Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  “Of course.”

  “Won’t you sit down? I dare say mother will be down in a few minutes. I asked them to let her know you were here.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mr. Pelham sat down, with his habitual gesture of carefully pulling up the knees of his trousers.

  “What exactly happened? It was a cab, wasn’t it?”

  “As far as we know — —” began Monica.

  She recapitulated the story of the accident. She had been asked the same questions, and had given the same replies, many times in the past three days.

  “I see,” said Mr. Pelham at intervals, and “Really — yes — I suppose so,” in a concerned voice.

  His prawn-like eyes were fixed, inexpressively, upon Monica’s face, and from time to time he nodded as if to show that he was paying attention to all she said.

  Monica, as a matter of fact, had no doubts at all of his attention. She knew that Mr. Pelham had an extremely and unusually retentive memory. He often surprised her by reminding her of quite trivial conversations that they had exchanged in the course of the years that they had known one another.

  “These cases of concussion are most curious. I remember a cousin of mine, once — —”

  Monica listened, rather wearily. Almost everyone had had some similar instance, a case of concussion, about which to tell her. Mr. Pelham’s cousin had fallen on the back of his head, skating at Prince’s….

  Monica, in her turn, said “Yes” and “I see.”

  In spite of herself, her thoughts wandered.

  Carol had telephoned enquiries twice, and on the last occasion she had spoken to him, and said that she would like to see him. He had promised to come that afternoon, and she hoped he would not arrive until Mr. Pelham had gone.

  Mr. Pelham was in no haste to go. He was always apt to pay lengthy visits, and Monica had rashly admitted that she had nothing to do.

  At last she felt obliged to offer him tea.

  “Thank you — that’s very kind of you. But I don’t wish — I know you must have letters to write — or perhaps you’re wanted upstairs?”

  “No,” said Monica. “He doesn’t really want anyone, you know. He’s under morphia most of the time. To-morrow the doctors are hoping to make a more thorough examination, to see what can be done.”

  “Ah yes. I see.”

  Mr. Pelham looked graver than ever. He did not attempt to go away.

  Just as tea was brought in, Carol Anderson came. His warm, long pressure of the hand brought a faint sensation of comfort to Monica. His questions were almost the same as those of Mr. Pelham, but he put them with an effect of urgency, and there was nothing inexpressive in the gaze that he fastened upon Monica whilst she replied.

  “I’m so sorry for you,” he said gently. “It must be dreadful for you. Is there anything in the world that I can do to help you, Monica?”

  There was nothing, and she said so. But his earnestness had comforted her. She felt that he cared deeply about what had happened, for her sake.

  Mrs. Ingram came down to tea looking pale and exhausted. The same things were said, again and again, by them all. She repeated that there was little change in her husband’s condition. The doctors were hoping to make a further examination next day.

  “At least he’s not in pain. That’s my great comfort,” she kept on saying.

  “It’s wonderful what can be done nowadays,” Mr. Pelham reiterated with equal persistence.

  Carol Anderson carried a cup of tea to Monica, and made her the object of his care, telling her gently in an undertone that she must eat something. His solicitude touched her, and sent a thrill of happiness through her.

  “You won’t go just yet, will you?” she murmured, looking up at him.

  She meant that she hoped he would outstay Mr. Pelham.

  “Of course I’ll stay, if you’ll let me. I want to,” he replied gently.

  Monica was almost ashamed of the quick response that his words, and still more his look, woke in her. She wanted to think only of her father, not of herself, nor even of Carol Anderson in relation to herself. But as long as he remained beside her, saying very little but every now and then looking at her anxiously and affectionately, she knew that she was happy.

  She hoped urgently that when her mother made a move to return upstairs again, Mr. Pelham would go.

  Mrs. Ingram however sat on in the corner of the sofa, finding relaxation in the change of atmosphere.

  At last Mr. Pelham said, “Well — —” in a tentative fashion, and sketched a movement towards rising.

  “I suppose I ought to be going. Please let me know if there’s any — any change. Perhaps you’ll allow me to come round to-morrow?”

  Mrs. Ingram assented. Monica was only intent on seeing him go away.

  “Good-bye. I do so hope that you’ll have better news in the morning.”

  He had shaken hands — the moist limpness of his touch was always faintly distasteful to Monica — and her mother had signed to her to ring the bell, in order that the servants might know he was going.

  “Good-bye — so kind of you to come.”

  Mrs. Ingram did not sit down again when Mr. Pelham had made his exit. She remained as though uncertain, standing in the middle of the room.

  “Shall I take your place for a little while, and send nurse downstairs?” Monica suggested.

  She did not make the suggestion sincerely, for Mrs. Ingram was very jealous of her own supremacy in the sickroom, and did not allow Monica to share it.

  “No, darling, no. Thank you. Dear father likes me to be there, when he comes to himself a little. I think I must go back now.”

  She rustled slowly from the room.

  For the first time in her life, perhaps, thought Monica, her mother seemed really unaware that she was leaving her alone in the room with an eligible young man.

  “She’s wonderful, isn’t she,” said Carol respectfully.

  He pushed an arm-chair closer to the fire.

  “Sit down and rest, Monica. May I stay a few minutes longer?”

  “Oh, please do.”

  Monica’s habitual self-consciousness was loosened, in the relaxed mood following on the shock of the accident, and she was neither startled nor alarmed when Carol Anderson drew a small chair very close to hers, and took her hand in his.

  “I’m so awfully sorry for you, dear. I do so understand what you’re going through. Quite apart from the fact that I’ve had a good deal of personal experience of illness and anxiety, I seem to know by intuition exactly what my friends feel, when they’re in great trouble. It’s a most extraordinary thing, Monica, but it’s as if I could see inside their minds. For instance, I know exactly what your mother is experiencing, when she sits upstairs, watching him. I know what you’re feeling now, perhaps almost better than you know yourself.”

  Monica was accustomed to Carol’s strange conviction of his own infallibility, and still stranger candour in proclaiming it. She was, in fact, deriving a warm and blessed sense of comfort from the close hold of his hand over hers, and listening very little to what he was saying.

  Presently she understood that he was telling her about the illness and death of a friend at Cambridge. It was Carol, it seemed, who had nursed him, remained with him to the end, and been the only person responsible for the trying formalities connected with sending the young man’s body to his home in the North of Ireland.

  “I was only twenty-one, actually, but I seemed able to do it all somehow. It had to be done, and I was the only person available, and so I simply went through with it. After it was all over I thought: Well, if I can do a thing like that I can do anything. It showed me my own strength, I suppose. That was lucky, perhaps, if I’d only known it.”

  In the silence that followed, Monica seemed to hear Viola Lester’s name as clearly as though it had been spoken.

  She sighed, moved restlessly, and broke the spell.

  “I’m going to leave you, now. Are you a little bit less unhappy th
an when I came?”

  “Yes,” she replied with truth.

  “I can nearly always do that,” said Carol very gently, as he rose to his feet. “It’s something — I don’t exactly know what — that goes out from me to the other person. I’m glad I’ve helped you, Monica.”

  A week from the day of his accident, Vernon Ingram died, scarcely recovering consciousness.

  Examination had revealed the hopelessness of the case, and Mrs. Ingram had been prepared by the doctors for her husband’s death. She had, at first, seemed very brave.

  “If only he doesn’t have to suffer, I can bear anything,” she kept on repeating.

  Vernon Ingram did not have to suffer. The internal injuries that he had sustained were of such a nature as to make the case hopeless, and there was no attempt to do more than save him, as far as possible, from pain. The doctors used morphia freely.

  Monica went in to see him, and he did not know her.

  “Perhaps to-morrow,” said the nurse compassionately.

  She was an elderly woman, and — taking her cue from Mrs. Ingram — evidently regarded Monica as an utterly inexperienced girl, to be kept in ignorance as long as possible of the shadow that was hourly drawing closer to the house.

  Monica, in fact, felt unable to realize the approach of death. Ever since she could remember, her father and mother had been there — part of the fabric of existence. She could not imagine one of them without the other.

  She went up to bed on the night of her father’s death, in obedience to her mother’s injunction, believing still in a childish way that in the morning, somehow, there would be hope.

  Even the familiar bedroom, that had been hers ever since she had outgrown a nurse and a night-nursery, offered a silent testimony that violent and radical change held no place in her life. Pink silk, brass, and white-painted furniture still predominated. The wall-paper, originally a pattern of pink roses and silver trellis-work, had been replaced by a very modern one — birds, of an unspecified variety, hovering amongst branches from which hung clusters of a fruit that Monica always supposed, rather vaguely, to be some kind of pomegranate. The colour of these “toned in” with the pink curtains and the china on the wash-stand.

  The embossed silver set of brushes and boxes, with the heads of angels on the backs, still lay on the dressing-table.

  The picture of Napoleon, that had once testified to Monica’s first act of independence, had long ago disappeared. It had been replaced, in fact, several times, as different cults had taken Monica’s fancy. For a long while, now, she had had hanging against the wall a reproduction of The Laughing Cavalier. There was a faint resemblance to Carol Anderson in the set of the head.

  The thought of Carol comforted her, for he had shown her great affection and sympathy, and had been to the house continually.

  Perhaps, she thought dimly, her trouble would bring him closer to her. She did not expect to take Viola Lester’s place in Carol’s imagination, for it was evident enough that only the unattainable could ever really satisfy his yearnings for romance, but she would have been more than content to accept anything that he cared to offer her.

  Nobody wanted to marry her, and Monica’s deepening terror and dismay told her that, if she could not marry — and the chances of it were lessening year by year — there was very little left for her in life.

  She pushed the thought away from her with all her might, and went to bed.

  A familiar dream visited her.

  She was in the dining-room downstairs, and reading a copy of The Morning Post, and saw in it the announcement of her own forthcoming marriage. As usual, in the dream, the name of the man she was to marry was a blur. She was conscious of dismay and disappointment because she could not remember having received a proposal, nor an engagement ring, but at the same time she felt glad, because she was going to be married at last and her parents would be so pleased. She could hear her father coming downstairs, step by step, and turned to the door, waiting to see him come in and to greet him with her joyful tidings. The steps grew louder and louder, and it seemed as if the house shook with them….

  “Miss Ingram — Miss Ingram….”

  Someone was knocking at her door.

  “What is it?” Monica, confused and startled, sprang out of bed, switching on the light as she did so.

  “Better come down. Quickly, my dear — he’s going fast.” The feet of the nurse retreated swiftly down the stairs again.

  Monica threw on her dressing-gown and followed her. The lights on both landings were burning, and the door of her father’s room stood open.

  Her mother was kneeling by the bed and the nurse stood beside her. The bandaged figure on the pillows lay quite still, but the sound of heavy breathing was loud in the dim room. Monica, trembling violently, went close to the head of the bed.

  “Can’t anything be done?” she whispered, agonizedly.

  The nurse shook her head.

  “He can’t feel anything. He’s not conscious,” she said.

  The tiny clock on the mantelpiece chimed two. Another sound mingled with it and then ceased.

  For a moment Monica did not understand what had happened.

  Then she saw her mother’s dark head — still with its elaborate coils and curls dressed as she wore it every day — sink to the pillow.

  “She’s fainted — the very best thing she could have done,” said the nurse, in hushed tones. “I should like to get her on to her bed before she comes round.”

  Between them, they took Mrs. Ingram into her room, and Monica rang the upstairs bell for Parsons.

  “Had we better send for the doctor?” she whispered piteously.

  “No, no. He can’t do anything for — —” the nurse signed with her head towards the other room. “Your mother’s worn out, that’s what it is, with the strain. She’ll be round in a few minutes. I want a hot drink for her, and for you too, Miss Ingram.”

  Parsons came down, and although she at once began to cry, she was practical and helpful, knew where to find a small flask of brandy, and heated some milk on the spirit-lamp.

  The nurse occupied herself with Mrs. Ingram, who came to, shivering and moaning, and presently broke into hysterical screaming and sobbing.

  It took the nurse a long while to quiet her, and to persuade her to let herself be undressed and put into bed.

  “Stay with her, Miss Ingram. I must go back,” said the nurse.

  “Shall I come and lie down beside you, mother?”

  “If you like. It’s dreadful — dreadful! I can’t believe it. Oh, Monica — Monica —— !’’

  She was screaming again, stifling the sound in the pillow, throwing herself about, and clutching wildly at Monica.

  The hours passed, hideous as a nightmare. Mrs. Ingram would not rest for an instant, nor allow Monica to do so. When she was not crying and exclaiming hysterically, she poured out a torrent of words, partly reminiscences of her married life, and partly a series of assertions to the effect that she could not live, Monica must not expect her to survive the agony of her loss.

  The self-control that she had manifested throughout the past week had deserted her completely.

  Monica tried hard to cry, and could not. She was principally conscious of feeling sick, and continued to shiver spasmodically.

  Time passed with incredible slowness. Monica thought that it must be nearly six o’clock and that the servants would soon be stirring, and then turned on the light to look at the clock, and saw that it was barely four. She wondered if the clock could have stopped, but the hands of her mother’s watch pointed to the same hour.

  Presently the nurse came in, asked if she could do anything, and said that she had sent Parsons back to bed and would get some sleep herself.

  “You’ll be having your tea brought in at eight,” she said hopefully. “Try and get some sleep, won’t you. Why not let me give you some aspirin, Mrs. Ingram?”

  She fetched the aspirin, and Mrs. Ingram took it, protesting and sobbing all
the time. The nurse soothed her, speaking with an assumption of professional authority that quieted Mrs. Ingram for a little while.

  Afterwards, when the nurse had left them, she lay back in the bed, but continued to turn and twist restlessly, every now and then breaking into fresh sobs, and ceaselessly talking without pausing for any reply.

  Two or three times between four o’clock and six Monica fell into an uneasy doze, but always to be roused by the sobbing, tossing woman at her side.

  At last, as soon as she heard sounds of movement in the house, Monica got up and went to her own room.

  She felt stiff and chilled, as though she had been up and dressed all night long.

  As she dressed, she remembered with startled astonishment that she ought to put on a black dress. She could only find a black serge skirt and a grey satin blouse, with a black bow in the front of the square sailor collar. She found that she dreaded a return to her mother, but she was ashamed of the feeling, and went down at once. To her intense relief, Mrs. Ingram had fallen into a heavy sleep. She did not wake until the arrival of the doctor, summoned by telephone soon after eight o’clock.

  Chapter VI

  “You must be your mother’s comfort now, Monica. You’re all she has left.”

  Almost every relation and friend of the Ingrams said that to Monica.

  They had attended Vernon Ingram’s funeral, and had sent quantities of expensive wreaths and crosses and anchors made of flowers, and many of them had come back to the house afterwards and had gone, one by one, to sit for a few minutes with the widow, in her small boudoir on the second floor, while Monica remained, with the throng of black-clad relations, in the library downstairs.

  The day after the funeral she and her mother went away, to rooms on the south coast.

  It was early in the year, and bitterly cold. Cousin Blanche, who had suggested the place and had recommended the rooms, assured them that it would be much warmer than in London, and that it was quiet a place where they would see nobody, and could go for walks in the sun and breathe the sea air.

  Monica, ever afterwards, remembered that fortnight as one of perpetual physical misery. It seemed to her that they spent all their time in trying to coax an unwilling fire to burn, and finding tepid water in their rooms at night. Twice they changed their lodgings, but nowhere could they find warmth. Parsons caught a heavy cold and was so miserable that Mrs. Ingram sent her back to London, but obstinately refused to return there herself. She said that she could not face the changed house.