by Alec Waugh
Absence and time would not make him care any the less for her, but they would move her out of the foreground into the background of his life. So that even in the London that she was a part of, the frequent sight of her would be no longer a necessary condition of his presence there. And again Joan and he could be happy with one another.
That was what he had planned. And then for this to happen.
Dazedly he lurched back towards his room. The irony of life! What words could you find to describe it! That it should come now, this thing for which he had longed so desperately: now when he had no use for it. That at the moment when for the first time practically in his life he had genuinely wanted to escape from England he should be given this appointment that chained him permanently to a London desk: this appointment that would force him to make decisions at a time when he was incapable of deciding anything; when safety could lie for him in flight alone.
Gradually the fog over his mind lifted so that he could see clearly the problem that awaited him. But though he could see the details and situations of the problem, the solution of it still eluded him.
“I shall have to stay in London,” he told himself. “In London, where Gwen Lawrence is. And in the mood that is now upon me I shall be unable to resist the temptation of seeing her. In that respect things are as bad as they ever were. But in this respect they are worse, that I can no longer leave indefinite my relationship with Joan. There is nothing now to prevent our marrying. The first thing that she will say when I tell her is, ‘Now, of course, we can get married.’”
And yet how was he to marry her, how in fairness to himself or her could they marry, while the spell of this other attraction was still upon him?
“And if I tell her, I shall lose her. And I do not want to tell her because I love her, because I need her, because I know that I shall go on needing and loving her, when the hold of this other fascination has loosened.
“What am I to do,” he murmured, “what am I to do?”
• • • • • • •
It was only a few moments after Graham Moreton had left Mr. Garlich’s office that Christopher Stirling walked into it.
“You’ll be thinking me, I’m afraid,” he said, “an exasperating nuisance. But I promised to let you know about those shares. I got them at fifty-four.”
“Then I don’t think, young man, you’ve done at all badly for yourself.”
“I’m very sure I haven’t, so sure, in fact, that I’ve come to talk to you about taking up some preference shares as well.”
“In that case——” said Mr. Garlich. And for a quarter of an hour they discussed such practical matters as concern stock and goodwill and undiscounted bills. At the end of the quarter of an hour Christopher lifted his head with a smile from the pile of papers.
“Thank you very much,” he said. “It’s quite clear now. I’ve wasted a lot of your time.”
Mr. Garlich chuckled.
“Waste my time,” he said; “why, that’s all there is to do with it when you’re as old or, rather, when your figure has made you as unromantic as I am.”
Christopher laughed.
“I shouldn’t have thought you’d be feeling that. Your business ought to be exciting enough.”
The old man shrugged his shoulders.
“Money-making’s only exciting when there’s something to buy with the money when you’ve earned it. And by the time you’re my age you’ve bought everything that’s for sale.”
“But you go on.”
“One must pass the time. One has playthings in a nursery, and when one gets back to a second childhood one has to be given playthings again. Only the playthings are different; they aren’t kites and clockwork trains; they’re the things that were passions once; buying and selling, and the outwitting of a rival. That’s all they are now—playthings.”
And he sighed, but without sadness, with acceptance simply.
“With that young fellow Moreton, now, how different it all is,” he said. “For him there are so many things for sale; I’ve taken your advice about him, by the way.”
“What advice?”
“About giving him that job. I’ve just told him about it. Scared the lad out of his wits, at first. Told him we shouldn’t want him to be going abroad for us any more. He thought he was going to be sacked; the poor devil couldn’t say a word when I told him what I really meant.”
And while Elias Garlich chuckled to himself over the memory of his joke, the blood through Christopher’s veins beat to a gayer rhythm. So Joan was safe now. Graham had got his job. In a month or two they would be married. Gwen Lawrence would have passed out of their lives.
The first thing he did on his return to his studio was to ring up Joan.
“I was just wondering,” he said, “what you’d like me to get you for a wedding present.”
The laugh from the other end of the line was harsh and a little bitter.
“One’s got to get married first,” she said.
“But I don’t think you’ll have to wait so very long.”
“And what makes you think that?”
“Oh, nothing. Something I heard to-day.”
“Christopher”——there was a catch in her voice and an excited, breathless raising of the tone——“Chris, dear,” she said, “what do you mean? Who from, and what?”
But he was not going to let her know of the part, such as it was, that he had played in the hastening of the appointment. He made his reply as off-hand as possible.
“I felt certain you’d have heard,” he said. “I heard someone saying somewhere that Graham’d been given that job in London he’d been waiting for.”
“Oh, Chris!”
From the intonation of those two words he could tell how the softly-coloured cheeks had glowed, how the cornflower-blue eyes had been lit with happiness, how over the white and even teeth the lips had parted in a smile. And for a moment over his own heart the muscles slightly tightened.
So young and fresh, she was: so little weaponed for the long conflict that awaited her. “He’s a lucky devil,” he thought, “that Graham Moreton. I wonder how far he realizes it.”
And as he returned to his easels and his canvasses, he couldn’t help wondering whether he could justify the part he had been playing in Joan’s career. “I’ve forced on her,” he thought, “a risk I wouldn’t take myself. But only,” he added, “because she is at an age when that risk is worth the running: because she is the only age at which a realization of youth’s dreams is possible.”
And after all the risk on the other side was greater. He surveyed mentally the panorama of his friends’ and acquaintances’ emotional experience. How practical they were, how worldly, with how little after all at stake. He thought of Mildred Atkinson and Humphrey: of that brief fusing of an instinct that each in their own way was making use of: of Gwen Lawrence exploiting callously the ignoble ardour of which she was the object: of Madge Gillett and of all that underworld of sordid traffic. Of Sybyl Marchant and Geoffrey Brackenridge. In love with one another though they might be, he would not wish for Joan Faversham a state of mind and spirit when such a courtship would be able to content her.
Sybyl Marchant and Geoffrey Brackenridge.
It was an entertaining enough comedy, of course.
During the past weeks he had been the witness of more than one amusingly significant incident. There had been the evening when he had called at Geoffrey’s flat on the way to the Blankstons’ dance.
Geoffrey was alone, which had surprised him rather, and which surprised him more, he was wearing an old tweed coat above a pair of ageing flannel trousers.
“I don’t go out often nowadays,” he explained.
“A statement,” Christopher said, “to which that row of cards along the mantelpiece would seem to give the lie.”
Geoffrey had shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, those! I don’t know why I’ve put them there,” he said. “I don’t suppose I shall go to one of them.”
He had expressed surprise.
“I seem to remember your saying once that parties were among the few things that made life tolerable.”
“That was in Lille, when we hadn’t any.”
“Still,” he had said, “I’m sure you haven’t become so blasé now that you wouldn’t have found some of them amusing. This show of Mrs. Retherway’s at Claridge’s, for example, and you might do worse than take the floor at Walton House.”
Geoffrey had shaken his head.
“I am getting too old,” he had said.
But that had not been the real reason, as Christopher had realized a few moments later, when a triple knock upon the door had explained his presence in his own flat alone on an evening for which two cards upon the mantelpiece were inviting him to revelry.
“Sybyl,” he had exclaimed, and jumped quickly to his feet.
“Oh, but Geoffrey dear, I’m tired. Such a day,” he had heard her saying. “What, who do you say? Christopher here? How pleasant. But I’m too exhausted to say a word. Really, my dear, I don’t know when I’ve been so tired. You’ll excuse me, won’t you, Mr. Stirling?” she had continued, as she came into the sitting-room. “I’m too absolutely worn out to do more than collapse into an armchair and sleep.”
She had not, however, looked particularly exhausted. He had never seen her indeed appear more fresh and radiant. Her eyes were bright; her cheeks flushed, and against the black velvet of her evening cloak the skin of her neck was a cool glow of tinted ivory.
“Such a day,” she was saying, “not a moment’s pause from nine o’clock. Not one second, I assure you, Geoffrey, not a single second.”
“Indeed,” he said, “and where has the sum of these fourteen hectic hours been divided?”
He had tried to speak lightly, but it was not an extravagant success. Sybyl took, however, not the least notice of his tone’s acidity.
“Where have I been?” she said cheerfully. “Well, let me see now. To begin with I put in three hours pretty solid work at the office. Then Jack called to take me out to lunch.”
“Jack? Jack who?”
“Forester, Jack Forester; you don’t know him, Geoffrey, I think.”
“And after that?”
“After that, well, let me see, oh yes, of course. I met Eric Burge as we were walking back down Piccadilly, and he insisted on taking me to the Rialto Cinema, to the film of the Dempsey fight. Rather terrible, but rather exciting. I really must go and see a fight. I suppose, Geoffrey, you wouldn’t care to go to the Goddard show?”
Geoffrey shook his head dubiously.
“Is it worth it, do you think? I saw Beckett and Carpentier years ago. I paid five pounds for my seat and it was over in fifteen seconds. I swore then that nothing would induce me to see another. I don’t really think it’s worth it; do you mind?”
“Not a bit, my dear,” Sybyl had answered. “Of course not. Eric Burge’ll take me. He wanted to fix it up this afternoon, but I thought I’d ask you first. That’s quite all right. And then after the film I had to rush back to change. I only just had time to do it. We dined at the Clarion and really, Geoffrey, I assure you, the food there was more appalling than anything you can conceive. The soup was tasteless and the sole colbert greasy, and the bird was dry. I ’don’t know if I’m getting hypercritical, but I find that I simply can’t eat food nowadays unless it’s absolutely perfect. It’s your fault, I suppose, for giving me an educated palate.”
But he was not listening. There was a deep furrow between his eyes and the thumb of his left hand was twitching impatiently across bent knuckles.
“When is this fight?” he had asked abruptly.
“What fight?”
“The one you were speaking of.”
“The Goddard show? Somewhere in October, I believe. At the Albert Hall.”
“Very well,” he had said, “I’ll take you.”
“But I thought, my dear, it wasn’t worth it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he answered hurriedly. “Perhaps I went with the wrong crowd the other time. I should like to go with you.”
It was a repeat performance word for word almost, of that scene at the cocktail party when he had given up his golf to take her to a matinée; a repeat performance with this difference, that whereas then he had given up a thing he valued for something he valued more—whereas then he had been preferring an afternoon in her company to an afternoon upon the golf links—he was now doing something he did not want to do, something perhaps, he could ill afford to do, because he could not tolerate the idea of her receiving pleasure at the hands of some other man. Where once he had been choosing the better of two goods, he was accepting now the lesser of two ills. And as before at the cocktail party that smile, that dizzying, that intoxicating smile of gratitude and triumph was cast radiantly; about him.
“That is nice of you,” she said. “I shall enjoy it ever so much more with you.”
It was a scene that must have been repeated many times. Christopher could picture her dropping in at odd moments at Geoffrey’s flat on her way to some party or on her way back from some party, an elegant, scented, care-free creature. She would perch herself upon the table, the grey chinchilla cloak flung backwards from her neck and shoulder, the smoke of her cigarette drifting upwards from the pouted mouth to the tip-tilted freckled nose; would perch there sipping at a cocktail, chatting rapidly and inconsequently of this and that, of that and the other thing.
“I’m told, Geoffrey,” he could hear her saying, “that there’s a fearfully good cabaret show just now at the Piccadilly.”
And he could hear the answer.
“Is there? We must go to it then. What about next Friday?”
She would protest, of course, and shake her head.
“Oh no, but really, Geoffrey, I didn’t mean that. You mustn’t be taking me out the whole time. I don’t want you to neglect your other friends. I don’t want to be selfish.”
“It is I who am selfish,” Geoffrey would reply. “If either of us is. I always, you see, want you with me.”
And the light in her eyes would soften and she would smile, and, “You’re very nice, Geoffrey,” she would say. And on such a moment he could picture her jumping from the table, slipping across the floor to stand close to him, her hands placed upon his shoulders, her face lifted to his kiss.
An amusing comedy.
On her own admission Sybyl Marchant was a woman to whom material things were of greater matter than those intangible considerations that are for certain romantic and reckless temperaments more ponderable. She valued material pleasure because in her eyes that was the only form of pleasure that survived. And Geoffrey, who was not a conceited man, whose experiences with women were slight and inconsiderable, must in the tossing hours of wakeful wretchedness have found it easy to believe that Sybyl cared probably less for him than for the things he stood for: and that he could only keep her by the indulging of her tastes and luxuries. Which was, upon his income, hardly possible.
Not unnaturally he had become fiercely jealous. Christopher had realized that one evening when he had come back to his flat after a theatre.
“You might excuse me for a moment, will you?” he had said. “I want to telephone.”
There was a long pause; then the sound of his voice saying: “What, no answer? Thank you very much.” There was a frown upon his face when he returned; a worried, impatient, unhappy sort of frown. He talked at random and inconsequently, and broke off in the middle of a sentence.
“Look here, do you mind, please would you excuse me, I must telephone.”
But again there had been no answer. His frown when he returned had been the deeplier furrowed. And as half an hour later Christopher walked down the stairs out of his flat he had heard the tinkle of the bell as Geoffrey lifted the receiver. And he had pictured him during the long, slow passing hours, waiting beside the telephone, in a torture of angry jealousy, for the sound that was to herald her return: all those hours waiting there, wondering
what she was doing, knowing she was with another man.
“Whom is she going out with all these evenings?” Christopher asked him once.
He shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t want to know. I should only be jealous if I did.”
And that was the man who had once said “J’en ai soupé!”
Oh yes, it was amusing enough, when watched impersonally, but it was not a play in which one would want anyone for whom one cared personally to have a part. It was a comedy after all, and the aftermath and disenchantment.
He could not believe that he had acted wrongly in making the way for Joan’s marriage smooth.
• • • • • • • •
With bright eyes and beating heart Joan Faversham sat that evening before the gilt-edged mirror of her dressing-table. Before her was spread the irregular, many-coloured regiment of blue glass jars, green combs and enamelled powder boxes, of whose aid her young beauty stood in such small need. Mechanically she passed over her sleek shingled head a long ivory-handled brush. At last Graham had been given that appointment—that was all that she could think of.
It was curious in a way that he had not rung her up to tell her, but he had known that he would be dining with them that evening, and perhaps he had wished to wait till it was quite certain; till he was able to tell it her himself; tell her as she would have it told to her, in a kiss. In a few minutes now he would be with her. Within a few minutes’ time he would have whispered that which for thirty months she had waited so patiently to hear.
In the street below she heard the sound of a car drawing up beside the pavement. Rising from her chair, she pulled the curtain back and peeped. Yes, it was his car all right, how small he seemed as one looked down on him. And yet how long a shadow lay backwards across the steps.
The front door opened, a broad oblong of light was flung across the pavement; the oblong narrowed, a shadow crossed it; it disappeared. He was in the house then now. And it was five minutes still to eight. He had come early especially, so that they might have a minute or two alone together first.
