Mrs. Romayne had not come downstairs, but Patrick now appeared from the hall, and Mr. Bolham was immediately behind him. They joined the Morgans.
Denis, with his instinct for doing whatever seemed to be expected of him, followed Gwennie to the steps.
He found himself face to face with Dulcie Courteney, who looked at him with a terrified expression from under swollen eyelids.
Denis muttered “Good-morning” and looked quickly away from her.
Gwennie ran about, saying good-bye to everybody.
Olwen and David stood with Patrick. Denis noticed vaguely that Patrick looked very unhappy, although from time to time he smiled, and even laughed.
Whatever the boy’s troubles might or might not be, he was not suffering one-tenth as much as Denis was suffering. Of that, Denis was profoundly convinced.
A car drove up, stopped, and Chrissie Challoner in a scarlet-spotted beach-frock and enormous scarlet straw hat, sprang out. Her hands were filled with parcels, wrapped in white paper and tied up with ribbon.
“I’m so glad I’m in time,” she said hurriedly. “These are for the journey. You’ll have to eat them quickly, Gwennie, before they melt.”
Denis, at the sight of her, shrank inwardly, and was aware of a qualm of actual physical nausea. Suppose Courteney really did say something to her?
Just then Chrissie turned round towards him.
“Can you come for a short drive, presently? I partly came up because I wanted to see you.”
She spoke gently, and Denis — unaware that terror and misery were written plainly on his face — thought that her feelings towards him had softened again. Perhaps he need not lose her, after all.
It was an essential part of his weakness of character to be the victim of sudden, violent, and quite unconsidered impulses.
One such seized upon him now.
He would tell Chrissie himself of the threat held over him by Courteney and make her understand that he was not in any way to be blamed or despised.
“I should like to have a minute or two with you, very much indeed,” he said quietly. “I don’t think I can go for a drive because I may be wanted, but perhaps we could stroll to the end of the terrace?”
Chrissie nodded a quick assent.
Mary Morgan, with Madame and the comparatively negligible Monsieur, came out. Her dark-blue foulard dress and small travelling-hat looked strangely formal, and she was carrying gloves and a hand-bag.
“Au revoir, madame. Bon voyage. Au plaisir de vous revoir, j’espère, l’année prochaine....”
Madame was all affability.
She approved highly of the Morgans, perfectly realising that this was une famille anglaise très comme il faut. They did not order drinks with the freedom of most of her guests, but on the other hand she considered that they lent a tone to the Hotel — and there was no question there, as to credit.
Moreover, the rich Mr. Bolham, and still richer Mr. Muller, had both made friends with the Morgans.
Mr. Muller was shaking hands with them now.
“That was a grand evening we had,” he said to Mary.
“I shan’t forget it.”
“Neither shall I.”
The last piece of luggage was on the omnibus. Morgan came up the steps.
“Well — —”
“Good-bye, Mr. Bolham. I do hope you’ll let us know, if you’re ever in our part of the world,” said Mary.
“Thank you very much. Next summer, perhaps. And if you should be in London during the winter — the Athenæum will always find me.”
“Good-bye, Patrick,” said Olwen. “Don’t forget you’re coming to stay with us in the holidays.”
“Thanks awfully, Olwen. I won’t forget. Rather not.”
“Please say good-bye to Mrs. Romayne, and thank her for taking us to the rocks in the car so often.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I’ll tell her.”
“Where’s Mr. Buckland?” demanded Gwennie suddenly. “I haven’t said good-bye to him.”
“He hasn’t come down yet. At least, I haven’t seen him.”
“Good-bye, Dulcie. Good-bye, Mr. Courteney.”
“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
“Have a nice journey. I hope it won’t be frightfully hot.”
“Good-bye, David. Take that back to school with you.”
“Oh, thank you,” said David with round eyes, his fingers closing on a piece of paper folded very small, pushed into his hand by Mr. Bolham.
“Come along, hop in,” said Mervyn Morgan to his children. He was glad that they were leaving France, and thought gaily that, in a very few days, he would get a decent English breakfast of eggs and bacon again.
The concierge, looking supercilious, pocketed Captain Morgan’s tip, and held open the door of the omnibus.
Mary Morgan gave a last glance round. They had said good-bye to everyone. She responded politely to Madame’s hopes that they would return next summer, but she knew that never would their holiday repeat itself.
Well, she’d done it. Seen the blue sky and the tideless Mediterranean, watched her children assimilating one more of the ineradicable impressions of childhood, and for herself laid up a curious store of memories.... She smiled once more at Muller, who was watching her with grave intent eyes, and followed her children down the steps of the Hotel.
Gwennie and David were waving vigorously, hanging out of the window. Olwen, sitting next to her mother, raised her hand once, and then sat motionless. Her face was serious, but not unhappy.
In a little while, thought Mary, the Michaelmas daisies would be out in the garden at home. She seemed actually to feel, for a passing moment, the fresh, damp air of her own hillside garden.
The heat-haze quivered round her, and she came back to the present.
The omnibus rattled down the hill, and Mary wondered whether the books that she had brought for the children would last through the long journey that lay ahead of them.
(2)
“I’m sorry they’ve gone,” Chrissie said. “I suppose there’ll be quite a different lot of people here, by the time I get back.”
“You’re going away?” Mr. Bolham enquired.
“To Italy, for a week. I think I shall go tomorrow, if I find that I can get rooms. Shall you still be here when I come back?”
“I hope so. But it’s possible that I may be back in London again, by then.”
Chrissie heard him without much surprise. She had had a curious conviction that, if she went away, Denis would be gone on her return.
On the whole, it would be a very good thing. Nothing remained now except disappointment, and a sense of humiliation at having mistaken a passing impulse for an enduring reality. Denis was gazing at her with miserable eyes, and a feeling of mingled horror and compassion grew in her at the thought that it was she who was making him suffer.
The postman climbed up the steps laboriously carrying his canvas bag, and Mr. Bolham went into the hall to await his mail.
“I can stay until he’s read his letters,” said Denis. “I want to speak to you.”
Without saying anything more they walked the length of the terrace. Denis had been sitting at the furthest table of all. His cup was empty, but his roll and butter lay uneaten. Chrissie was for a moment touched until he said, indicating the plate:
“I’m afraid I haven’t been able to do much in the way of breakfast this morning. In fact, I haven’t eaten anything at all.”
“It’s too hot to eat, isn’t it?” said Chrissie coldly. Denis turned and faced her with his air of a hunted animal at bay:
“Why are you so beastly to me, nowadays?”
Chrissie, contemptuous of the appeal and made nervous by the thought of hurting him still further, lost control of herself.
She said clearly. “I’m sick of humbug. You do nothing but pose, and pretend, and feel sorry for yourself. I don’t know what’s the matter with you, Denis, but I do know that I can’t do anything to help you. No one
can, except yourself, and you — you’ve just not got the guts to do it.”
Denis became perfectly white. He tried to speak and failed. Chrissie faced him unflinchingly.
An emotional scene was definitely stimulating to her, and she scarcely realised that to Denis it might be a more unnerving experience.
At last he spoke, in a voice hoarse and shaken with anger.
“You dare to speak to me like that because you don’t understand the very first thing about me. I’ve had a much harder life than you know anything about. Ever since I was a child I’ve been alone, I’ve had no one to help me, I’ve had to fight for my own hand. I never thought I should have to earn my own living. I was brought up to believe I should be heir to a property — as I ought to be. Since I was eighteen years old I’ve worked, and I’ve — I’ve kept my end up — I’ve been through things that I couldn’t even tell you about — I’ve nearly starved sometimes — —”
Chrissie’s voice cut like a knife across his torrent of self-pity.
“You’ve been through nothing at all that hundreds and thousands of others haven’t been through. The difference between you and them is simply that you’ve never, for one single instant, stopped thinking about yourself, and dramatising yourself, and lying to yourself and to everybody else. I don’t know what’s made you what you are, but I do know that if you don’t pull up while you can still do it — if you can, that is to say — you’re never going to be anything but what you are now — a neurotic, self-conscious, cowardly little liar — and everybody’s going to know it. You’ll mind that, because you’re afraid of what people think. That’s the only standard you’ve got — what people are going to think about you. Well, now you know.”
Denis stared at her wildly, choked, and put both hands up to his throat.
“I know I’m being brutal. I don’t care. I believe it’s your one chance. You’re not a fool, Denis, although you generally behave like one, and you’re possibly worth saving. I don’t suppose I shall see you again after to-day, but at least I’ve told you the truth about yourself.”
“I hope to God you never will see me again after to-day,” said Denis passionately. “I didn’t know that any human being could be as cruel to another as you’ve been to me. Do you realise what you’ve done to me? You pretended to be my friend, and to have an affection for me, you won my confidence — I spoke to you more intimately than I’ve ever done to anybody else in the world — and then you suddenly turn round on me and insult me, and mock at me, and tell me that you utterly despise me.”
Chrissie, a cold anger invading her, stopped him with a quick movement.
“As usual, you’re not speaking more than a quarter of the truth. You’ve got one grievance against me, and one only. I was taken in by you, when I first met you, and I offered you something that, because it was real, was killed by your own insincerity and pretence. I agree with you that I gave you my friendship and then took it away again. And if that’s hurt you, I’m glad of it. D’you hear, Denis, I’m glad. Any single thing that can make you feel a real emotion, and not a fake one, is your best chance of one day becoming a man, instead of the abject thing that you are now.”
“Stop,” said Denis.
“I won’t. You’re going to face the truth for once in your life, if you never have before. Everything I’ve said to you is true, and however much you may deny it you’ll always remember it, and then perhaps some day you’ll really take it in, with your whole consciousness — and then there’ll be some hope for you.”
Chrissie leant back in her chair, shaking.
She could see the sweat forming in beads on Denis’s narrow forehead and rolling down his temples. His hands were trembling.
“When I came out here to-day,” he began slowly, “I had decided to do the bravest thing that I have ever done in my life. I was going to tell you something about myself that I’ve never told you or anybody. Something that might have made all the difference to what I believed to be our friendship. It cost me far, far more than I can ever explain to you, to come to that decision.”
He paused.
“It’s a little ironical, that you should have chosen this very time to tell me that I’m a coward and a liar.”
“You are a coward and a liar,” repeated Chrissie remorselessly. “I don’t care what you were going to tell me; it alters nothing. Even if you’d told me something about yourself that was disgraceful, or shameful, you’d have twisted it in some way so as to make it sound different. You would only have told it to me either to excite my interest, or to make me feel sorry for you, not for any other reason. Unless” — she watched him narrowly— “because you thought I should have found it out anyhow. I suppose that was it. Mr. Bolham or somebody has found out something about you, and you thought I should hear it anyway, and wanted to get your story in first. That would be like you, Denis. I don’t care what it is. Of course I’ve always known that you had things you wanted to hide. Half the things you’ve told me about your life haven’t tallied with the other half. You’ve made a frightful mess of your lies, as well as of everything else.”
“Chrissie!” His voice was frantic.
“I won’t go on,” she said. “I know I’ve been brutal. I’d have helped you, Denis, if you could have been decently honest with me. Oh, I don’t mean just making some sensational confession, like saying you’ve been in prison, or lived with another man’s wife, or given some wretched girl an illegitimate baby. I shouldn’t have minded any of those things, and you know it. But it’s your evasions, and half-truths, and pretences, that make everything impossible. I once told you nothing would make any difference — but I was wrong. When I said that, I thought you were a real person. Now I know that you’re not.”
A shadow fell across the table.
Chrissie, dazed and exhausted, looked up.
Courteney stood beside them, his flashy good looks seeming rather more saturnine than usual, and he held a letter in his hand.
He laid it on the table.
“Do forgive me if I’m interrupting anything, Miss Challoner. I know Waller sets great store by his daily letter, and this one happens to be marked ‘Immediate.’ So I brought it out.”
Denis remained motionless, his sick gaze fixed on the cheap little mauve envelope lying on the table with the address sloping downwards into a corner. Chrissie’s acute perceptions leapt instantly to awareness of the profound hostility vibrating between the two men.
She glanced up at Courteney, vaguely apprehensive.
“Mrs. Waller’s home in London, by an odd coincidence,” Courteney observed pleasantly, “is exactly opposite to mine.”
The pause that followed was infinitesimal.
Then Chrissie said, in a level voice:
“Yes. So Mr. Waller has already told me.”
“Has he indeed?” Courteney returned, with the same intonation of superficial pleasantness.
His gaze held Chrissie’s for a moment, then he smiled slightly and turned away.
Denis, his face hidden in his hands, shuddered violently. Chrissie stood up. She hesitated, and then touched Denis on the shoulder.
Her anger had spent itself, and she felt sorry for him.
“Denis, Denis — it doesn’t matter about this. I don’t want you to tell me anything — Courteney’s a cad, whatever he meant.”
But Denis drew back quickly from the touch of her hand. He uncovered his haggard face, ravaged by pain and humiliation and fear.
“I can explain — —” he began hoarsely.
Involuntarily, she felt the quick message of disbelief flash from her mind into her face. She knew that Denis saw it there.
“It isn’t any use for me to say anything, is it?” he asked bitterly.
“No use at all, Denis.”
She saw him struggling to find words, and guessed that he was still blindly and instinctively searching for self-justification.
“Good-bye, Denis,” she said swiftly. “I’m going now. Don’t say anything. I know I’
ve hurt you, and I’m sorry, though I don’t suppose you believe it. Remember you can still save your soul alive, if you want to. It isn’t too late.”
She turned and went away quickly.
Panic seized upon Denis.
His conscious mind had not taken the full impact of Chrissie’s words. He only knew that he had been unbearably hurt and humiliated, and that, far down within him, something shrank and cowered in terrified apprehension of the moment when, unless he could find some way of escape, he must needs face himself. His quivering soul sought, and found, a temporary means of evasion.
Courteney — his wicked malignant enemy, Courteney — must somehow be circumvented. Otherwise, Denis told himself — instantly accepting imagination as proven fact — otherwise Courteney would go to Mr. Bolham, and so present his information that Denis would be ignominiously deprived of his post.
He would have to go back to Cicely Road again — to tell Phyllis that he had lost another job, and suffer the humiliation of her indignant pity.
Driven into impulsive action by the growing fear of finding himself forced to think, Denis sprang to his feet. The mauve envelope, with “Immediate” written across one corner in Phyllis’s neat clerkly hand, lay on the table. He knew exactly why she had written “Immediate.” She did that quite often. It meant that he had left her without a letter for several days, and that she was anxious about him. “Immediate” was her little pretence at thinking that a letter might somehow have missed him, or failed to be delivered, because she did not want to believe that he would willingly leave her without those written assurances of affection which were all that his letters meant to her. She was still in love with him, and the daily correspondence that Denis found such a strain had apparently remained essential to Phyllis.
He reflected dully that he knew just what the sheets inside the envelope would contain: the small platitudinous comments on public events, the carefully worded hopes, shorn of any tinge of envy or regret, that he was enjoying the sun and the sea, the allusions, between inverted commas, to little jokes shared by themselves and long since grown tedious to Denis — and at the end, the row of crosses beneath the signature: Ever, dear, your own wife, Phyllis.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 408
