Which Way?, page 10
“But it’s such an enormous, ambitious dance. I don’t want to go alone!”
There was a raised, exasperated note in each of their voices. Neither seemed able to conclude the argument. He sat down hesitantly at his desk. She pretended to titivate a bowl of flowers. Then she quietly left the room.
Hugo was writing furiously when some time later his wife returned, discreetly scented and decorated, an elegant coat over her beautifully cut dress. She came up behind him, clasped her arms lightly round his neck and kissed the top of his head.
“Good night, darling. I’m vewwy sowwy I was such a silly, selfish Teddy bear. Of course work is not to be bothered and interrupted, and anyway, I oughtn’t to take you when you’re tired. I do hope you won’t have to sit up terrible awful late. Tabloid what you can, won’t you, into the note-book for to-morrow, and go to bed as soon as you can bear to stop.”
“Sweetheart,” said Hugo, feeling, perhaps undeservedly, a little ashamed of himself, “what an angel you are. I am a beast. Don’t you really mind?”
“Ho, no, Mister, I don’t mind. Husbands is terrible awful in the way, the other girls tell me.” And she ran quickly to her taxi downstairs.
But she did mind. She knew the symptoms. She would be a widow now for weeks. That baby that wouldn’t come … She had wanted it first to do her duty and to please Hugo; now she wanted it for its own sake or hers. It was nice that they were week-ending at Chesnor; Hugo could work undisturbed and she could bully her parents for constant attention. And to-morrow was Eileen’s nurse’s half-day off and she would help Eileen pram-push in the park. Still she felt disconsolate and lonely, almost shy, as she ascended the front stairs of Lalage’s house. Even though she managed to hide her feelings and swept on as though she considered herself Helen of Troy.
Looking round the landing after greeting her host and hostess, her eyes immediately fell upon a familiar face. She smiled her ready, delighted smile before she realised that it was Guy Verney, that she had seen him last three years ago when he had danced with her once, and that it was hardly credible that he could remember her. But he did remember.
Guy Verney could not have imagined beforehand that, at a ball where he knew and liked so many people, nay, at any ball whatever, he would have asked a woman he had only met once for a short while three years ago to dance with him. But she was looking lovely. There had been welcome in her recognising smile. They did remember each other quite well. He had been cut for the dance in progress by a tiresome little creature who liked to flirt more than he cared to. The said tiresome little creature had led two cavaliers to the ball, himself being one, and she wanted to play them off against each other. Guy’s rival liked her well enough, but he himself was bored. The arrival without an escort of this charming Mrs. Lester was very opportune.
They knew a little about each other from the Sketch, the Tatler, and Mr. Charles Graves his column. He remembered pictures of her wedding and had read some of Hugo’s books. She had seen his wife on the stage, had admired her, and speculated idly on the cat and dog life they led. They had little jokes about Noel and Lalage with which to break the ice.
They danced well and they fitted marvellously together. During her first dance with him other people came up to arrange various numbers with her, and at the end of it they parted with no plans to meet again. She felt a touch of chagrin, of disappointment, almost of resentment. Surely he must have enjoyed it as much as she had? But two dances later she encountered him again upon the stairs.
“Please can I have the next dance, Mrs. Lester?”
“Not the next, I’m afraid. I’m dancing it. What about number ten?”
They reached the landing, the doorway, the edge of the dancing floor.
“There’s my partner looking for me and I’m sure that’s yours. Come along quick!” urged Guy.
Without giving any consent she found herself dancing with him again.
Enchanted dance, enchanted floor, enchanted band! He held her close and she sang up at him, teaching him the words of the tune:
“I’ve never been in love,
But I want to be in love,
Wonder, could I fall in love
With you?
Would you be mean in love,
Twixt and between in love,
Are your sex all in love
Untrue?
You are so sweet—I’ve never felt like this till now—
But you’re so sweet I’ve got to take my toss—and how!
I’ve never been in love—
Now I’ve got to fall in love.
Honey, I’m all in love
With you!”
This banal twaddle with its lilting, caressing tune, sounded infinitely disturbing crooned lightly, softly, in her clear, high-pitched voice. She looked up at him, half-laughing, teaching him the words which no one could be long in mastering. He held her closer; they danced beautifully; she was all light and relaxed in his arms; presently she shut her eyes and he took up the tune and the singing:
“Wonder, could I fall in love
With you?”
He was cold and unsusceptible, friendly but aloof, an intriguing problem to woman: yet not only could he, he actually did.
They sat out on a far-off sofa while all the company gathered to enjoy and applaud the cabaret. What they saw in each other no one can tell. There were many lovelier women in that house than Claudia—indeed she was not really lovely at all for all her airs of loveliness. There were lovelier, cleverer, more conspicuous and better women in that house than Claudia. And as to him, he was not good-looking at all, except in so far as a well-made man of six feet two may generally pass for handsome. He was ordinariness personified. He was perceptive but not penetrating, charitable but not unselfish, quick but not deep. He had a thin, sallow face, dark hair and moustache and protruding front teeth. He had a quiet way, a charming voice, a sincere manner and cynical eyes. Most people liked him. Why not? And then again, why did they? Claudia’s eyes lost themselves in his, no longer cynical but very, very serious. Her fingers played with a spray of syringa. The heavy sweet scent of the light white flower hung between them like a prayer.
They were together all evening. When at the end of the dance he saw her home in a taximeter cab, she knew that something had happened to her that had never happened to her before, and that she must not see him again. And as he eagerly tried to make plans for their next meeting, she made her halting excuses; they didn’t entertain, she never went out without her husband and he hated going out at all, oh just to-night it was because of Lalage and he’d had a headache. … They drew up at her front door and the taximan waited while they argued till at last silence fell upon them, and still she could not summon the final resolution to go in. The taximan waited with little surprise; he was used to such delaying. Guy, staring at Claudia and feeling bewildered and hurt, saw suddenly on her face the blurred indecisive look of someone who would fain cry. Her mouth quivered and her eyelashes were shining and wet. He understood and couldn’t bear it.
“Is it not that you don’t want to see me again, but that you know I want to see you too much? Do you feel the same way? Can’t we see each other any more?”
They confessed to each other, and then, feeling all exalted and pure and sentimental and noble and brave, they gave each other up for ever in the taximeter cab, and he saw her in.
6
Because women can do nothing but love they have given it a ridiculous importance. … Men keep their various activities in various compartments and they can pursue one to the temporary exclusion of the other … it irks them if one encroaches on the other. … As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.
Somerset Maugham.
The following morning Claudia awoke to the thought of Guy Verney. At first she lay hardly detached from the mists of sleep, and little sensations of pleasure flowered everywhere inside her. Then as she wakened wholly to the knowledge of their parting she felt that their meeting must have been a dream: an episode apart; something that, having taken so short a space of time, could not really matter as it seemed to matter. As the day went on she learnt that this was a vain hope. The reality of it lay upon her like frost.
Having found that it did indeed matter to her, she could not help wondering if it really mattered to him. Perhaps he had slept it off. Might he not have been glad of any semi-romantic interlude to pass an evening that might else have hung heavy on his hands? Just one evening? However genuine his emotion of the night, it might well seem very remote, very fantastic in the morning. But indeed she need not have worried, it was not so. Guy was in love for the fourth or perhaps the first time. The other three episodes, his calf love, his suitable engagement, his unsuitable marriage, had all produced some charming sensations. But this was different, not only in kind, as are they all, but in importance. It was the love of his life.
They had renounced each other in good faith. It was harder for Guy in two ways, namely that his love was the greater, and that his home life was unhappy and sordid. But in every other way it was easier for him, simply because he was a man. He had so many other interests, his successful business in the City, his prowess at the usual sports, a host of friends whom his independent habits allowed him to see all he would of. Any of these interests could occupy his mind completely for the moment. He did not think of Claudia when trunk calling Germany, or enjoying a good run, or entertaining a delighted gathering by singing naughty songs rather nicely to the banjo with a sufficiently demure, unconscious air. He thought of her fervently none the less. She was the point to which all his thoughts returned. They could be distracted from her very completely, but as soon as the interruption was over, around her image they naturally returned to rest. He might not always remember to want her when he was with others; when he was alone she was the one person he wanted every time.
But for Claudia there was no complete escaping from the memory of Guy. All day long behind the housekeeping books, the tailor’s fitting, the cocktail party, Hugo’s short story, there was the echo of his charming voice, the illusion of his troubled smile. She fought against it with much activity, but perhaps she did not honestly want to let it go. It was so thrilling, so lovely, so important. It was an awakening, a quite new breath of life. She was in all truth desperately unhappy over the hopelessness and the renunciation, but her natural energy carried her along and her sentimentality consoled her much with its rosemary and pansy wreaths of romance. Only always, always, through letter writing or argument or laughter she was faintly conscious of wanting Guy, of missing Guy, of loving Guy.
Claudia in her grief turned instinctively to Hugo and she found him an elusive and wobbly reed. She concealed her trouble well enough, he was not aware of a change in her, but perhaps it is unlikely that his making a discovery at this time was wholly coincidence. His discovery was that she did not love him and had never loved him. In this new knowledge he was well ahead of her. Even now she told herself that she loved them both, that she loved them differently, that she loved Hugo and was in love with Guy. Hugo, knowing nothing about Guy, yet felt betrayed. He could not blame himself, he had not lost her love, for now he saw that he had never had it. He had not asked to marry her upon those terms, he had demanded more than her hand, and she had deceived herself and him.
He could not do anything about it because so far as he knew nothing was changed. Things were so unchanged that he could not help often losing sight of the fly in his jam. A tremendous chasm had opened between them, but there they were, close together, she very sweet, and affectionately disposed towards him, he in love with her. Still he knew that she would never love him now in return as she should. He found this a lightness and a lack in her, and resented it in a way peculiar to himself. He was not passionate or masterful in love, but he had a rarefied ethical standard. Claudia had failed him, and was his true love no more.
Consequently he failed Claudia. Though they could not but be friends, talk eagerly, discuss his works, make their private allusions and jokes, tell each other their doings, any airs of flirtation or coquettishness or cajolery that she put on for him irritated him fiercely, the more so that he felt their charm. He developed a slight inclination to snub her and snap at her; at any rate he was somehow withdrawn from her. Being still unchanged towards him, she was hurt.
Hugo of course was far more deeply hurt. But he had a consolation denied to most of the world. How happy is the novelist, for every misfortune that befalls him is so much copy. His troubles are not only pounds, shillings and pence to him, but they may be praise and glory. The specialist’s interest he must take in them must make them better worth while, and the unloading of them on to pages of paper does much to draw their sting. The story Hugo forthwith wrote was of a dissipated young man who proposed to a girl of seventeen for her money, who in her turn was shoved by her parents, ignorant as she was of life and love, into accepting him for his title, and who subsequently aroused in him an unexpected, true and purifying love to which she could never find in herself the slightest response. The emotions of the poor dissipated young man were not even wholly Hugo’s emotions, but discoursing about them did him a power of good. As usual he required Claudia’s opinion and interest, and she gave him some rather helpful advice about the triangular dénouement.
Guy was devoured by a deep and jealous love. Hugo was disillusioned and embittered for ever to his soul. But they slept little the worse. Dark shadows drew themselves round Claudia’s eyes and she started at sudden sounds.
7
A vivre ton regard m’invite,
Il me consolerait mourant.
J’en vais pourtant, ma petite,
Bien loin, bien vite,
Tout en pleurant.
Musset.
It was true, true beyond a doubt, tragically true that the world of love and virtue and wisdom was the true world.
Thornton Wilder.
Things went much better in the house in Kensington when the separation of Guy and Claudia came to an end. For it did come to an end, chiefly by the kindness of the entire Carstairs set who, having seen them at the Carstairs’ ball, lost no opportunity of obligingly throwing them together. The thing was in the air now, however careful the two principals might henceforward be.
In furthering the affair these friends were not actuated by love of scandal so much as by idle curiosity, nor by idle curiosity so much as by genuine good nature. Guy the elusive, the intriguing, the circumspect was vanquished at last. Claudia was charming and deserved her little bit of fun. A decorative couple, good value, both dears.
Claudia and Guy began again at a much lower pitch and embarked on a platonic friendship. They meant to be in every way self-controlled, and they found much harmless pleasure in meeting often and doing things together. Claudia had him constantly to her house and the general atmosphere became more cheerful. Claudia and Guy were happy and her nerves calmed. Hugo despised Claudia for needing a tame cat and general escort, and this made him feel superior to her, and this again made him more friendly and unbending. Then he liked Guy who could talk easily and amusingly, and he did not despise him. Indeed, though Hugo was better and far cleverer, still the older man, the man of the world, the man who had been through the war, did have more presence. Moreover Hugo regarded Guy as useful copy for the average man.
Guy and Claudia began slowly enough. They met every week, and in spite of all their repressions there was something very natural and pleasant about their imitation friendship. But Eileen condemned it utterly from the start. She and Hugo discussed it freely together. Claudia found a tiny feeling of soreness at their ever increasing intimacy. Never very possessive, she yet felt a faint jealousy not for Hugo’s sake but for Eileen’s. The uncertainty of Eileen’s alliance threw her more and more confidentially upon Guy.
Claudia and Hugo had only one row together. One evening she and Guy were alone and something he said reminded her of an idea in Hugo’s note-book. She fetched it to show him, and they turned the leaves and looked at several passages, some quite in full, some abbreviated; all disconnected.
“This is so like me,” said Claudia, and they read:
It would be quite easy if she pulled herself together and dealt with it. But somehow she could not take the simplest step. She was like someone lying in a hot bath and saying: “If I get out now I can dress in comfortable time for dinner,” and a little later: “If I get out now and hurry I shall just be able to do it,” and a little later: “Good Lord! There’s the gong.” How is it that a person who likes comfortable time for dressing before dinner cannot find power for the necessary preliminary of leaving the bath? Some people are constantly struck helpless like that all through their lives.
They read on:
Peggy’s habit tapping front teeth pencil or finger nail gets on Geoffrey’s nerves.
Personal charm theory. Resentment at facile dominion makes charmed beastly about and to the charmer. Charmer cannot understand. Not jealousy; beauty, wealth, wit, fame, intellect and chic are not thus resented.
Theory suffering more equal all round than at first sight as imaginary equally hard to bear.
Education theory. Only use education is, learning unrelated to own concerns and pleasure and career gives impersonal outlook, better balanced mind, and so the more useless the better.
Perdita had a terrific impression of great vitality and she stared with admiration at a pair of beautiful violet eyes and thin, long, dark eyebrows that nearly met in the middle over them. They shook hands; Perdita tried to smile with peculiar sweetness and received, as she put it, a nasty look in return. When next he met her Nigel said, sounding rather pleased than otherwise:
