Which Way?, page 11
“You hated her, didn’t you? She says you gave her a viciously nasty look!” Had she said that to be catty or did she really think it? Perhaps she had imagined it in all good faith. Then why should not Perdita herself have imagined the nasty look from her rival, who had smiled perhaps very winsomely indeed?
Later that night Claudia innocently remarked to Hugo that she and Guy had loved the bit about the nasty look.
“What? You showed him my private note-book?”
“You leave it lying about. You show it to Eileen.”
For once, they had quite an unpleasant scene. Separately they gave Eileen their different slightly distorted versions after.
But all was peace next day. Later that week Hugo himself asked Guy to dine and amuse Claudia as he had a working spell on him and was poor company. Claudia and Guy went to see Nervo and Knox at the Victoria Palace and spent a divinely happy evening. They laughed and laughed, helplessly, almost painfully.
“That girl guide make up!” choked Claudia. “Knox’s stringy black legs and Nervo’s obscene little pigtail!”
When it was over they left still babbling to each other incoherently in terms of the play. “Cut yourself a piece of throat,” “Now little boys—and girls—” “Simeon speaking! Don’t send the barge—we’ll swim ’ome.” That dance at the end of the second act! That scene at the circus! They agreed how heavenly it was to be low-brow, how useless it would have been to have gone to this perfect slapstick performance with Hugo.
When they got home he was still up working and hailed Guy in for a drink.
“Oh that’s what you went to see? I wish I’d gone too. I’d crawl a mile on my stomach any day to see Nervo and Knox.”
Guy and Claudia exchanged unrepentant glances. He’d have been precious, patronisingly intellectual. He wouldn’t have enjoyed it in the right way.
All good things come to an end, and perhaps a heroic renunciation is not the best start for a platonic friendship. The strain began to tell on Guy and Claudia. Heavy silences fell between them, and heavier words passed. History repeated itself, and with grief and sorrow and long protest they fetched their circle round to another eternal farewell.
They talked a long time. They talked about Hugo and Carol and love and life and beauty and sacrifice and the importance of being good. Late in the day perhaps, they behaved very well. She was too shattered to realise it all at once and slept the sleep of exhaustion, but he walked about all night in his despair and the grey morning found him in the empty City with the sweat streaming down his face.
8
Millions and millions of men and women in the world—all alone, all solitary and confined. … Friends incomprehensible to each other and opaque after a lifetime of companionship … lovers remote in one another’s arms. … The hopelessness of every passion, since every passion aims at attaining to what in the nature of things is unattainable: the fusion and interpenetration of two lives, two separate histories, two solitary and for ever sundered individualities.
Aldous Huxley.
For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come.
Song of Solomon.
“But what’s become of your petit monsieur?”
“Oh we’ve quarrelled. I’ve got tired of him.”
Thus Hugo and Claudia, and thus again, in different words, Claudia and Eileen. Eileen improved the occasion, giving her opinion fully and frankly. Claudia felt that she had enough to bear without Eileen’s opinion.
“Gosh—she’s disagreeable,” she thought, “I wonder how Tommy stands it! But the answer is, she ain’t disagreeable to Tommy.”
Hugo said he missed Guy, and was sorry, as her next petit monsieur probably wouldn’t be so nice.
Things went very badly for a while after this in the Lester household. Claudia could not always wholly hide her desolation, and any glimpse of weakness or of sorrow in her exasperated Hugo. He did not worry much about her conduct, he suspected no evil between her and Guy, but that was not in any case the point. He had thought that he had had her and he had never had her at all. Whoever she loved or didn’t love, whatever she did or didn’t do, she had broken his bubble and trodden on his dreams, and that she should be unhappy too only aggravated the offence. It might have aroused tenderness in him had he felt stronger and older than she, but there had grown up between them an unacknowledged understanding that almost all responsibilities were hers.
Unconsciously, regretfully, she accepted this. She must somehow comfort Hugo. Only she had never felt so helpless with him, almost afraid of him. Sometimes he was so withdrawn that even she seemed to become just copy, an individuality not an individual, something whose reactions he coolly studied. Most of all he resented it when she relapsed into the pretty, affected, affectionate airs and graces of earlier days. He loved them still, they moved him still, and they reminded him that he despised her.
Claudia hardly went anywhere, refusing all invitations for fear of meeting Guy. The quiet life she led further irritated Hugo, who took it as an accusation, a parade of martyrdom. She could not explain that she dared not risk enjoying the good offices of the Carstairs’ set again, that her love surely went everywhere in the hope of seeing her face. And all the while this denying of a mutual love seemed such a meaningless strain, so futile a frustration. Guy possessed all her mind and all her heart; resilient though her spirits were she could not be the best of company.
Yet how much it takes to upset the even tenor of everyday life! Hugo and Claudia had so much in common they could hardly cease to be friends. It was impossible that they should be miserable all the time. They might practise bitter phrases in their minds as they lay in their baths, but when they met at breakfast or at dinner after, some joke of the old brigade would at once crop up, the items of their private daily news bulletin would require friendly, intimate discussion. Married life is so close a tie that it is not really possible to lead a two-strangers-under one-roof existence. Even Guy and his Carol with their exceptional facilities for not seeing each other hardly achieved that. Habit is so strong. It was a matter of course to Claudia to tell Hugo every little happening that seemed pleasant or amusing or touching or queer. It was a matter of course to Hugo to claim Claudia’s attention to everything he wrote, and to every theory that entered his head. He might affect to himself that her fondness and liking were aggravation and insult; life without them would have been unthinkable. He was very cynical now when she petted him with his headaches and colds, but had she treated them with bracing indifference the Bank of England would have failed and the Rock of Gibraltar have sunk into the sea. Nevertheless she had injured him irreparably, and he knew quite well that she was not capable of apprehending in what wise or how much.
Hugo might have greater capacity for suffering, as being the more spiritually quickened and refined; but Claudia’s trouble was far more constant and gnawing. And it was tantalising too; by this wanton act of renunciation which found no sanction in her heart or his she had deliberately bound a load of misery upon herself and upon her love. However much fun or enjoyment or work or interest she found, the longing for him was never far off from her. It lurked ready to pounce like a beast in ambush about all her ways. Morning and night her first and last thoughts were of him. Morning and night her first and last sight was his first present, a glass horse glittering and graceful on the mantelpiece, with its slim, fragile legs, its fine neck and its arrogantly posed head. She was fond of cheap music, tuneful lilting, but now the gaiety of an air would string her up temperamentally, the caress of a voice rasp suddenly on her nerves.
What am I to do?
I adore you!
Even the stellar lovemaking in picture palaces troubled her, so that she felt quite grateful on one occasion to a snub-nosed, pimple-faced, red-wristed, bottle-shouldered youth sitting in front of her who broke the spell by remarking, as Owen Nares passionately kissed a lady: “Coo, ’e’s as bad as oi am!”
None the less, Claudia and Guy kept the sad vows they had made to each other at their second eternal farewell. They had sworn not to write or telephone and they beat the temptation down. From time to time each of them, firm in personal integrity, would will the other to fail and send a message at last. Evidently neither of them had wills sufficiently strong. And so the weeks wore away, tolerable after all since they were, in fact, tolerated.
It was between two and three months after the second eternal farewell that Hugo received by the last post a letter which caused him to exclaim with pleasure and surprise.
“Has an enemy died or have you come into money?” asked Claudia sympathetically.
“Oh well, I can’t go of course. But you remember Marcel Saint-Luc?”
“I’ve heard you speak of him. Oh yes, and he wrote Bonne Marchée and Je m’en fiche.”
“No, Esmé Desgranges wrote Je m’en fiche. They were all a little sort of club in Paris and they really made me one of them the year I spent there. I was one of the richer men of the party then, but now old Marcel’s inherited a place and a fortune. Gosh, I haven’t thought of them for years.”
“I’m glad he has,” cried Claudia with easily-aroused enthusiasm, “because they did give you a good time, didn’t they? And it all sounds so disreputable and naughty.”
“Only intellectual fun, though,” twinkled Hugo.
“Je m’en fiche,” she told him.
“Well, now Marcel is trying to gather us all together for a fortnight at his place. I can’t go, but it’s jolly to be remembered.”
“But why can’t you go?”
“He’s forgotten I’m a married man.”
“Can’t you forget it too? Most people can! Gracious, I can survive two weeks by myself.”
“You can’t even go to Chesnor with the housemaid having whooping cough.”
“Darling, you’re obviously dying to go. There isn’t a reason in the world why not.”
“There’s dozens of reasons. It’s such short notice. This letter’s been chasing me all over England. I’m frightfully busy. I’ve got tons of work and tons of engagements. Rosemary’s dinner party—you know that would have been fun—and the Editor of the Mermaid and heaps of things.”
She fetched his engagement book. She was an angel of sympathy and a tower of strength. She did all his telephone calls for him and arranged everything and booked his passage. The wish not to miss a party was one she could so thoroughly understand. Hugo was obviously thrilled about this holiday. It really didn’t matter that she would lose Rosemary’s pleasantly leonine dinner and spend a dreary, lonely two weeks! She smiled to think that but for her energy and sense in overcoming his difficulties Hugo would have lost his treat for no adequate reason. She felt quite a little glow of wifeliness as she finally packed him off.
Standing on Victoria Station, childishly waving a handkerchief after Hugo’s train, suddenly a chill came upon Claudia. She hurried home to the Kensington house where they had planned to be so happy. She hurried home with set mouth and anxious, haunted eyes to face in quiet the sense of foreboding and disaster that lay like a heavy fog over her mind. Was it then only this, all her eager, sympathetic activity on Hugo’s behalf, that she wanted to be alone and in the same town as Guy? She sat down, staring at the glass horse, fine and glittering on the mantelpiece, trying to see clearly through her doubts. What good after all would it do her that Hugo was gone? What ulterior motive could there have been in her good nature? Guy would not even know of his absence. All communications were cut off. That she would not write to him or telephone to him or send him a message or seek him out was as sure as the rising of the sun and the moon. Nevertheless not for any wealth or fame would she have left London.
For Claudia knew that somehow, somewhere, she would meet Guy. She did not speculate in her mind or wonder or hope, her foreknowledge was certain and still. She felt neither hurry nor pleasure nor suspense, just the indifferent, inevitable working of an appointed thing.
In a few minutes she got up to carry on the day’s work. She had some telephone calls and some letters to do, some shops to call at, some lunches to fix with Eileen and a dinner with her and Tommy too. There was no further use in pondering over the matter. She did not even tell herself that she was not psychic, that none of her presentiments ever came true, that she was suffering from imagination, nerves, or incubating influenza. Whatever she did, wherever she went, nothing could stop her from meeting Guy.
It was not one of her many transient moods. She felt no whit altered in mind the next day. When she ran into Derek Denzel on his way to lunch at the Kit-Cat and he said: “What are you doing to-night? I wish you could come out with me as Delia’s out without me and I haven’t seen you for an age,” she accepted, hardly even troubling to guess whether or not he was to be the instrument of her fate. They dined, saw a play and went on to the Embassy. As a matter of course, without surprise or wonder, she saw Guy sitting with a party of four.
Presently Derek stopped at their table after dancing, greeted them all and explained:
“We’re consoling each other as our other halves have deserted us.”
“An elopement?” someone asked.
“I don’t think so. Lester’s gone for a fortnight. If Delia has I shan’t take her back!”
Guy and Claudia exhibited no signs of emotion. There was nothing that anyone else could notice. She smiled all round. Before she went on they exchanged a word or two in general conversation. But between them there was that strange electric current that neither of the two it binds can conceal from the other, that no one can govern or control.
A little later Guy danced with one of the two ladies of his party and then brought her up to Derek and Claudia for a moment, so that she fell into conversation with Derek and he edged Claudia a pace or two away.
“I must see you, Claudia. I’ve got to see you.”
She said: “Yes.”
“When you get home, Claudia, wait up for me a little and I’ll come on as quickly as I can. I’ve got to see you.”
Again she said: “Yes.”
“Stop flirting with Guy and dance with me,” demanded Derek.
Some ten minutes later she said that she was tired and asked to be taken home. She seemed composed enough, chatting pleasantly to her escort on the way, but the mood of foreboding had melted away before a surge of delight. The long separation was over and done; music clashed in her brain and the stars reeled in the sky.
She lay on the sofa in the front drawing-room waiting. She was tired. Her thoughts revolved endlessly in a sort of dream of Guy’s arms about her and his face against hers in that closeness which should be but an outward symbol of the closer knitting of their hearts and minds. Two individuals whose emotions flowed as one, two personalities directed into one channel, two inseparable notes of one perfect chord; herself and Guy who should for ever understand. Her eyes were closed and she was half asleep under her dream’s spell, but through it all she heard always the swish of cars, calculating their distance and direction, whether they would turn down her street, whether they were slowing up to stop. At length she heard one stop at her door and she rose and ran down. It had taken him just half an hour to break up the party, see a lady home, and come.
In the hall they stood facing each other for a moment in silence and the air seemed thick with those sweet words so soon to be told. His face was a mask that she had seen before on other men. For in some moments all men look alike. All that spoke of himself, of his own individuality, was blotted out, and there was only the expression of a universal emotion not of itself either good or evil, happy or unhappy, beautiful or debased. There seemed both strength and weakness in asking so much. The mask is always a little disturbing, and Claudia was infinitely stirred because she belonged already to the man who wore it. She turned her head a little, restlessly, to and fro on her lovely neck, with a soft, delaying, defeated smile.
9
What shall we steer by,
having no chart
but the deliberate
fraud of the heart?
Humbert Wolfe.
It was amazing how unexpectedly easy it was to meet Hugo again. After all, she felt so strong and happy.
After a long and merry discussion of his adventures, his primness and neatness among those wild Marcels and Esmés and Armands and Achilles, his passionately improving harangues, the feast of theory and the flow of intellect and all the ribald laughter, he asked:
“And how have you improved my absence?”
To which she answered:
“I’ve resurrected my petit monsieur!”
Thereafter things went much better in the Lesters’ house in Kensington. Hugo was rather pleased to see the average man again, indeed he had quite a respect and liking for him and they could sometimes be very amusing together. Claudia positively flowered beneath the enchantment of her happiness. She was excellent company. Her occasional fits of misery were easily kept to herself, and Hugo was no more provoked by sorrow and yearning on her part. She went out often so that he could feel no more accusation and martyrdom, but not so often that he was in any way neglected. She was an attentive, companionable wife, and poor Hugo got some unsatisfactory satisfaction from despising her inferior sensibility.
Guy and Claudia were gay and popular, faithful and devoted and fairly discreet: and they became one of the accepted, almost respectable, unacknowledged liaisons of London. For fervent lovers they were wise in their generation; they tormented each other little with doubts and jealousies, they did not indulge in rows, and when they found themselves talking too much at cross purposes, either she would drop the subject, or he would resort to arguments less controvertible than words. She had yielded to him easily, but then he had not regarded her as game. She roused in him a love and protection that the constant pleasure of her society did not diminish.
