Four-Part Setting

by Ann Bridge

  “It’s funny I haven’t realised it more,” Asta said thoughtfully.

  “I don’t think so. You live on another level, a safer and more rational one; its very merits would tend to blind you to this quality of hers.”

  “I did realise it to some extent when Charles married her,” she said; “but I don’t think I understood then how general her effect was.”

  “Do you mind if I ask a little more about him—Charles?” Hillier said.

  “No—not at all.”

  “You’ve told me a good deal already by telling me that you were in love with him yourself,” he said. “I know at least now that he isn’t another soldierly moron, like our well-loved Henry. But I am puzzled by the split-up. She is the sort of woman most men would hang on to like leeches. Was it her doing or his?”

  “Quite as much his as hers, I think; though I’ve never heard the details. It just went wrong, the whole thing.” She paused for a moment, and then went on—“He would have been a frightfully difficult person for anyone to marry. But I knew him so well—perhaps I’m being brazen now—that I thought for a long time that I was a person who could have made it work—in a way she probably couldn’t.”

  “I expect you were perfectly right,” he said slowly. “I should think you could make anything in the way of a marriage work, if you gave your mind to it.” He paused; she said nothing—a new element had suddenly come into the conversation, which gave a tinge of doubt and expectation to any silence. But she did not feel it irrelevant when he asked “How long have they been married?”

  “Five years.”

  “And are you over it?” This time he didn’t ask permission for the question.

  She waited rather a long time before answering.

  “I’m as over it as I shall ever be, I expect,” she said at length. “There are certain things that I think will always be—final—between Charles and me; that neither of us will ever get or expect to get anywhere else.”

  “Do you mind telling me what sort of things?”

  “I don’t mind trying. Could you reach the cigarettes?” she asked. He leant over, took the box from the table, and lit a match for her; this involved his releasing her hand—Anastasia had come to feel that particular clasp a little out of date. She put her hands behind her head and smoked for a time in silence.

  “You’re sure you don’t mind telling me?” Hillier’s voice came in the dusk—it was getting dark now.

  “No. I was thinking. It’s not very concrete. Charles and I both had a certain way of looking for a particular kind of experience, partly intellectual, partly—well, moral, perhaps. We both looked for the same thing in the same way, and sometimes we found it together. That’s rather a profound sort of link.” With the last few words her voice had taken on a tone he had never heard in it before—always soft, often warm, when she said “we found it together” there was a deeper under-note, as there is in the voice of a mountain river when it leaves the shallows to run full and strong in the deeper stretches. “And the mechanics of our minds are very much alike,” she went on, “so that we could argue, or even differ acutely, without any friction of process. You know how much less irritating differing views are than different ways of arriving at those views.”

  “Yes, quite well,” he said.

  “That’s about all,” she ended. He had a feeling that she was pulling herself up, checking the much more that might have been said. She didn’t altogether succeed, though. “But perhaps you can see,” she went on, “that that put a rather unusual edge of pleasure onto all intercourse with him. Oh, and more than that—there was a feeling of reliance, of being at one underneath, however oddly either of us behaved.”

  Because he was more moved by her than he had ever been at this recital, brief as it was, he seized—with the lover’s panic fear of his own emotion—on the lightest aspect of it.

  “Did you—Asta—ever behave oddly, actually?”

  She laughed. “Not so noticeably as Charles, certainly,” she said.

  “And why didn’t you marry him?” he asked, after a pause.

  “You know the answer to that. Rose.”

  “She just came along?”

  “Yes. And though it took some time to happen, it was all one movement, really, from the beginning to the church door.” There was that deep-water note in her voice again. She paused, and drew at her cigarette for a moment. “I think I’ve really understood it better tonight than ever before,” she went on, thoughtfully. “What you said about her spell, obviously quite detachedly, has made it all much simpler. You know, I think you’re right about its being partly biological, too. Charles is very intelligent, and it was obvious that it would be a difficult marriage to make work—in fact we all pointed that out to him. But some impulse swept him on. I’ve noticed since that highly intelligent and fastidious men do tend rather often to marry beautiful and unsuitable creatures. Haven’t you?”

  “Yes, I have. I think it is a biological urge in the fine intellect to marry something physically rather perfect—a suitable vessel for some real flowering.” He paused. “Anyhow, thank you for telling me,” he said, and now his own voice took on a different tone, of the same kind as hers had done. “I expect you realise why I’ve been asking you all these questions. I want very much to marry you myself.”

  “Oh,” said Anastasia.

  “Yes,” said Hillier. “And what is bothering me now,” he pursued—“and I was bothered enough about it before, goodness knows!—is whether you could ever settle down to anything less, after having once known that peculiar sort of intimacy with him. I think you’ve made me understand it rather clearly—you described it very well, I thought. But I don’t think you would ever get that particular thing with me. Our minds are different, on process.”

  “Yes, they are. I don’t think I should ever get that with anyone but Charles.”

  “And would you be willing to face doing without it?”

  She sat up, putting her feet to the ground off the chaiselongue.

  “I’ve done without it now for over three years,” she said, energetically. “But really, Roy, this is a little ridiculous. We can’t consider the question of your marrying me solely in relation to Charles! There are other aspects.”

  “Agreed—dozens. But as you’ve just told me that in some ways your relationship with him was final, I thought we might as well consider it from that point of view first. Is that so ridiculous?”

  “No. Sorry. Well, as far as Charles is concerned, I’ve told you the truth. That special side of me is his, in a way, and always will be. But I made up my mind to do without him when he married Rose—in fact before.”

  “Good,” he said. “Thank you. Then we can now proceed to the case of Mr. Hillier.”

  She laughed, a little unwillingly. “This is the oddest proposal I ever listened to,” she said.

  “I see no reason to become completely dumb and witless because I’m trying to secure the thing I want more than anything else in the world,” he retorted. “Still less to be dishonest about it. Would you rather I pulled out the physical stop, and tried to get a verdict in my favour that way? I’m more than willing! But from something you said once before about my going all primitive—with a good deal more excuse—I thought you would prefer me not to.”

  His sudden gust of irritation served to cure her faint sense of annoyance, of anti-climax, at his apparent frivolity.

  “No, there’s no need for that,” she said, gently. “Go on, Roy.”

  “Very well—third attempt!” he said. “And for God’s sake don’t throw me out of my stride again!” he said threateningly, hearing a soft chuckling sound.

  “No, I won’t”—her voice was rather muffled.

  He stood up. “Come on indoors,” he said firmly. “A, it’s cold; b, I want some whisky to fortify me; c, I won’t propose to you or anyone else in the dark, where I can’t see what your face is up to.”

  “All right.” She rose too.

  As she followed him acros
s the court, she realised that this move indoors was giving her a chance to break off Roy’s statement of his feelings if she chose; and that brought the question of whether she wanted to be proposed to by him or not? Anastasia was near enough in time and upbringing to the Victorian epoch to be aware of the feeling (which would undoubtedly have been her mother’s) that it was not perfectly fair or well-bred to let a man “declare himself” unless one intended to give a reasonably favourable answer. Sometimes, of course, one could not head off a declaration; but here she almost certainly could. Actually, she did not entirely agree with the Victorian view; she felt that there was a lot to be said, precisely on grounds of fairness, for letting a man say his say even if the response was still in doubt—unless one felt it would be too crushingly embarrassing and wretched. As recently as an hour before, she might have felt that a proposal from Roy was more than she could bear at that moment; but his comprehension over the whole business of Rose, and perhaps still more of Charles, had made her value his sympathy and given quite a new warmth and gratitude to her feeling for him. She was still a long way from having decided to say Yes, but she found herself further than she had supposed from a decision to say No out of hand. And Roy’s method of proposing might be odd, but it was so far as little embarrassing as any she had met. He had better be allowed to carry on.

  But such moments, however lightly and detachedly conducted, are seldom wholly without embarrassment. As she sat down in the drawing-room and took up her embroidery, while Hillier poured himself out a whisky and soda, Anastasia found that her heart was beating rather more noticeably than usual. He was rather slow about it; slow enough for the suspense to become a thing with weight. And he spilt some of the soda. She realised that though, even at this moment, he could not desert the pose which his day and generation had induced in him, it was sustained with an effort; and even that effort could not make his hand quite steady. But at last he left the tray of drinks and turned and faced her.

  “Now don’t bother about whether this is odd or not,” he began, standing glass in hand and looking down at her. “Each man can only do things in his own way. What I want to establish first of all is how clearly I see all the ways in which I should be inadequate to you. I don’t think I’m your equal for sheer ability, for one thing, though you do nothing much that I can see with your intellectual powers, and I capitalise every last scrap of mine! And I’m not nearly as sensitive, as subtle, as you two—you and Antony are rather rarefied.”

  “Rarefied?” she interrupted.

  “Yes—both about morals and smaller things, like obligations to friends, and fitting in with other people”—he grinned a little, reminiscently. “I should never quite come up to your standards about that, though I see the point, and I think I’m improving.” She nodded. “But it wouldn’t be native to me. Even if I learned the trick of it, I should always be the immaculately-dressed chimpanzee, performing in your drawing-room.”

  “Oh Roy”—the sound she made was almost as much like a little sob as a laugh. However ludicrously expressed, such humility nearly hurt her. “You’ve been much more man than monkey tonight.”

  A sort of glow came into his face at that, but he held steadily on his way.

  “Anyhow so far, I think it’s clear that the advantages of the match are all on one side—mine. And I’m vain, and it isn’t easy for a vain man to live with a woman cleverer than himself. But I think you are clever enough to get round that.”

  “You’d dislike being ménagé-ed.”

  “No I shouldn’t; not as you’d do it—have done it! And it would be good for me; one ought to eliminate vanity sooner or later, and your combination of masculine intellect and soft-pedal ways are good treatment, I feel.”

  She smiled, without speaking. He took a turn up the room, set down his glass, and came and stood before her again.

  “On the credit side,” he pursued in his carefully even voice, “there are one or two things. Although you don’t like my disillusioned modern tone, I am healthy morally—I’m not one of those diseased intellectuals; and I’m healthy physically too. Also I’m not particularly poor. And for what it’s worth, I not only respect and admire you profoundly, I love you very much.” He stopped, and those words rung the bell that they almost invariably do ring. The beating of her heart had become something bigger, a pulsation that she felt all over her body. She had besides a curious sense of a tremendous effort happening close to her, and waited. The effort was achieved. “And I desire you, too”—he said.

  She sat still, looking down at the work in her lap. Those words, his honesty, the sensible completeness of his survey of the difficulties moved her far more than she had expected; and his surprising humility had touched her very much. As she did not speak, he came and sat on the arm of her chair, and took her hand.

  “So now?” he said, rather unsteadily.

  She looked up at him then, with direct eyes.

  “I think I’d better say my piece alone too,” she said, gently, taking his hand with both of hers and laying it on his knee like a plate.

  “Just as you like,” he said—her gesture was very friendly. “Am I too near?”

  “No.” But her heart warmed to him for his responsive quickness, as he moved to a chair.

  “Roy, one thing strikes me at once about this,” she began. “I think it would be a rather unhealthy marriage if you were going to feel so absurdly inferior to me all the time. It’s almost a complex.”

  “I don’t feel inferior in myself—not in the least; I just feel you’re very superior!” he said, smiling at her.

  “Isn’t that the same?”

  “Not quite. And I think that would probably straighten itself out to some extent when I began to love you,” he said, rather slowly. “The physical is a great leveller.”

  She coloured at his words. She remembered her sensations of protection and comfort, that night in the hut, and others too—whispers at the time, they had come back to her in the interval, but she had rather evaded them. She remembered the picture of him standing outside the door in the newly-risen sun, tousled but superb. Yes, there was probably a good deal in what he said, with such disarming simplicity and directness.

  “I daresay that’s true,” she said, looking at him with a slight effort; “but it wouldn’t do to rely on only that.”

  “No, but it’s reasonable to reckon it in, in this case,” he said. “It’s a natural and wholesome thing, if there’s enough besides.”

  She liked the way he said that. “I’d no idea you were so sensible, Roy!” she exclaimed.

  “Thanks for the bouquet,” he grinned. “The question is, though, is there enough besides, isn’t it?”

  “Yes—and that’s what I want time on,” she said. “Look”—as she saw protest in his face—“you’ve thought all this out very carefully, and made out an excellent case for our getting married, I must admit; but I haven’t. I only began to think you were even vaguely dangling a little while ago. I must have a chance to look at it. It’s a complicated thing all round, for me.”

  “How long will it take you to look at it?” he asked, rather gloomily.

  She laughed. “I don’t know—how long have you been considering it?”

  “Marrying you?—Rather more than three weeks.”

  “Well, I shall want at least that,” she said.

  “Oh God! I wanted to kiss you tonight,” he said.

  The absurd directness of that touched her afresh. “Time’s on your side,” she told him. “Or you’re on your own side. Your proposal hasn’t been wasted”—she was thinking of the Victorians—“I feel much more inclined to marry you after hearing it than I did before; and that’s most unusual, I may say.”

  “That’s satisfactory so far,” said Roy, getting up and moving to the tray. “Have some whisky?”

  “No, lemonade, please. And Roy——”

  “Yes, what?”

  “I really want to say thank you—you have said and thought such very nice things about me.�
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  He came over with the lemonade.

  “I hoped that was coming,” he said, setting the glass down on a small table at her side—“it is a usual and correct post-proposal sentiment, I’ve always understood, and I should have been disappointed if a stickler for the formalities like you had left it out.” She laughed. “But there’s an equally correct follow-on,” he proceeded.

  “What’s that?”

  “He kisses her,” said Roy—and did so.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Henry Hargreaves did in the end leave Peking without exchanging a single word with anyone as to his real reasons for doing so. His vociferous enthusiasm about his change of job was such as to prevent any serious gossip among Peking society at large, and Mrs. Pelham’s joining in the Lydiards’ trip had rather snuffed out the vague whisperings of Pei-t’ai-ho. Rose herself had sought out Antony the morning after she heard the news, and asked if he had heard it too.

  “Yes,” he said. “When did you hear?”

  She told him of their meeting in the courtyard.

  “Did he give you any reason?” Antony asked.

  “Only this new job.” She hesitated. “But I think perhaps he guessed something, because I wouldn’t—dine with him.”

  Antony thought so too. “Well, you’ve had a let-off,” he said. “Chivalry seems to be Henry’s middle name.”

  “You don’t think I ought to talk to him all the same?” she said doubtfully.

  “Certainly not. If he’s done this, as I think he has, to spare you that particular embarrassment, the least you can do is to let him reap the fruits of his gesture, and profit by it yourself.”