by A. J. Cronin
But at last it was over. Anna went back at once to the parlour; Peter ran upstairs hugging tenderly the disparaged yacht; Netta cleared the table and retired to the kitchen. They were alone – a moment which Frank too had apparently waited. For he said at once, quite openly:
‘Lucy, what’s wrong, my dear? I thought we’d got over all that difference.’
She rose, closed the door which Netta had left ajar, then with set lips she sat down and faced him. Her mood of tenderness, frustrated, was gone: she was resolved now, passionately resolved: and without hesitation she said firmly:
‘I want to speak to you, Frank.’
‘Well,’ he answered, with a peaceable smile, ‘ that’s no reason to wear a face like a funeral.’
‘We’ll, leave my looks out of this,’ she answered, with hard deliberation, ‘seeing that you don’t approve of them.’
‘Now don’t take me up wrong, Lucy,’ he said hurriedly, mildly. ‘You know that was simply a joke.’
‘I’m in no mood for jokes,’ she replied bitingly. ‘I’ve never been more serious in all my life.’
‘But Lucy,’ he almost pleaded, ‘what’s the matter with you?’
‘I’m in deadly earnest, Frank,’ she declared, with a slow intensity, and there was no mistaking the significance of her tone. ‘I suspect you of something. It’s a horrible thing. But that doesn’t alter the fact. And more than that. There’s only one way out of it. You’ve got to speak the truth. Tell me’ – her voice rose suddenly and quivered accusingly – ‘tell me if you were Anna’s lover.’
‘What!’ he gasped.
‘Not only that,’ she cried passionately. ‘ Tell me if you were the father of her child.’
He stared at her stupefied, whilst a high colour mounted his brow. So that was it – the explanation of everything: she had jumped to a horrible conclusion. And she was wrong – horribly wrong.
‘So that’s what you think,’ he stammered, at last. ‘That’s what you think of me.’
‘Tell me,’ she cried, again in a high voice. ‘Can’t you see I’m waiting?’
‘But, Lucy!’ he stammered, completely abashed, his embarrassment making him the picture of guilt; ‘don’t be absurd. The – the thing’s ridiculous.’
‘Not so absurd,’ she burst out, her breast filling convulsively, as she perceived his palpable distress, ‘not so ridiculous but what it upsets you.’
Her senses strained to the utmost, she searched unconsciously his face, observed each shade of meanings each inflection of his voice. And, aware suddenly of this scrutiny, he flared up.
‘Who are you looking at? I don’t like it.’
‘Then you have something to be afraid of?’ Her face was pale, her tone suppressed, as, stung by the defensive note in his voice, she added bitterly: ‘Why, there’s guilt looking out of your eye. You can’t deceive me, Frank. I know you. Oh! why can’t you be a man and face up to this honestly?’
Her words came with swift vehemence, treading one upon the other; and under that vehemence he moved restlessly, flushed more darkly, because he knew that he was weak, felt himself confirming her suspicion.
‘This is madness,’ he shot out. ‘I’d nothing to do with that affair. Nothing! You know surely that it’s you I love. I’ve never in my life had a thing to do with Anna. If you don’t believe me, ask her.’
‘Anna!’ she cried fiercely. ‘Do you expect me to humiliate myself by asking Anna? Me, your wife, to abase myself before her! Besides’ – she sneered – ‘ what could I expect from Anna? Certainly not the truth! I’ve no doubt there’s some horrible understanding between you.’
‘Good God!’ he exclaimed, his temper rising at his own inability to master the situation. ‘What are you getting at? You’ve got it all wrong, I tell you. It’s damnably wrong.’
‘It is wrong,’ she flung back passionately, ‘and it’s you who have made it so.’
‘Have it that way then,’ he shouted. ‘If it suits you to hang something on me I never did, then do it and be damned to you!’
They confronted each other, strung to a vital tension, Then suddenly the hardness of her face relaxed. Swept by an uncontrollable impulse of tenderness towards him, the bitterness faded from her eyes, which shone now with a glistening appeal.
‘Can’t you understand, Frank,’ she cried, ‘how this is torturing me? Let’s have it out. Then we can start afresh.’
But now, at last, he was thoroughly enraged, and with all the obstinacy of injured weakness he refused to listen. Instead, he jumped to his feet.
‘I’ve had about enough. I can’t stand any more of this.’
Quickly she, too, started up and took his arm.
‘Frank,’ she entreated passionately, ‘you know I love you. Surely you know that by this time. You must know I’d do anything for you. Anything on this earth. Can’t you even ask me to forgive you?’
He made for the door without looking at her. ‘What should I want your blasted forgiveness for?’ he cried. ‘Keep that till it’s asked for.’
‘Don’t go, Frank,’ she pleaded desperately. ‘That only convinces me you’re to blame.’
With an exclamation he shook off her arm.
‘For God’s sake let me alone!’ And he swung round and went out of the room.
He was gone. She sat rigidly, her eyes, filled with tears, fixed upon that closed door. He had denied her accusation. Yes, inevitably he had denied it. But the manner of his denial had served merely to confirm her insufferable belief. If only he had been honest. Oh, how gladly would she have forgiven him if only he admitted it. But instead he had blustered his way out of the room. That was not Frank, not the man she loved; it was a shell, a mask to cover what lay beneath. She knew his weakness, his moodiness, his queerness; that indeed was why she wished to lend him her strength. She did not love him for any qualities he might possess, but for that indefinable something that was he. And, loving him, she had tried to help him. For eight years they had been happy: it was impossible for him not recognise her devotion to him: and now she was faced by this incredible, this dreadful turn of circumstance. It was possible, from his manner, that something had happened even now between Anna and him.
And again she shivered, her eyes still fixed upon that door, which seemed suddenly symbolic – something shut against her, giving access to a state she might never regain. Suddenly from the parlour, whither he had gone, came the chorus of ‘The Minstrel Boy’, thumped out by Anna upon the piano. She started. Her head ached; she felt upon her an unutterable despondency. Alone in the room, the moment and the place were propitious for a bitter outburst of her grief. But she did not weep. Her lips came together, firmly; into her small, resolute face there flowed a fresh determination. No matter that her suspicion was confirmed. She loved him. And she would save him from Anna, save him from himself. Her anger was spent; she would make no scene; but she would watch, she would wait, she would be ready to act when the need for that action arose. Deliberately she got up and went quietly into the parlour.
Chapter Nine
Now, when she awoke, always that heavy load lay upon her like a weight pressing on her heart. For a few seconds she would have the drowsy happiness of awakening, that subconscious pleasure in the new day, then all at once would come swift realisation, which destroyed instantly the brightness of the morning. It was intolerable, this painful oppression, extinguishing all the lovely eagerness of life. With wounded eyes and set lips she would remain quiet, facing the opposite wall of the bedroom. There, in frightful mockery, hung a pleasant picture she had always liked: ‘ The Reconciliation’ – two lovers, romantically attired, clasped in a chaste embrace on marble steps beside a fountain, whilst in the foreground a faultless deer-hound pointed and in the background an old servant, manifestly affected, supported a salver with wine. A sweet tableau. But Lucy saw nothing of its sweetness. She was thinking wretchedly behind her clouded brow: ‘I cannot endure this. The strain of it is killing me!’
But she must endu
re it. She would endure it. She – to give in, capitulate, admit defeat? Why, it was unthinkable! Quickly would come the answering resolve: ‘ I’ll see this thing through – yes, to the bitter end.’
Then, her determination more finely tempered, she would arise, dress silently, and descend to see about his breakfast. For she did hot cease in her attentions. No, no! These, on the contrary, she intensified, without appearing to intensify them, holding herself coldly apart whilst she proved her worth. His breakfasts had never been better, nor had they ever been better served. She warmed his fresh underclothes with a sedulous neutrality, heated his gloves before the fire, came even to the door to help him silently into his new overcoat.
But, oh, how feverishly, beneath this calm worked the leaven of her excitation.
It was the following Saturday, and she was no wiser, no easier in her mind. Actually four days had passed – how had she endured them? – every morning of which had greeted her in unfelt splendour. Clear and sunny, yet freshened by the roving airs of autumn, these last days had dragged strangely past her could not get satisfaction – that was the phrase she knew to be expressive exactly of her situation, and it was a phrase which fretted her to distraction. If Frank had only taken her in his arms and made with serious intensity a simple denial of the single fact she dreaded, then would she immediately have been happy, appeased. But following that scene when she had first confronted him he did not do this. He did not defend himself. He was by turns ironic, facetious, flippant, deliberately going out of his way to aggravate her anxiety by a new and quite open attention to Anna. It was as if, indeed, under her eye, betraying a strange similarity of humour, they discovered themselves flung together into an alliance of necessity. Unfaithful once with Anna, why not unfaithful now, again? Her face piteous, she winced. She knew Frank, and knew him well. In the past they had had their disagreements – who had not? – but he had always ‘come round’. Now, however, he was a long time ‘ coming round’. Did he think actually that she had accepted the situation, that she was beaten? Her head reared like an angry horse at the iniquitous suggestion.
Standing there in Peter’s small bedroom, watching him at what he gravely termed ‘his packing’, a heavy wave of injustice rolled painfully over her being. Even in this contemplation of her son she had the feeling of having been abused. Yes, even here she had been trapped, betrayed into a false position. Peter was going for a few days to Port Doran, but, though she herself had suggested that going, she did not in the least desire that he should go.
The boy had been her outlet during those last days. She had talked much to him, had made much of him, finding in him a fountain of relief. More especially she paraded her son and her affection for her son before Anna, all with a sort of bitter ostentation. Precluded by her pride from a direct attack, she was determined, passionately determined, to use every weapon she possessed to wound Anna and to induce her to terminate her stay. With this latter purpose firmly in view, she had said on Thursday, holding the boy closely and fixing a direct look upon the other woman:
‘You’ll go to Port Doran on Saturday, Peter. Uncle Edward wants you over when Anna has gone.’
But Anna had taken no hint from this plain precipitation of the situation. Anna was still here. And her son, rising joyously to the prospect of the change, was leaving her – was nearing even now the moment of his departure. Even upon this trivial issue she had the feeling of frustration; it was as if, almost, she had been defeated by her own hand.
‘I think I’ve got everything in, mother,’ he declared seriously, suddenly looking up from the small Gladstone bag that stood open on the carpet. Viewing his kneeling form sadly, with a sort of melancholy pride, she recognised him as an amazing child, saw his propensity for order, for neatness, to be astounding. He knew exactly what he had and where he had it. His clothes – she of course might look after these, but towards the rest of his possessions, from his toys, yes, even to his ties, he exhibited a careful ownership – derived, surely, from herself – which was incredible in one so young.
‘Are you not sorry, son, to be going away from me?’ she said, yearning for a crumb of comfort, her eyes a little humid towards him.
He closed the bag and jumped up gaily.
‘I’ll soon be home, mother,’ he declared, with proper optimism. ‘I’m sorry, though, about Anna. She may be away when I come back.’ Then his face brightened hopefully, and he added: ‘ Perhaps not, though. You never can tell.’
As he spoke, a loud knocking sounded on the back door.
‘There’s Dave,’ he cried ecstatically, making for the stairs. ‘Time I was off.’ He paused suddenly, arrested by a thought. ‘I must say good-bye to Anna, though.’
‘Go, then,’ she said coldly. ‘ I can promise you’ll not see her again.’
As he went to Anna’s room: the hour was early – nine o’clock had just struck – and Anna was not yet up: she descended slowly to the kitchen.
‘That’s young Bowie – come for Peter,’ said Netta, brushing at a boot. It was Angus who had come, not Dave, and Netta worked off her disappointment in a furious attack upon the leather.
‘You’ll see him over safe, Angus?’ said Lucy, going to the open door. She had again that strange qualm at this parting from her son.
‘I’ll do that,’ he declared seriously. Though he was like Dave, he had not Dave’s laughing humour; he was reserved, guarded, more sure of himself; and he added, echoing her words: ‘I’ll see him safe over for you.’
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly; and she turned as Peter burst into the kitchen bearing his bag in one hand and a new shilling in the other.
‘Here I am,’ he cried boisterously, ‘and Anna has given me a whole shilling. Isn’t it great? Come along, Angus. I’m ready.’
‘You’ll not spend that money on trashy sweets,’ she said severely, feeling herself forestalled; she had meant to give him a shilling herself ‘for his sporran’. ‘I don’t want your stomach upset.’
‘No, no, mother,’ he affirmed at once. ‘I’ll buy nothing coloured.’
She gazed at his laughing, eager face with an indescribable emotion. This separation for a few days was nothing, a triviality, yet, coming upon the frightful tension of her spirit, it struck her with almost overwhelming significance. She had the strange sense of something impending, something irrevocable occasioned by, and arising from this obscure parting; and she had, too, a vague, intangible immanence – presentiment – concerning his return. Suddenly she stirred.
‘Good-bye, then, dearest,’ she said, holding out her arms. It was almost unique, her use of this superlative of affection, but somehow the circumstance compelled it from her lips.
As he went down the path with Angus, she followed him with her gaze, feeling still with an exquisite lingering emotion the pressure of his warm lips on hers. Stupid, stinging tears were in her eyes. Then she turned swiftly: it would not do to make a fool of herself in front of Netta.
She went into the parlour and, standing in the front room, she gazed fixedly through the window, brooding upon the view before her. She was conscious of a sense of deprivation; conscious, too, that the departure of her son must bring the crisis to its head. He had been, she recognised, a sort of buffer state, deadening the sharp clash of conflict between Anna and herself.
And now she asked herself again why she had not determined the situation once for all by asking Anna to leave her house. Though she may have felt it to be so, no mere tenet of hospitality had restrained her. No; the reason was deeper, subtler than that. To resolve the matter in this fashion would be a tacit admission of her weakness, her fear, her surrender. It was not she, but Anna who herself must sound the retreat. Besides, though she knew it not, her suspicion was like a canker which demanded the sinapism of surveillance. She was sure, yet she was not sure. And violently she wished to clench the truth, to nail it down finally and for ever. How often, with searing, introspective vision, had she contemplated the facts of the position, shredding the evidence,
weighing this against that, probing deep down into the raw wound of her suspicion. She was convinced that Frank was the father of Anna’s child, convinced that he had again been unfaithful with her. And yet – still she did not know.
She did not know – and therein lay the crux, the goading nucleus of all her misery. All her intuition recognised the case as proved, but the final evidence was lacking. That was the position and the very thought of this suspense gave her a sense of straining impotence.
And she could not ask. She had questioned Frank, and he had evaded her question. Now, if the universe hummed with this awakened secret, she would not stoop to ask again. Her pride forbade it. Besides, there was no universal hum: the secret was dormant, sealed, sought after only by her: and one person alone must positively hold this knowledge she desired. One person. Anna! If only she could for a second see within the mind of Anna.
She stirred restlessly. Again the imperative need came upon her to know – to know conclusively, to grasp this elusive, torturing bubble of uncertainty, and finally to burst it. How maddening was her position.
Once more the bare realism of fact, endured interminably, struck her with unexhausted violence; and she shivered at the picture in her mind: Frank and Anna, together, in the consummation of their love. She bit her lip fiercely.
How could she say calmly: This is past – a long time past, when the woman herself was in her house, eating, sleeping, living under her roof, confronting her with that perpetual enigmatical antagonism. It was too unbearable, too unjust, that this should descend upon her from the blue; and too impossible that she should receive it in quiescence. She who made her love for Frank the loyalty of her life – the mere thought of all these happy years of her married life brought tears to her eyes – she could not accept it placidly.
She would not tolerate it. It had gone on long enough – too long; it must be that her sense of decency, of hospitality, had overborne her judgement. Yes, she felt now with a hot tide of conviction that she could no longer suffer merely to wait and watch. That she should have sent away her son in this vain reminder whipped her with a sense of ineffectuality. She – ineffectual! If Anna were too thick-skinned to accept that hint, then some stronger interference was necessary. The need for action pressed upon her feverishly. It was no surrender to confront Anna. And it was not as if she was afraid of Anna. Her lip curled at the thought, and all at once something rose up in her. This was no ordinary situation; it could be dealt with by no ordinary methods. Her hands clenched firmly. The sound of Netta’s singing striking on her ears served merely to lash more fiercely her determination; but for Anna, she, too, might have been happy and singing at her work. She thought passionately, ‘ I won’t endure it! I won’t! I’ll go up to her now.’ Yes, she would do it – and that instantly! Impulsively she turned, went into the hall, began to ascend the stairs.
