by Henry Green
'No, Mrs Knight,' Claire was saying, 'of course it's all very unpleasant for me you know, there have been certain things that really have been – well I won't go on, no, I won't tell you now they would only bother you, but I've made arrangements to get an ambulance directly they can bring one round to send her back to you. Oh, not at all. Poor Auntie May. Good-bye.'
Her Auntie May was going over her row with that girl in the bar. Very white she lay still as death on her back and her lips moved, only she had no voice to speak with. Well, she was saying, if there's no one to serve me I might just as well not be here at all. And a voice spoke soundless in answer through her lips. It said everyone must wait their turn. She replied she had waited her turn and that people who had come after had been served first.
It might have been an argument with death. And so it went on, reproaches, insults, threats to report and curiously enough it was mixed up in her mind with thoughts of dying and she asked herself whom she could report death to. And another voice asked her why had she brought a pigeon, was it right to order whisky, did she think, when she was carrying such a parcel? And she did feel frightfully ill and weighed down, so under water, so gasping. It was coming on her again. And she argued why shouldn't she order whisky if they always had it when they were children, and as for the pigeon it was saving the street-cleaner trouble, when they died they were never left out to rot in the streets nowadays. But the voice asked why she had washed it and she felt like when she was very small and had a dirty dress. She said out loud so that she frightened those nannies. 'Oh, why can't you leave me alone?' She struggled to turn over on her side but when they both laid their hands to soothe her then she felt them to be angels' hands and had some rest.
But there was nothing of that kind for Mr Adams. As Alex had guessed, he was being put through the hoop. It was a malign comedy Miss Crevy was creating as she acted.
'But how could I tell,' he was saying and he was by her side now while she watched his back in a mirror behind him, 'how could I tell how much you minded?'
'If you had cared for me you would,' she said.
'You know I do.'
'But how do you show it, by going off just when I need you most?'
'Yes, but darling, you told me to go.'
'My dear,' she said, 'that was only because you had been so beastly to me.'
'I thought you wanted to go with these people and that you didn't want me.'
For one moment she thought she felt so she might burst into tears again and admit she did not want to go, but then it struck her that he would insist on her coming away if she said it. What she wanted to do was to make him properly sorry that she was going, so she said:
'How do you expect me to love you if you don't respect my feelings?'
He felt as though he was gazing into a prism, and he could see no end to it.
'But, my darling, I do, you must believe me, I do.'
'And how do you show it?' she asked. 'As soon as I'm a little bit upset you go off as if I was being difficult or something.'
'But you told me to go.'
'You'd been so rude about Claire Hignam's aunt.'
'I'm afraid I was very rude about her and I hope you will believe me when I say how very sorry I am if anything I said was rude about her.'
'I never wanted you to go, you see,' she said.
'Oh, God,' he said, reaching depths he had never known about before, 'I wish I was more worthy of you. When I think how wonderful you are from the top of your wonderful golden head to your toes.'
'Is it gold?' she said, putting her hands up to it.
'It is,' he said and coming to sit by her on the stool in front of that looking glass he lightly kissed the hair above her ear. As he did this he looked into the glass to see himself doing it because he was in that state when he thought it incredible that he should be so lucky to be kissing someone so marvellous. Unluckily for him she saw this in the mirror she had been watching his back in. She did not like it. She got up. She said:
'I won't have you watching yourself in the mirror when you're kissing me. It proves you don't love me and anyway no nice person does that.'
'Darling,' he said, 'are you being reasonable?'
'It's not a question of being reasonable. The fact is you despise me. You think I'm too easy, you treat me like a tart.'
He lost his temper. 'I won't have you say things like that,' he said, 'you torture me, I'm in such a condition now I don't know what I'm doing. And I've been like that for the past year.' Then it seemed monstrous to him that he should speak to her in anger. 'I don't mean it,' he said. 'I don't know what I'm saying.'
'Will you promise never to leave me again like that?'
'I promise.'
'Well then,' she said smiling directly at him, 'I expect I have been unreasonable as you call it.'
'You haven't,' he said stoutly.
'Yes, I expect I have. But you see it's different with women. I expect I have been being tiresome, but in some ways it was too much.'
He said: 'Do you know what I think is the matter with us, at all events I know it is with me?'
She thought now he is going to talk about getting engaged again.
'No,' she said, 'what is it?'
'You won't be angry with me.'
She knew then it must be what he was going to say.
'No,' she said, moving further away from him for safety's sake.
'I don't know how to say it. I bet you know what's coming too.'
She thought why couldn't he get on with it and then, looking at him, saw that fatuous smile on his face he always wore on these occasions.
'No,' she said.
'Well, really it's that I think we are in an unnatural relationship to each other. You know that I'm in love for ever with you. I know that you don't see this as I do but don't you think that if we could do away with this sort of being at a distance from each other, if we could only tell the world that we were in love by publishing our engagement, don't you feel that it would make things easier for us? I'm not saying this from my point of view. I can't help believing, even if I make you angry with me again, that you do care something for me or else,' and he hesitated here, 'well here goes, you would not have been as put out as you were when I went off.' He went on rather quickly, 'I must ask you to believe that I'd never have gone off when I did if I hadn't sincerely thought you wanted me to.' In his embarrassment he became even more formal again, 'I must ask you to believe that I wouldn't for anything in the world give you a second's unhappiness,' and he was going to add because I love you so, but he realized in time he was in such a state he might burst into tears if he said it, so, having lost his thread he wound up by saying, 'you must believe that.'
There was complete silence. He picked up his argument again.
'I do feel this, I know that if only we were married I could make you feel differently about me.'
'My dear,' she said, 'you've told me that before and I know who said it to you, it was your grandmother, wasn't it? In her generation everybody's marriages were arranged for them and as they were never allowed to be alone with a man for more than three minutes, of course the poor darlings fell for the first man they were left alone with.'
He said nothing at all.
'My dear, it is perfectly sweet of you and I think you are sweet too, but you must give me time. You know what you and I both think about marriage, that it's the most serious thing one can do. Well, it's just simply that I can't be sure.'
He still said nothing. He was looking at the carpet. From her having to go on talking she became palpably insincere. She was also looking at the carpet. She said:
'You see, I might make you unhappy and you are much too sweet for anyone to risk doing that to. I believe if I saw anyone making you unhappy I would go and scratch their eyes out, yes I would. And so don't you see I can't, I mustn't be in a hurry; you do see, don't you?'
He got up and walked up and down once or twice and then he stopped and asked her did she know how Miss Fellowes
was now. He still would not look at any more of her than her toes. She supposed she had been beastly to him again but why, she asked herself, must he choose this hotel room of all places to propose in, with beds slept in by hundreds of fat, middle-aged husbands and wives. And this particular time.
'They are being frightfully mysterious about her,' she said.
Almost paralysed by his misery he said:
'Are you sure you wouldn't like some tea?'
'Well, we can't very well, can we?' she said, 'Max isn't here. I got some for those two old nannies when I found them crying their eyes out outside about Miss Fellowes, but that was different Do you know I'm inclined to agree with you that she is being a thorough old nuisance. And then Alex, as I thought, very rudely sent for the drinks there were in that other room, but that's his affair. I don't see very well how we can order tea, do you, without Max?'
'But I'll pay for it on a separate bill.'
'You don't know what he's like, he'd never let you and all these others trade on that, I think it's too disgusting.'
There was another silence.
'Darling,' she said, 'don't take all this too tragically. After all I'm only going away for three weeks, and I'm hoping by that time I'll have been able to make up my mind. You do understand?' And as he stood still with his back turned to her she came up and, rather awkwardly, took him by one finger of his sweating hand.
Amabel's flat had been decorated by the same people Max had his flat done by, her furniture was like his, his walls like hers, their chair coverings were alike and even their ash trays were the same. There were in London at this time more than one hundred rooms identical with these. Even what few books there were bore the same titles and these were dummies. But if one said here are two rooms alike in every way so their two owners must have similar tastes like twins, one stood no greater chance of being right than if one were to argue their two minds, their hearts even must beat as one when their books, even if they were only bindings, bore identical titles.
In this way Max and Amabel and their friends baffled that class of person who will judge people by what they read or by the colour of their walls. One had to see that other gross of rooms and know who lived in them to realize how fashionable this style of decoration was, how right for those who were so fashionable, and rich of course, themselves.
If people then who see much of each other come to do their rooms up the same, all one can say is they are like household servants in a prince's service, all in Ms livery. But in the same way that some footmen will prefer to wear livery because there can then be no question of their having to provide clothes so, by going to the same decorator, these people avoided any sort of trouble over what might bother them, such as doing up their rooms themselves, and by so doing they proclaimed their service to the kind of way they lived or rather to the kind of way they passed their time.
They avoided all discussions on taste and were not encumbered by possessions; what they had was theirs in law but was never personal to them. If their houses were burned down they had only to go to the same man they all thought best to get another built, if they lost anything or even if it was mislaid the few shops they went to would be glad to lend whatever it might be, up to elephants or rhinos, until what had been missed could be replaced.
This role applied to everything they had except themselves, being so rich they could not be bought, so they laid more store than most on mutual relationships. Rich people cling together because the less well off embarrass them and there are not so many available who are rich for one rich man who drops out to be easily replaced.
Again, as between Amabel and Max, as indeed between all of them, there was more, there was her power over him as we shall see which she valued not least because both were so rich, there was also and most important that she found him altogether attractive. Also she did not see why she need let these girls who were after his money have it all their own way while he was paying for them.
She had not taken long to find out where Max was in hiding. When she rang up the airport she had not used her own name to ask if he was there, so they made no difficulty about telling her they had not seen him. She knew with all this fog he would be waiting his first chance to be off and, as she knew him, that he would be entertaining his party, so she began ringing every Terminus Hotel. If he had already been out of England she might not have followed, but now she realized he must be delayed, she really did not see why he should go without her. And this feeling grew until she made out she could not do without him, until, as she thought it over, knowing he was still there, she realized she was lost alone or so it seemed. In this way, where other women might have given him up and consoled themselves, blaming him for his lies, and might have sat down to make up their minds they would let him go because they could not trust him, she found out where he was at once without any trouble and went there.
She told her maid to pack and follow on while she set out on foot. She would save twenty minutes by walking.
She saw nothing of what she passed by, not the crowds of people who had lost their way or those who, faced by such beauty suddenly looming up on them through darkness, had fingered their ties, stepped exaggeratedly to one side, or turned and followed mumbling to themselves.
While she was on her way Angela, still holding on to his finger, had told Adams they must go back or what would those others think of them and still holding on because she felt almost sorry, as she was telling herself it was not his fault, it was the effect she had on him, she led him back. She dropped his finger once they were fairly back in this room. Adams thought to himself these two must know how it is with me, blast them, and that he did not care. He saw, and he thought that proved it, how Alex did not look at either of them, whereas Angela, who had also noticed this, thought it must be that Alex disapproved of what she might have done. She did not care.
Adams went off to mix himself a drink. That's it, she thought to herself, they say they're heartbroken and then they go and drink it off. In any case why take drinks from Max when he says he can't stand him and when he says he won't have anything to do with him. She decided it was selfishness and said to Alex:
'Well and what's happened?'
'Nothing. We've been here, that's all.'
Hignam just looked from Adams to Miss Crevy and from Miss Angela Crevy back to Adams.
'Oh, dear,' she said and sat down. She looked at her Adams and kept her eyes on him. She began to feel hopeless and asked herself if she had not treated him badly. Usually when she was watching him he knew at once and would look up in hopes her eyes might give him that encouragement they had now and which he had never yet seen, but this time he was too low, doubled up with cramp, he was drowning in his depth. He watched his glass, afraid to show his eyes, and she watched, offering what he wanted. In a moment she looked away, blaming him for not knowing how she felt.
She wondered if they could have heard what had been said and then thought it would have been impossible so long as Alex had not listened through the keyhole, but then she said to herself he would never have done that with Robert Hignam there. Or did men do such things? It was into this strangling silence that Amabel arrived.
She was lovely and when she opened the door and came in they looked up and knew again how beautiful she was.
'Hullo,' she said, 'at last I've found you.'
Robert Hignam was very much surprised to see her. He knew from his wife that Max, if he came at all, would come alone. Alex was surprised for he expected Max would leave her behind. Mr Adams, when he was introduced by Angela, who barely knew her, had no idea of any complication, to him she was no more than another member of this lot he despised and hated. He did not even admire her. So that when she asked, as she did at once, what Max had done with himself, it was he who answered that he was upstairs with Julia. No one could imagine how he knew.
'I supposed so,' she said, giving an appearance of just being late and that she had not bothered to hurry. Alex and Robert Hignam then rushed in, chattering
to entertain her and she took this easily, charmingly, though she was rather silent. She made one think she was so used to it all, that it was sweet of them and she liked it, but that she knew a thing worth two of that. They grew almost boisterous offering her chairs and cups of tea and anything they could think of. When they had begun to die down she drew Miss Angela Crevy on one side.
She began to make secrets which was her way when she did not know how things would turn out. Whispering so those others could not hear, she said how nice it was to see Angela. This was very flattering and she went on that Angela must be a dear and do something for her and come to her rescue. She could not be left alone with Max, even for one moment, he had such a temper and would be so cross at her for being late.
Angela warmed to her and said she ought not to fuss, which Amabel had not thought of doing, and that Max had been most frightfully late himself. They had only really found him when they had left the station to come into this hotel she said, and Amabel explained this by claiming that Max had been telephoning her to make haste. If it hadn't been for the fog, she said, tenderly smiling, she might have missed their train. And Angela believed her when she said all she had been was late and at once assumed she had always been coming. Indeed she had come to think this was another thing the others had been keeping from her.
Amabel by now had had enough of Miss Crevy. 'Alex dear,' she called out, 'come and talk to me. It's so lovely to see you and I did get into such a state when I thought I was going to miss you. I was so very late.' He said again he was so glad to see her, and he was glad, but he could not think what it meant her being here and was placidly apprehensive.
'My dear,' Amabel went on at him, 'I wonder if you would ring down and order me a bath.'
