The Nutmeg Tree Read online

  “Julia never cared,” thought Mrs. Packett suddenly. Julia had never cared about anything. A nice girl in her way, most docile and obliging, but always with an air of being only half alive … and then she had gone off like that on her own and never come back again! So there must have been something in her, something that Barton was suppressing, was inimical to. Mrs. Packett pondered. In her own youth, before she was married off, she had often thought about living her own life and breeding spaniels: had Julia’s thoughts run along the same lines? She never got that husband, it seemed; but what had she done with the seven thousand pounds? Just gone on drawing the income? “If I’d been she,” thought Mrs. Packett vigorously, “I’d have started a nice little business.” Perhaps Julia had; perhaps she was even now leaving behind a tea-shop, or a hat-shop, or a high-class florist’s; and if so, it was to be hoped that she had a manageress she could trust.

  Mrs. Packett dozed, stirred, and woke up again. The villa, like the village at its gate, was very still, and through the open window came a gust of sweet pine-scented air.

  “A holiday will do her good,” thought old Mrs. Packett; for somehow, during her nap, she had become firmly convinced that Julia kept a cake-shop. They would have nice long conversations about it: Julia probably had all sorts of new recipes, and if Anthelmine could be got out of the kitchen, they might even try their hands …

  “Maids-of-honour,” murmured Mrs. Packett; and on that comfortable thought went finally and peacefully to sleep.

  4

  Meanwhile, in the taxi between the music-hall and the Gare du Lyon, Julia was receiving a proposal of marriage. Ardent yet respectful (Julia indeed keeping him off with an elbow against the chest) Fred Genocchio offered his hand, his heart, his money in the Bank, and his villa at Maida Vale.

  “Stay here!” he implored. “Stay here where you belong, Julie, and we’ll get married as soon as ever we can. As soon as the week’s up the others can go back and we’ll have a regular honeymoon. You’re the hit of the show, Julie, you’re made for it, and I want you so! And you want me, Julie, you know you do!”

  She did want him. Her elbow dropped, for a long minute she surrendered to the breath-taking sensation of a trapeze artist’s embrace. The motion of the taxi flung them from side to side: first Julia’s back, then Fred’s, thumped violently against the upholstery; and neither even noticed.

  “You’ll stay,” said Fred.

  His voice broke the spell. Julia’s eyes opened, travelled vaguely past his shoulder, and focussed at last on two white patches in the darkness. They were the labels on her luggage, whose superscription she had written in London only twenty-four hours earlier: Les Sapins, Muzin, près de Belley, Ain.

  “I can’t!” cried Julia. “I’m going to my daughter!”

  She drew herself away and felt Fred stiffen beside her.

  “Your daughter doesn’t want you like I do!”

  “She does, Fred! She’s unhappy, and in trouble, and she’s there waiting for me! She hasn’t wanted me for years—”

  “Then she can get along without you now. Julie, my darling—”

  “No,” said Julia.

  Her distress was at least as great as his. To know him suffering, in despair, when with one word she could make all well again, was an agony so acute that she could hardly breathe. It was not her nature to deny: if she took lovers more freely than most women it was largely because she could not bear to see men sad when it was so easy to make them happy. Her sensuousness was half compassion; she could never keep men on a string, which was perhaps why only one had ever married her; and now—the bitterness!—when Fred too wanted to marry her, she had to refuse him.…

  “Wait!” she pleaded. “Wait till I get back!”

  “You won’t come back,” said Fred sombrely. “They’ll get hold of you. That daughter of yours …”

  Julia felt a sudden chill. Hitherto, unconsciously, she had been limiting that daughter’s existence, and her own term of motherhood, to the next month; now she looked into the future. To marry Fred Genocchio would be to give Susan an acrobat for a stepfather. An acrobat among the Packetts! It was unthinkable, and Julia sat thinking of it, silent and in misery, while every jolt of the taxi brought them nearer to the Gare du Lyon.

  “There’s another thing,” said Fred at last. Julia became very still; by the constraint in his voice, by the sudden casualness of his manner, she knew he was about to reveal an inner secret of the heart. “There’s another thing,” said Fred. “I’ve never been able—on the high wire—to do a forward somersault. But I’ve sometimes thought, if I had a son—perhaps he might.”

  5

  How Julia got herself into the train, and found her sleeper, and tipped the attendant, she never quite knew. From the moment they left the taxi she had chattered aimlessly, unconscious of what she said, unconscious of Fred’s replies, unconscious of everything save the pressure of his arm against her side. But she managed it nevertheless; somehow, suddenly, she was standing in the train corridor, and Fred was on the station platform, and there was a sheet of glass between them. He stood superb and statuesque, moveless as a rock—the best-built man Julia had ever seen. Then the earth seemed to slide under her feet as the train moved out; she waved once, foolishly, then stumbled into her compartment and locked the door.

  She was tired as a cat, and no wonder.

  She was too tired to cry, certainly too tired to lie awake. After a brief examination of the toilet arrangements—whose novelty and neat commodiousness could not fail to please—Julia hastily creamed her face and got into pyjamas. A couple of darkening bruises, one on each forearm, testified to the uncommon power of Mr. Genocchio’s grip. They were the only souvenirs she had of him, and even those would fade.…

  Julia slid into her bunk and was just preparing for sleep when she noticed a narrow and hitherto unexplored door. Curiosity impelled her to get up and slip back the bolt; she found herself looking not into a cupboard, but into the next (and empty) compartment.

  “Handy!” thought Julia.

  Then she got back into bed and slept like a log.

  Chapter 5

  1

  Ten minutes before the train stopped at Ambérieu (the time being then twenty-past six) Julia put on her Matron’s Model and stood considering the effect.

  It wasn’t good. The hat was all right in itself, and value for money; but it didn’t suit Julia. Perhaps the events of the previous day had left too many traces: there was a faint old-pro look about her, something hardy and cheerful, but a trifle worn.…

  “I need my sleep,” thought Julia, tilting the hat further. It was of fine brown straw, mushroom-shaped, with a bunch of ribbons in front, but the angle at which Julia wore it was foreign to its nature. A dowager at a fête, who had been given champagne instead of claret-cup, might indeed have achieved the same effect; only it was not the one Julia sought. She took the thing off, planted it squarely on her head, and tried again. Under the straight brim her round black eyes stared in good-humoured astonishment; the full mouth, the soft chin, had no business to be there. “You’re right,” said Julia to her reflection, “but I’m damn well going to wear it all the same. Don’t you know it’s the sort of hat she’ll be looking for?”

  Before the thought of her daughter all else fled. The train was slowing down already; Julia seized her smaller suitcase and hurried into the corridor. She meant to get down the steps at once and be ready on the platform, so that when Susan rushed up there would be no impediment to their embrace—and also so that the label on her suitcase would be properly displayed. For Julia was not relying on filial instinct alone: she had prepared a special piece of cardboard, seven inches by four, with MRS. PACKETT printed in block capitals. Thus not even a stranger could help knowing who she was; and as things turned out—as they so often turned out with Julia—it was a stranger who first addressed her.

  “Mees’ Packett?”

  “Go away,” said Julia sharply. He was a very little man, and she looked straight
over his head, scanning the platform. No rushing daughterly figure was in sight; the few passengers and their friends were already melting away. Julia was not exactly uneasy, but she could feel uneasiness round the corner.…

  “Mees’ Packett?” implored the man again. “Mees’ Packett, Les Sapins, Muzin?” He was holding something out to her, an envelope, which did indeed bear her name; and as Julia looked at it her heart lightened. This time at any rate she knew the hand.

  Dear Mother,—

  I am so very glad you have come, but I’m not meeting you because six-thirty A.M. at a railway station is such a ghastly place for reunions. The man who gives you this is the station chauffeur, he will bring you to Muzin, and if you like you can have a bath and some more sleep before breakfast.

  Affectionately,—

  SUSAN.

  Julia folded the note away, indicated her luggage to the chauffeur, and followed him out of the station to where the car stood waiting. The freshness of the grey morning air made her shiver: as she powdered her nose again, scrutinizing her features in the little glass, she felt that Susan had perhaps been wise.

  “Very sensible indeed,” said Julia aloud. To her surprise, she sounded as though she were trying to convince someone. “And very thoughtful,” added Julia angrily. Then she folded her coat over her knees and appreciated the landscape. Her dominant impression was that it went up. Just for a moment she closed her eyes; and when she reopened them, the car had come to a stop.

  2

  They appeared to be in a farmyard. Poultry fluttered round their wheels, a dog barked, and over the half-door of a stable a horse looked at them intently.

  “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” called Julia, rapping on the glass.

  “Muzin,” called back the chauffeur.

  Julia looked at the horse, the horse looked at Julia. Directly over its head, fastened to the wall, was a very old sign advertising Singer Sewing Machines.

  “Ah!” exclaimed the chauffeur with satisfaction; and leaning from his seat he hailed a group of three men, all bearing agricultural implements, who had suddenly materialized in his path. They wore coloured shirts, blue trousers, and straw hats vaguely moulded in the shape of sun-helmets. These gave them, to Julia’s eye, an odd air of tropical explorers; but they were evidently (and on the contrary) natives.

  “Bonjour, messieurs,” called the chauffeur. “C’est ici Les Sapins?”

  The eldest of them indicated a narrow opening between two barns. Through there, said the gesture, and up—but up!—one would find Les Sapins. The car moved slowly forward, crawled through the narrows, crossed a square with a fountain in it, and then climbed up—up—by two more lanes (or farmyards) until it was stopped by a tall iron gate. This the chauffeur opened; and as its leaves swung apart Julia saw on the farther side the first stately outposts—huge, dark, majestic—of an avenue of pines.

  She was there.

  3

  The villa of Les Sapins, as originally constructed at the time of the First Empire, was a small white building partly of two stories, partly of one. It jutted squarely from the hillside, the upper or front door opening on a terrace at the foot of the vine, the lower door upon a terrace over the kitchen-garden. Below were the dining-room, the kitchen, and the larders; above a salon and three bedrooms. This accommodation had sufficed until about 1890, when a new owner of convivial tastes added a billiard-room and two more bedchambers. He built straight along on the flat, thus turning the original square into a rectangle; and besides elongating the terraces to suit, he joined them by fine stucco staircases, one at either end of the house. With the construction of these staircases the glory of Les Sapins reached its height; and it lasted but two years. The jovial owner went bankrupt, the villa stood empty, or was rented and neglected by a succession of summer tenants; until it finally passed into the hands of an English spinster named Spencer-Jones, who put in a bath. Miss Spencer-Jones knew Mrs. Packett; and Mrs. Packett took it for the summer of 1936.

  Even in decadence, the place was charming. A great Virginia jasmine, dropping fed waxen trumpets, concealed the worst deficiencies of the roof. In the deep shadow of the embowering pines the walls still looked white. Tubs of oleander flanked the broken steps, a great lime tree spread shade and perfume over the lower terrace; the rosebushes looked like summer-houses, the summerhouse like a rosebush.

  But the glory of the place was the view. From the top of the vineyard, which mounted directly behind the house, one looked straight across a vast circular plain,—mountain-girdled, dotted with villages, varied by little hills, cultivated over every foot,—whose centre was the tiny bishopric of Belley. It was the joke of the village that the back door at Les Sapins was two hundred feet higher than the front; and the pride of the villa that from it one could see Mont Blanc.

  4

  High up amongst the topmost trees, on the morning of Julia’s arrival, stood a tall, fair girl in an old mackintosh. She had been there since six, watching the Ambérieu road as a beleaguered garrison watches for the relieving force; yet as the car at last appeared her expression did not clear. She had called in, not a known ally, but a strange power. By that impulsive letter, posted as soon as it was written, she had invited a stranger to her inmost councils; had tacitly given word to throw down all defences, expose every weakness, in return for a reinforcement whose strength she did not know.

  “Have I been a fool?” asked Susan Packett of the pine trees.

  There was naturally no answer. But as the gates clanged open, as the car nosed up the avenue, Susan turned her back on the house and began to climb higher and higher, towards the bare rocks.

  Chapter 6

  1

  Under the roses of the porch Julia was received by an elderly Frenchwoman, who at once conducted her into a wide echoing hall. The Frenchwoman, in list-slippers, padded quietly as a cat, but Julia’s heels clattered; and it was perhaps then that she received the impression, which never afterwards left her, that she always made twice as much noise as anyone else in the house.

  “La salle de bain,” said the old woman, proudly flinging open a door.

  “Je vois,” said Julia; “très chic.”

  “Madame will take the bath?”

  “Toute de suite,” agreed Julia. “At any rate, as soon as I’ve got a sponge out. Éponge, savon. Dans les valises.”

  “Madame parle français!” exclaimed the old woman politely; and a moment later Julia wished she hadn’t, for while fetching the bags Claudia let out, in a volley of animated French, what Julia felt sure were messages from Susan, messages from Mrs. Packett, and general instructions for her own procedure. There was nothing for it, however, but to smile intelligently; and this Julia did.

  “Et—c’est là la chambre de Madame!” finished the old woman with a flourish.

  Julia stood still in the middle of it and looked about her. It was like no room she had ever seen—large, square, with white walls, bare boards, and two windows open on pines, sunshine and a view to a blue hill. There was a white bed in an alcove between two closets, a tiny dressing-table, almost concealed behind a great bunch of roses, two chairs, and another table by the windows set with a breakfast-tray and more flowers.

  “It’s a bit bare,” thought Julia, “but there’s a lovely lot of room”; and unlocking the larger of her two suitcases she emptied it upon the bed. Her dressing-gown came out at the bottom, but she fished it up, and opened the other case to get her sponge-bag, and moved the roses from the dressing-table to make room for her toilet things. By the time her bath was ready, after only ten minutes’ occupation, the whole aspect of the place was so completely altered that even Julia herself felt a slight surprise.

  “I’ve got to be tidy,” she warned herself firmly. All ladies were tidy: they had special boxes to pack their shoes in, and special boxes for their gloves, and bags marked “Linen” for their dirty vests. Julia too would have had these things, if finances had permitted; but as they didn’t it seemed bootless to worry over details. A broad
general effect was (as always) Julia’s aim; and this she now achieved by sweeping everything into a closet and shutting the door. But for the roses on the floor, and a stocking on the window-seat,—and some shoes under the table and a powder-box among the breakfast-things,—one would never have known that she had been in the room at all.

  2

  And now, surely, as she lay triumphant in that French bath, was the moment for the Marseillaise. But not a note issued from Julia’s throat. She was a little tired after her travelling, and a little sentimental still over Fred; but the chief reason for her silence was that she hadn’t yet, so to speak, been introduced. She felt odd enough herself, lying stark naked in a house where she hadn’t even met her hostess; how would Susan feel, if after such careful plans for their first meeting her mother prematurely announced her presence by a song from the bath? And since splashing would be almost as bad, Julia found herself moving carefully, almost furtively, in the water: washing her back with precaution, lying down by degrees, so that not a ripple lapped. She found herself pretending, in fact, that she wasn’t there; and if she closed her eyes the sensation was remarkably complete. Even the water, unscented, unmoving, didn’t feel quite real. It was just a warm atmosphere in which she floated disembodied, no more real than anything else.…