Love in these Days

by Alec Waugh

  “Punish him? But what for?”

  “What for? Oh, well, I don’t know. For imagining, perhaps, that I was to be got as easily as in the beginning he thought I was. I suppose,” she added, “you’ll not be going to tell Geoffrey this?”

  Christopher shook his head.

  “I mind my own business,” he replied.

  She smiled.

  “I’m glad of that,” she said. “It would be a pity if he didn’t marry me.”

  “Marry you?”

  “Are you surprised? But surely, my dear, you don’t imagine that I should have wasted all this time on him unless I had meant to marry him?”

  Christopher shrugged his shoulders.

  “I should have scarcely thought,” he said, “that Geoffrey was a very attractive proposition for a woman who held that material pleasures were the only ones that mattered.”

  “Oh, that?” she laughed. “So I took you in too! I believe, you see, in fighting people on their own ground, especially on a ground like that. From the very beginning he was beaten. It’s absurd to talk materialism to a woman on less than six thousand pounds a year!”

  “Then you’re in love with him?”

  Again she laughed.

  “I’d rather be a wife than a stenographer.”

  “And when are you expecting to become one?”

  “As soon, I suppose, as he has the common sense to realize that it’s cheaper to run one establishment than two!”

  The party was drawing to a close, Geoffrey had gone, and Sybyl and Mildred and the Heresys. The room was wearing that depressed, draggled look that rooms do wear, when a party is about to end. The air was stale with tobacco smoke, the fireplace littered with cigarette ends; on book-cases and cabinets empty glasses were ranged in disorderly rows. The white table-cloth was stained and spotted; the plates looked, arranged along it, dirty with crumbled cake and the remains of trifles.

  Christopher had ceased for half an hour to protest at his friends’ departure. It was no longer, “Oh, but surely must you,” it was, “How charming of you to come.”

  It was time, Graham realized, for him to go himself. His head was heavy, his eyelids were rimmed with fire; five out of the twenty-four hours had been killed; it was close on two o’clock. Long since the day had started, the day that as long as he lived would be stamped indelibly on his memory. The day of shame and triumph, which would see victory won only with the sword of perfidy.

  Slowly he lifted himself up from his chair, to cast, before he said good-bye, one last look round the studio to which he would not be able to return. This door like so many others would be shut on him. He would have to find new friends for his new life.

  Chapter XXIV

  The Settling of Accounts

  With a sigh of boredom, Christopher Stirling laid aside his paper on the following morning. Really, but how dull newspapers became when the cricket season was over. It was not that in itself cricket particularly thrilled him. He went to the Eton and Harrow match, of course, but chiefly to see his friends. Of the five or so hours that he would pass there, four at least would be spent in sauntering slowly between the new stand and the practice ground. Neither as a spectacle nor as a pursuit did the game excite him. But as literature it added considerably to the sum of his life’s enjoyment. Each issue of the evening papers contained some definitely fresh news, and every morning there was the little thrill of seeing whether in a fading light and on a crumbling wicket the Worcester rabbits had been able to play out time against Parkin and Macdonald.

  In the winter months there was little to be read of in the morning papers that one had not heard about the night before. And was there any period of the year more barren of possibilities than the last weeks of September? The little season had not begun. Everyone was out of London; there was not a single invitation card along the wide length of his bedroom mantelpiece. And his diary, so black usually with engagements, was less than parti-coloured. Emptily the days stretched out in front of one.

  “How nice it would be, Robinson,” he remarked as his patient servitor came into the room to remove the breakfast tray, “how nice it would be if we had an office to go to on such days, with letters to dictate and contracts to adjust. We should be so effective, too. Can you not see us in a few years’ time becoming, out of sheer boredom, Napoleons of high finance? You smile, Robinson. Ah, well, you are free to. Unlikelier things have happened.”

  At that moment and with extreme violence the telephone bell began to ring. The apparatus was within a few inches of Christopher’s hand. But he left the answering of the call to his servant.

  “See who it is, Robinson,” he said.

  With pontifical solemnity Robinson lowered the breakfast tray on to the chest of drawers.

  “This is Mayfair 53173,” he announced; “it is the house of Mr. Christopher Stirling.” He listened for a moment with the receiver pressed close against his ear. Then, holding the mouthpiece firmly to his shoulder, he turned. “Miss Joan Faversham, sir, would like to speak to you”

  A flush of eager pleasure coloured the pale mask of Christopher’s features.

  “Oh, but how nice. Hand me the thing over. Really, Joan,” he went on, “this is a delightful surprise. I was just thinking how dull I was going to find everything to-day.”

  There was a toneless apathy in the voice that answered him.

  “I want to see you, Chris,” it said. “When can I?”

  “My time, whatever other disposals I might have made of it, would be yours. I do, however, happen to be completely free to-day. Wouldn’t it be a rather good idea for us to také some lunch together?”

  “Lunch? That’s such a long way off.”

  “Only three hours.”

  “Three hours. Still, oh very well then, I’ll lunch with you. Where?”

  “Ritz Grill. One-twenty.”

  “Right.” And from the other end came the click of a replaced receiver.

  “A not particularly gracious way of accepting a not ungenerous invitation,” was Christopher’s private comment. “However—”

  And raising himself among the pillows, he began to prepare for the business of self-arrayal.

  Early in life Christopher Stirling had realized that it is part of a host’s duty to reach a restaurant five minutes before the earliest of his guests. A realization that in these unpunctual days had cost him many vacant hours in hall and lobby. He was to discover, however, as he walked at a quarter-past one down the long corridor between the grill-room and the stairs, that Joan Faversham was already waiting for him in the many-mirrored lounge.

  “I’ll not apologize,” he said; “we’re both unpunctual. How jolly it is to see you.”

  But he had only to take one glance at the crumpled figure in the high-backed green armchair to realize that jolly was the last word with which to describe this particular occasion. There was not in her face nor in her figure’s poise the least sign of animation as she rose to greet him.

  Trouble, he thought. And genuine this time, not imagined trouble. And a quick spasm of irritation shook him against the man who was responsible for the drawn lines about the mouth that had been fashioned for laughter only.

  The grill-room was fairly full, but Joan did not, as she took the chair that the waiter was holding back for her, bother to glance round to see if at any of the other tables there was anyone she knew. Nor did she pay any real attention to the ordering of the lunch.

  “That will be very nice,” she said. But Christopher knew very well that she would be unable to remember a single dish of the three or four that he had suggested.

  “You don’t mind if I smoke?” she asked. But she had no sooner lit her cigarette than she had stubbed it impatiently into the small brass tray beside her. She allowed a very admirable bisque d’homard to be taken away half touched, and did little more than break with her fork the smooth white surface of a sole bonne femme; while in an attempt to put her at her ease, and to allow her pause to collect her courage to say what she had
to say, Stirling maintained a rippling fusillade of facetious soliloquy.

  “You’ve only been back an hour or two, so you won’t have heard the delightful story about Mrs. Rogerdale at the Cornets’ party. It’s too charming. I must tell you,” and all the time he was watching closely, waiting for the confession that sooner or later he knew must come. It came, as he had expected, suddenly, and right across one of his most entertaining anecdotes.

  “Chris,” she said abruptly, “I have decided to break off my engagement.”

  Christopher raised his eyebrows.

  “So?” he said, and waited.

  Then in a rush the confession came. She told him of Graham’s appointment of which he had not told her.

  “For two years,” she said, “we’ve been waiting for that; for that and only that. And then, when it comes, he doesn’t tell me. There can be one explanation only. He doesn’t love me any longer. He doesn’t want to marry me.”

  Christopher Stirling pouted.

  “Don’t you think that there’s a chance of his having wanted to keep it as a surprise for you? When was it I told you of it?”

  “A couple of days before we went abroad.”

  “A couple of days? Well, there you are. He knew you’d be going away soon. He didn’t think you’d be likely to hear the news from anyone. And it was rather a fluke, you know, that you should have heard it. He meant to keep it as a more complete surprise for you when you came back. You’ve only been back an hour or so. You may find that he’s got a special licence and a flat already furnished.”

  He spoke jokingly enough, in a desperate attempt to reassure her. But his own heart was heavy; remembering what he had learnt from Humphrey and Gwen Lawrence.

  She shook her head.

  “That’s what I tried to think; that’s what I managed to console myself with for a little. I almost came to believe in it, in fact, But I can’t any longer now. Two nights ago I saw Graham in Paris. And Mrs. Lawrence was there with him.”

  She paused. About them was the stir of talk, the rattle of plates, the scurrying of waiters. But for those two at their table beneath the flowered platform the world of colour and animation was without existence.

  “Well?” she asked at length.

  He did not reply immediately. And when he did reply it was with another question.

  “I suppose,” he said, “that in spite of this you love him as much as you ever did?”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “I don’t see that that has much to do with it.”

  “Ah, but it has! Before you chuck a thing away it’s as well to find out first whether you value it or not.”

  “Whether I value it or not?” she retorted scornfully. “I’m not going to let a man, however much I may want him, take me out of charity, because he thinks he owes it me, or because he can’t get somebody else that he wants more.”

  “I see.” There was another pause, and then in a slow, quiet, infinitely persuasive voice Christopher began to speak to her. “You asked me,” he said, “what that question had to do with it, and though I can see very well your point about not letting yourself be a second best for any man, I’m not sure that it isn’t out of false pride that you are deciding now to break off your engagement. For you see, Joan dear, there comes a time in every woman’s life when she has got to fight to keep the man she loves. It comes usually, I suppose, four or five years after marriage, but because your engagement has been so long it has come in your case before instead of after. And when that moment comes to a woman I believe there are only two questions that she can put to herself: ‘Do I still want him?’ and ‘Is he worth fighting for?’ And if she does, and he is, I think the woman should decide to fight.”

  “But if he doesn’t love her any longer?”

  “How is she to tell he doesn’t? And how is she to tell that she may not win him back? Can one ever enter into the mind of another person? Is it possible for a woman to know how or why her man is being attracted by this other woman? How can you know how much or how little, if she means anything at all, Mrs. Lawrence matters to Graham? She’s worrying him, we’ll allow that; they’ve been seen in Paris together. If it is a grand passion, life’ll decide that for itself. Grand passions, luckily for the comfort of the world, come rarely, and not everybody is capable of them. This may be one, but it much more likely isn’t. And if it’s just one of those fleeting things, those gnats of fugitive attraction that most of us at one time or another succumb to, if it’s that, then if you want him, you’ll get Graham back again. For myself, I think he’s worth it.”

  “But if this sort of thing’s going to happen,” she protested, “before we’re married—”

  “As likely as not,” he caught her up, “you won’t be worried by it afterwards. You’ll be inoculated. I said that such a moment comes in the life of nearly every woman. But seldom twice. If you value a thing, that thing is worth fighting for. It’s undignified to fight for a man that’s not worth fighting for. But Graham is. I beseech you, don’t break off this engagement.”.

  “Then what am I to do?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” she echoed.

  “That’s the advantage,” he explained, “of the official position of wife or of fiancée. She hasn’t to do anything. If anything has to be done, it’s the man that has to do it. If you force a decision on Graham; if you say to him, ‘ You’re to choose now and for all time between this woman and myself,’ in the tumult that he’s in now, he might choose Mrs. Lawrence. But if you don’t force that decision on him, if you pretend that nothing has happened, that nothing is happening, rather than come to a decision of his own accord, he will let the situation continue till the other affair has died, as such affairs invariably do die, of its own accord. I don’t know,” he concluded, “if you’ll think all this very cynical and worldly-wise. But it’s the only way if you want to be sure of keeping him.”

  With her face averted, her hands clasped across the table, Joan Faversham had listened. As he finished, she nodded her head slowly.

  “I don’t like it,” she said. “I won’t promise anything. But for a week or so I’ll let things go.”

  “And if he comes back to you,” Stirling insisted, “whatever you do, don’t ask any questions.”

  “And now,” murmured Christopher, as he walked some twenty minutes later beside her into Piccadilly, “and now for Mrs. Lawrence.”

  • • • • • • • •

  No. 17 Ciber Crescent was in such a condition of disorder as may be expected of flats to which their owners make an unheralded return. Pictures were piled on beds and tables. Windows were curtainless. Grates untended, and over all was a pervading and pungent smell of carbolic soap. Gloomily, with the dust and heat of a five-hours’ journey on her, Gwen Lawrence surveyed the chaos. Against the clock on the drawing-room mantelpiece was leaning the orange envelope of a telegram.

  “Open it, May, will you,” she said, “and tell me what’s inside it?”

  “Someone signing themselves Graham will be calling between six and seven.”

  “Between six and seven, and it’s now three. How we shall ever get this place straight first—and I’m filthy and exhausted. You might put on a hot bath for me.”

  The water had scarcely been turned on, however, before the front door bell rang.

  “Tell whoever it is I’m out,” she said impatiently. But on hearing in the passage Christopher Stirling’s languid voice, she changed her mind.

  “Here I am, Chris,” she called out. “I didn’t know it was you. Not, as you’ll see, that there’s anywhere for you to sit, my dear. I’ve come back earlier than was expected.”

  “And was Paris nice?” he asked.

  “Paris? How did you know that I had been in Paris?”

  “A person, my dear Gwen, with as many acquaintances as you have can scarcely expect to go anywhere incognita.”

  Intently and suspiciously she looked at him.

  “I see,” sh
e said. Then raising her voice: “You can turn that bath off, May. I shan’t be wanting it for half an hour or so.

  “And now, Chris,” she said, “we’ll take some of those pictures off the chesterfield and you shall tell me exactly what Joan Faversham’s been saying to you.”

  The quickness with which she had recognized the source of his information did not noticeably embarrass him.

  “It’s not so much what Joan Faversham’s been saying,” he laughed. “I was wondering what you and Graham were going to do about it.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Do about it? What is there to be done?”

  “Well, I don’t suppose you’re thinking of getting married are you?”

  “I should have to get unmarried first.”

  “And that?”

  “For obvious reasons scarcely possible. I should have to refind my husband first. I wouldn’t naturally allow myself to be divorced. And if I divorced him I shouldn’t be able to see Graham for over a year. Oh, no, Chris; this is not one of the problems into which marriage enters.”

  “Then what’ll happen?”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “What usually does happen on such occasions.”

  “And you’ll live on what?”

  “I don’t seem to manage too badly now.”

  “Perhaps, but then Graham wouldn’t stand for this.”

  Again that distrustful look came into her eyes. She tossed back her head impatiently.

  “I wish you wouldn’t bother me,” she said. “I’m tired.”

  “You couldn’t afford,” he persisted, “to go on living here.”

  “Well?” and the word was a snarl almost.

  “You couldn’t afford to go on living here, and do you think you’ll find it easy, after the sort of life you’ve led for the last four years, to start going to an office, catching an early train, lunching at a Lyons and wearing imitation silk? For that’s what it would come to. Graham’s got no money. And there are a lot of women looking for jobs just now. You’d be lucky if you got anyone to give you four pounds a week. Three ten would be nearer it.”