselves in loud voices which she could not hear. Finally, her son, responding to a cocked head and an ‘On s’en va?’ from his wife, stood up with alacrity and prepared to leave. His wife offered her cheek to her mother-in-law and tripped off to the car. Mme