Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  She felt confident of the future, proud and happy.

  As Rupert had said, it was Destiny. They had been meant for one another, from the beginning. Susan was none the less content because the mildly cynical little voice within her, that Rupert would never be allowed to hear, made inquiry:

  “But what if it had been a fine day — ?”

  LOVE HAS NO RESURRECTION AND OTHER STORIES

  CONTENTS

  LOVE HAS NO RESURRECTION

  MOTHERS DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING

  O.K. FOR STORY

  IT’S ALL TOO DIFFICULT

  THE YOUNG ARE IN EARNEST

  BLUFF

  THE GIRL WHO TOLD THE TRUTH

  VICTIMS

  THE OTHER POOR CHAP

  I BELIEVE IN LOVE

  IT ALL CAME RIGHT IN THE END

  SOLILOQUY BEFORE A MIRROR

  THE REASON

  THE INDISPENSABLE WOMAN

  OPPORTUNITY

  MY SON HAD NOTHING ON HIS MIND

  THEY DON’T WEAR LABELS

  I desire to express my thanks to the Editors of “Time and Tide, Good Housekeeping, The Radio Times and other periodicals for permission to reprint some of these stories.

  E. M. D.

  LOVE HAS NO RESURRECTION

  IT had come — the dreadful, inevitable moment.

  Both of them had known it, for some time, to be inevitable — both of them now felt it to be dreadful.

  But it was far more dreadful for Thalia than it was for Mickey.

  She was still violently in love with him and more than that — she loved him.

  He was not only tired of her — her intensity, her articulateness, her passionate demands — he had just fallen violently in love with somebody else.

  It amazed Mickey now, with a rather naive amazement, to remember that he had, less than a year ago, felt his heart turn in his breast at the sight of Thalia’s fragile form, her dark hazel eyes, her cloudy pale-brown hair. He had said, and believed, that here was the woman for whom he had all his life been looking.

  She had given herself to him after their second meeting and, for a very little while, their separate lives had been fused into one glowing, lovely whole.

  Then Mickey had begun to tire, even before he met Yvonne.

  Now, there was no question of anybody but Yvonne.

  She was young — ten years younger than Thalia — with ash-blonde hair and a lovely mouth. She was going to marry him.

  Thalia knew all this, although Mickey, with a clumsy mixture of chivalry and cowardice, had sought to disguise as much as possible of the stark truth.

  Actually, she had known it all long before he knew it himself.

  She had known, with the terribly acute intuition of the temperamentally insecure, the very first instant that his ardour, having touched its highest peak, had all but imperceptibly begun to decline. She had known the day and the hour when he had called her on the telephone only because she’d be disappointed if he didn’t — and she had known, before tearing open the envelope, of the first letter of his that had not been written because he wanted to write it.

  Quite quickly then — but not quickly enough to keep pace with her agonized foreknowledge — his embraces had become perfunctory, his telephone calls constrained, his letters...

  (The recurrent pain of the postman’s knock! Of the little heap of letters on the slab — of the sick surge of hope that wasn’t really hope and that yet always brought its torture-thrust of disappointment!)

  She had known about Yvonne before she knew that Yvonne existed, and of the attraction that was so violently to impel Mickey towards the young, virginal girl.

  Surely one of the oldest situations in the world....

  Mickey approached it according to his lights.

  He was determined to spare her feelings.

  “... Better that we shouldn’t see quite so much of one another for a bit, darling — don’t you think? No, of course nothing is changed... you know I love you, darling.”

  If only he wouldn’t use terms of endearment! Inside Thalia, her heart seemed to be screaming.

  “He meant them, once. He meant them. The first time he called me ‘darling’ — in the car just as we turned off the road near the New Forest.... Why do I have to remember, even to the very look of the road that afternoon — ?”

  It was of no use. She had to remember. She had to remember everything, though it was like a knife, twisting within her.

  “Thalia, don’t look like that!” he cried suddenly.

  It was the first time, she realized instantly, that he had used her name for a long while.

  She understood that her face was betraying her determination — reiterated over and over again to herself throughout sleepless nights — not to make a scene.

  To be generous with Mickey.

  To be generous — so that he should be touched, and amazed, and love her again.

  That was all it was, really.

  So that he should love her again.

  “It’s quite all right, Mickey,” she began.

  “You don’t have to explain anything. These things aren’t anybody’s fault, are they? If you’ve stopped caring for me — you can’t help it.”

  “But I’ve just told you that of course I care for you. Everything’s just the same between us,” he said angrily. “Naturally, one can’t always go on in the headlong kind of way that — damn it, I can’t explain.”

  “But you needn’t. I do understand what you mean,” she lied — although the words were so literally true. “It’s Yvonne, isn’t it?”

  When she said that, she thought that he must surely be amazed at her courage, and feel that no other woman could love him so much as she did, and the old feeling for her would come rushing over him again so that he would take her into his arms.

  “Oh, God!” groaned Mickey. “Why can’t you be decent about it? All right, then, if you must have it, it’s Yvonne.”

  “Of course,” she said very carefully. “I’ve known that for ages. I quite understand. You mean you’re in love with her?”

  Surely he’d say: “It’s only an infatuation. I don’t really love anybody but you. Only she’s pretty.”

  Instantly, she would concede that. She would even tell him that she could understand, and that he might do anything he liked if only...

  She looked at him and saw how obstinately his eyes refused to meet hers.

  “Since you force me to say it,” he said slowly, “I am in love with her. And it’s a lot more than that, too.”

  Ah! She’d asked for that, and she’d got it. It felt like a tremendous blow, full in the solar plexus.

  She could feel that all the blood was leaving her face. Then he’d see — he’d really understand —— how much she cared, how terrible was her agony. And he’d be sorry, and love her — love her again — just as before, only more than before....

  “I hate to say this, Thalia — you make me feel the most frightful cad. But after all — everything’s got to come to an end sooner or later, hasn’t it? We had some marvellous times together — and — and — I shall always look back on them and — and feel...”

  His voice trailed away awkwardly.

  Unable to endure the inadequacy of his phrasing she broke in hastily, desperately seeking a fresh line.

  “Mickey — you’ve given me more happiness than anybody in this world — as long as I live I shall always be grateful to you for that. I — I don’t blame you for anything.”

  Generosity — he would feel that she was being generous as no woman could ever be, except out of an incommensurable love.

  He muttered something so graceless that, in defence of her precariously-balanced sanity, she was forced to make herself deaf and blind and unperceiving.

  But there still remained the supreme sublimity —— the one that must reach him so that he would love her again.

  “Mickey, it’s all right. I’m not going to make a scene. I won’t cry, or anything — I promise you. Y
ou can’t help it, if you don’t care for me any more — just as I can’t help it that I still care for you, and that I always shall.”

  She stopped for less than half a second. Long enough to show her that he wasn’t going to break in and cry out that he, too, must always care for her.

  “If you want this to be the end — it shall be.”

  She couldn’t go on. Her voice was going to break in her aching, constricted throat and the muscles of her face were all but out of control.

  Mickey went straight to the door.

  But he was going to speak.

  He was going to say that this nightmare wasn’t true — that he loved her more than ever.

  “My God, you talk about making it easy for me — but of all the neurotic women I’ve ever met, you’re the worst. And if you want to know — that’s been the trouble all along.”

  Mickey wrenched open the door.

  He went out, slamming it behind him, and his footsteps clattered down the stairs, and then the street door slammed, more faintly.

  The cold sweat that was the presage of a faint broke out on her forehead and under her breasts.

  Before the reeling blackness gave her that minute of oblivion which must be paid for by the anguish of renewed consciousness, she had time for a thought.

  If Mickey knew that she had fainted, he would surely realize... he would love her again....

  MOTHERS DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING

  “WHERE’S daddy?” said Michael.

  “Little boys shouldn’t ask questions. How many times must mother tell you that?”

  “Why shouldn’t they?”

  “Because mother says that’s enough, Michael.” She was always very gentle with him, and never slapped him, but that was how she always answered his questions, even the very important ones.

  Presently, he knew that there was something wrong.

  He heard his mother talking to her friend, Miss Armstrong, one evening after he was in bed.

  “Well, it’s the way it will be, I suppose, dear. I often wonder what you’ve done to deserve the trials that’ve been sent you, for if ever a woman did her duty by a man — well, as I’ve said times out of mind, Clara Grogan is one of God’s saints, in my opinion.”

  “No, dear, you mustn’t say things like that,” Michael’s mother answered in her quiet, level voice that held so few inflections. “I’m a sinful woman, perhaps more sinful than most, if the truth were known. That’s the way I try to look at it, that God in His wisdom has sent me the trials he has, in my married life, so as to draw me closer to Himself.”

  “That’s right, dear.”

  “Father Heely has found out where Joe went. He’s got a job in Liverpool.”

  “What about the money, dear? It’s your legal right, you know — and then there’s the child.”

  “Oh yes. He’s going to send so much, through the priest, every week. He’s earning good money, and he doesn’t drink.”

  “It might have been better if he had, dear, and then it wouldn’t have been the other thing....”

  “It’s not for us to judge, is it, dear? If Joe’d practised his religion, it wouldn’t have come to this. He’d a home, and I did my best to keep it nice for him, and the child and all — but as I said to Father Heely, I couldn’t have gone on the way we were. It was killing me.”

  “I know that, dear. Well, it’s over now. You wouldn’t take him back, I suppose, even supposing — ?”

  “Oh no, Gertrude. Well, I mean — it is the one thing, isn’t it? The Church says that, you know. We’ve no divorce in our Church — but that’s the one thing for which marriage can be set aside. At least, he can never interfere with Michael’s religion, now.”

  “Do you think he would have done that?”

  “He might, dear. And anyhow, children notice things, and many’s the time Michael’s heard his daddy sneering at holy things, and at me for practising my religion.”

  “What shall you tell the boy?”

  “He’ll have to know the truth, I think, Gertrude. I must tell him that Joe’s been very wicked, and run away from us, and that he’s not to think about him nor speak of him any more. Children soon forget, and it’s not as though Joe had ever been much of a one for his child. He never was. As it is, I must be father and mother both.”

  “Well, Clara, I’m sure you’re wonderful.”

  “It’s not me, dear, it’s the grace of God giving me strength. Now, wouldn’t you like a nice cup of tea? It’s boiling.”

  “Thanks, dear, I don’t mind if I do.”

  There was the hissing sound of steam escaping from the kettle, then the slight rattle of cup against saucer, and the noise of chairs being drawn over the thinly-carpeted floor.

  “I’ll just have a peep at the child, Gertrude.” Michael shut his eyes and lay very still as the light, deliberate tread of his mother’s felt slippers approached the inner room.

  He sometimes pretended to be asleep when she came to look at him in bed, because he felt a queer kind of curiosity to know what she was like when she didn’t know that he could see her. Was she really always so very, very grave, with her mouth making a thin line in her pale face, and scarcely ever smiling? He remembered having once heard daddy shout out: “Can’t you ever enjoy a bit o’ fun, Clara?” and although Michael, ever since he had known anything at all, had known that mother was very good, and daddy a bad man who had to be prayed for, he wished, in his secret heart, that mother wasn’t always sad, and that she enjoyed other things besides going to church.

  She bent over him now, and he felt her trace the Sign of the Cross with her thumb on his forehead. It tickled, and he wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t do that, or she would know that he was awake and say that he was irreverent, and that he had grieved her.

  She was never angry — only grieved.

  So Michael lay quite still, and when he could tell, by the slight creaking that her stays always made, that mother had moved away from the bed, he peeped through his eyelashes.

  She had taken off her white apron, that she wore all day, and was wearing a dark-blue one, with pockets. One always noticed the pockets, because all the rest of her was quite flat, but they bulged, with the things she used for her sewing — reels of cotton, and a needle-case, and a thimble, and balls of crochet-cotton, and even a pair of scissors, in an old black leather case. And besides the needlework things, in one pocket there was always a steel rosary, and a tiny grey case that held a “relic” and that mother said could work miracles, if only one had faith enough.

  Her face was as sad as usual.

  Michael felt disappointed, for he knew that it was daddy who had made her unhappy — she had often said so — and now it seemed that daddy was gone, and wouldn’t be coming back again.

  So why didn’t she look happy?

  Michael himself was rather sorry that daddy had gone — but not very sorry. He hated it when daddy used bad words, and got angry, and mother sat there, very pale and not answering, but sometimes saying:— “Michael dear, don’t listen.... Say a little ejaculatory prayer, dear, and run away.”

  On the other hand, daddy could sometimes be very jolly and kind, when he wasn’t cross.

  Next day Michael didn’t ask “Where’s daddy?”

  He wanted to see whether mother would tell him of her own accord. He had a strange feeling that if she did tell him, it would mean that there was nothing frightening about it. The things she didn’t tell him, or told him lies about, were the things that really frightened him.

  For several days mother said nothing, and every now and then Michael caught her looking at him in the way that he hated most — thinking grown-up things about him, that he would never know. He felt sure that she was wondering why he didn’t say, as he had before, “Where’s daddy?”

  At last, he was too frightened to bear it any longer, and in a voice that was suddenly very loud, he asked the question that he knew she had been expecting all the time:

  “When’s daddy coming back?”
<
br />   “Michael dear, come here to mother a minute.”

  He went to her very reluctantly, and stood in front of the kitchen chair, where she sat sewing, drawing a little away from the hands that she laid on his shoulders.

  “I don’t want you to talk about daddy any more, dear, or think about him. He’s done something wrong, and it’s best that you and I should forget about him.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Something that little boys can’t understand, dear.”

  “Did he steal, mother?”

  “No, dear. Much worse than stealing. Happily you don’t know anything about such things, and I hope you never will. Now that’s enough, dear. Mother’s told you as much as it’s good for you to know and you’ve got to be her little comfort, and try and do everything she tells you always.”

  Michael didn’t like the conclusion. He always did have to try and do everything that mother told him, and he dimly felt that it was unfair of her to have brought that in, now.

  “Has daddy been put in prison?” he asked boldly.

  There had been a boy at school whose father had once been put in prison.

  “Michael, mother has already said, That’s enough. Give over, dear. And remember that from now on, we’re not going to talk about daddy any more. If anyone asks you any questions, just say that daddy’s gone away, and that you don’t know when he’s coming back.”

  “I’m sorry he isn’t coming back,” said Michael perversely. He was feeling cross and uncomfortable.

  That’s because you’re only a little boy, and don’t understand. I think you know that your father made me very, very sad by being such a bad man, and I’m sure my little boy doesn’t like me to be sad.”

  “No,” he muttered. “Shall you be happy now, mother?”

  “No, dear,” she answered serenely. “Not happy. But so long as God gives me grace to do His holy will and bear my troubles, that’s all I ask. Now, Michael dear, it’s time you were off to bed. Mother will just finish her sewing, and then come and hear your prayers.”

  Michael wondered whether he would have to say, as he had always said after his regular prayers, “Please God bless mother and daddy and all uncles and aunties and cousins and make me a good boy for Christ’s sake, amen.” But when his mother had heard him say the three Hail Marys, his Act of Contrition, and Prayer for a Holy Death, she dictated to him a new formula: