A Modern Tragedy

by Phyllis Bentley

  “How did you enjoy the ceremony?” demanded Elaine playfully, and Anstey in his cheerful drawl replied: “I thought you were going to shy at the fence, my dear.” Elaine gave her high soft laugh, but he had found a chink in her armour; had people noticed, then? Was her wedding not a brilliant success after all? “I thought you were going to funk it and do a bolt,” pursued Anstey, laughing. With her usual attempt to forestall the criticism she dreaded by outdoing it herself, Elaine cried quickly:

  “My dear, I nearly did! If it hadn’t been for my train I should have fled in terror from the scene! But it was too heavy to pick up and run away with over my arm,” she concluded with a childlike complacency, glancing down at the rich gleaming folds about her feet.

  “Well, that’s a good tip, eh, Walter? When I’m married I shall have two or three pound weights stitched into my bride’s train,” said Anstey, moving on, well satisfied with the way he had carried the thing off.

  “Yes—you might bribe one of the bridesmaids to do the deed,” Walter called after him in a lively tone. His smile was rather strained, however. The jest was too near the truth for his liking, it reminded him of the wretchedness he had felt when Elaine met him at the altar with that angry doubtful little face, it reminded him—as if he needed to be reminded—that he was never sure of Elaine. For a moment his bridegroom’s mask slipped, and showed the hungry lovesick boy beneath.

  Rosamond, who was standing near by, winced for him. “The prominent beauty,” she thought, “with the secret sting—what is that passage out of Luria?” She groped in her mind and found the words:

  We have creatures there, which if you saw

  The first time, you would doubtless marvel at,

  For their surpassing beauty, craft, and strength.

  And though it were a lively moment’s shock

  Wherein you found the purpose of those tongues

  That seemed innocuous in their lambent play,

  Yet, once made know such grace required such guard,

  Your reason soon would acquiesce, I think,

  In the wisdom which made all things for the best—

  “Would it!” commented Rosamond cynically.

  So, take them good with ill, contentedly,

  The prominent beauty with the secret sting.

  “It’s all true of her, all true!” thought Rosamond with bitterness.

  She became aware that in her preoccupation she was staring straight into the eyes of Leonard Tasker, and that his opinion of Elaine, although he was probably not thinking it in terms of Browning, coincided exactly with her own.

  Rosamond coloured and looked down; then she rebuked herself for such childishness, raised her head and held it steadfastly high.

  In the course of her excursions with Walter during the period of his engagement, Rosamond had necessarily encountered Tasker on various occasions—called for Walter at Heights and found him there, met Walter in a restaurant and seen them parting—and she knew that she was still as infatuated with him as her brother was with Elaine. She tried, not to repress her feeling and pretend it didn’t exist, for that she thought dangerous, but to expose it to the withering light of her own caustic criticism; she tried by analysis to convince herself of the unworthy elements of which it was composed. “Ah, you’re like all virgins who live quiet lives in unmitigatedly female society,” she would admonish herself sardonically: “They always adore the conquering rogue. I suppose they want a man who isn’t afraid of anything, who isn’t timid with anything, so that he won’t be timid with them. They long to be seduced, possessed, by someone with complete assurance; and you, my dear, are just the same. You don’t want a good man, hedged about with all the inhibitions of decency and honest respect; you want someone who takes what he likes, ruthlessly and without hesitation, so that your hesitations may be overborne. To yield would go counter to your puritanic inhibitions, so you must be conquered, forced. You fancy the Rochester type, don’t you? With Leonard Tasker playing Rochester, and yourself in the part of Jane Eyre? And yet you call yourself an intelligent woman, and think yourself a credit to your day and education!” To all of which the other Rosamond replied: “All that you say is true, but yet I love him; the world is a richer place for me when I am in his presence, and though the base fear you speak of is part of it, I believe there are also noble elements in my love.”

  The stream of guests was still flowing on; Tasker had now shaken hands with Walter and Elaine and stood in front of Rosamond.

  “How is your father, Miss Haigh?” he was enquiring.

  Rosamond was well aware that he didn’t in the least wish to know, and simply spoke conventionally, or perhaps out of that brief moment of sympathy when their eyes flashed a simultaneous message of dislike for Walter’s bride. Yet her whole body flowered because she was near him, so that all the colours and sounds about her struck with heightened intensity upon her perception. She replied quietly that Dyson was much the same; there was little change in his condition from month to month. Yet still Tasker lingered, and Rosamond was happy. Then he said abruptly:

  “I don’t think you’ve met my wife, Miss Haigh. Marian, this is Walter’s sister.”

  Marian, who was standing behind him in a flowered dress and light hat which made her pinched features and wrinkled throat more noticeable, bent forward, smiled sourly and said: “Good afternoon,” in her thin high tones.

  Rosamond had never expected from her love anything so comfortably normal as that Tasker should marry her; nevertheless it was a terrible shock to her, a shock which struck on every nerve a numbing blow, to find that he was already married, already intimately associated with another woman. Walter had never said anything to prepare her for it, she protested to herself in anguish: “he never told me, he never told!” But then Walter, knowing her disapproval of his association with Tasker, never spoke of Tasker at all to her if he could avoid it. Something within Rosamond jeered cynically, in a rough Yorkshire tone: “Well, this caps all!” and something shrank away, crying out its grief, its torment, its despair; she found time to remember a passage in which Hardy remarks that when a woman is lanced by agony she contrives so to cast her actions as only to be considered rather duller than usual, and to admire its truth; then without a perceptible pause after Marian’s greeting, replied to it with a warm smile and a pleasant word, and offered her hand. Only then, when she had proved to her self that her self-control was equal to the occasion, did Rosamond raise her eyes and look in Marian’s face. And at once, in the same instant of time, she felt a pang of grief and a thrill of joy, to find Tasker’s wife so unworthy of his strength and his vitality; “he can’t love her,” panted Rosamond, and part of her spirit leaped, while the nobler part grieved for him and for Marian that it should be so. But it was Rosamond’s habit to try to distinguish between her impulses and choose the nobler to act upon, and when she was uncertain of the nobler, chose what seemed the kinder and hoped for the best; accordingly she at once took a step to Marian’s side, and began to make herself unobstrusively agreeable to her.

  “Have you seen the presents?” she asked in a friendly tone.

  “No, I haven’t,” said Marian on a note of grievance: “I don’t know where they are.”

  “I can show you,” began Rosamond, but Marian interrupted:

  “I’d rather have tea first—or some champagne. I suppose there’ll be champagne. I want to sit down and rest a little, anyhow. Leonard,” she urged fretfully: “Do find us some chairs.” Tasker looked about, and with characteristic efficiency at once secured a waiter; in a moment they were all three sitting at one of the small tables at the side of the tent. “I’m not strong, you know, Miss Haigh,” pursued Marian with peevish emphasis: “I have to rest a great deal.”

  “What bad luck,” said Rosamond pleasantly.

  “It’s my heart,” explained Marian in a tone of awe; and she began a detailed account of her latest symptoms.

  At this point they were called on to drink the bride and bridegroom’s health—
in champagne, as Marian had desired. There followed the usual toasts and speeches; Elaine amid applause cut the wedding cake, and tea was served. Marian demanded anxiously to know who everyone was, and Rosamond supplied the information to the best of her ability, for throughout all the rising and sitting and drinking and clapping, Tasker never said a word to either woman. He did what was required of him, mechanically but without enthusiasm; his blue eyes lacked their usual piercing stare this afternoon, and Rosamond thought he did not make as fine a figure as usual in his morning coat, though it was very correct in style and obviously new. In fact, Tasker was cruelly bored; weddings were not in his line, and tea-drinking with womenfolk even less so; moreover he did not like Elaine, and thought Walter a fool to be so much in love with her—“It’s a pity he and his sister can’t change places,” he thought rather wistfully: “This girl’s got twice the lad’s spirit, but it’s only a nuisance in a woman; and Walter would make a champion girl.” He laughed a little, grimly, at the thought of Walter as a girl, consoled himself with reflecting on the advantages of having Walter married to a Crosland, and surreptitiously looked at his watch to see how much longer of this he had to endure.

  Presently Walter came round, his bride on his arm; the pair were making a tour of all the guests before retiring to change into their travelling clothes. Walter paused very markedly by Tasker, spoke to him warmly and to Marian with great respect, and seemed pleased to see Rosamond in charge of them. Elaine also, acting on her husband’s request, spoke vivaciously to the pair, but she disliked Tasker and thought Marian, of whose existence she, like Rosamond, learned to-day for the first time, a quite impossible person, so her effusiveness was artificial and rang false, and Marian sniffed resentfully when she had passed on.

  “What are they going to do now?” enquired Tasker in a gruff tone, addressing Rosamond directly, for the first time since his introduction of his wife.

  Rosamond felt, as usual, that his eyes seemed to pass over her womanhood, not notice that it was there. She explained the bridal programme, and saw at once that he meant to slip away as soon as he could. “Shall we look at the presents now?” she suggested to Marian, who eagerly agreed, and expressed a wish to see her own gift in the display.

  The three left the marquee, crossed the lawn to the house, and inspected the Taskers’ present—a handsome dinner service, in admirable taste—together; but when Marian was ready to move on, having silently but obviously compared it with all the presents in its vicinity, Tasker had disappeared. “That’s all the use he thinks I am,” mused Rosamond bitterly: “To look after his wife, while he does something more agreeable.” She guided Marian slowly and courteously round all the presents—the glass and cutlery and china, the cheques and the pearls, the cushions and cocktail sets, the tray of Indian brass from the Heights employees, the silver tea-service from Clay Mills—describing their givers, explaining relationships, responding to an odd mixture of superficial confidence and suspicious question, making her companion’s afternoon as pleasant as she could. She learned that the Taskers had no children, that Marian preferred high tea but Leonard wouldn’t have it nowadays, that their chauffeur drove much too fast, that Leonard had often wanted to buy a big place in the country but Marian didn’t see herself living in a dead-alive hole like Clay Green; and was called on to give an account of Dyson’s illness, her elder brother’s death and Walter’s education. She grew intensely weary of her task, yet hardly knew how to abandon it, for it was clear to her that Tasker had left and that Marian had no acquaintance among the guests; and she could hardly be left to sit in the Clay Hall grounds alone, while Rosamond shirked the responsibility of introducing her to any of Walter’s aristocratic new relations. From time to time Rosamond wondered how her mother was faring without her, but she felt she could trust the Croslands to look to that, and indeed presently saw Ralph solemnly handing Mrs. Haigh about the grounds. Marian now expressed a wish to rest again, and Rosamond took her back to the marquee and offered her an ice. When a waiter had served them Marian looked about her sharply, and remarked:

  “It looks to me as though Leonard has gone back to the mill.”

  Rosamond hardly knew what to say to this, so she smiled vaguely, and asked if the ice were to Mrs. Tasker’s taste. Marian replied without enthusiasm that it was very nice, and sat spooning it in silence. Then suddenly she remarked:

  “You earn your own living, don’t you, Miss Haigh?”

  “Yes,” replied Rosamond, rather amused at this way of putting it. She was about to explain the career she followed when Marian went on firmly:

  “You’re a school-teacher.”

  “Yes,” said Rosamond again: “I—”

  “I earned my own living when I was a girl,” pursued Marian. “Before I met Mr. Tasker, you know. I was in a newspaper shop.”

  “Oh?” said Rosamond, genuinely interested in her companion for the first time that afternoon. “And was that interesting work?”

  Marian glared at her and appeared offended. “Interesting?” she repeated, pronouncing the word in the West Riding manner, with the accent on the third syllable.

  “Yes—were the customers—varied, or was it just routine work?” asked Rosamond, avoiding the word “interesting” this time lest she should wound by pronouncing it correctly.

  Marian glared at her again. “It was hard work,” she said in an accusing tone.

  “Why does she tell me this?” thought Rosamond sadly. “She has some grievance, some complex about it; she’s unhappy. She loves her husband and he no longer cares for her, and this shop business is associated with it in some way in her mind.” And suddenly she felt tired to death, heavily laden, borne down to the ground with afflictions, too nearly acquainted with everybody’s griefs. “Why are there so many people unhappy?” she mourned, and thought of Elaine’s anguished little face in church, and Walter’s at the reception, and Marian’s sharp sour look now. No doubt she herself appeared haggard enough, too; she felt as if every fibre of her face had sagged from sheer weariness. Just then Ralph came up, his clear cheeks flushed, his fair hair rather tousled, his grey eyes sparkling; he was enjoying the fun of the wedding to the full. He announced that Walter and Elaine were just about to leave.

  “Everybody’s collecting at the front door,” he said eagerly. “Mrs. Haigh’s there. She sent me to tell you. Have you any confetti?” He opened his hand and showed a long cardboard tube, containing enough of the coloured circles to carpet the whole of Clay Hall. At Rosamond’s negative he appeared shocked. “Oh, but you must have some,” he urged, and offered to pour it into her hand. Rosamond perforce accepted a fistful with a smile.

  “This is Elaine’s brother, Mrs. Tasker,” she said to Marian: “Ralph.”

  “Will you have some confetti, Mrs. Tasker?” said Ralph at once seriously, proffering the tube.

  Rosamond, remembering that the Taskers were childless, was touched to observe how Marian’s face at once softened to a smile. The older woman entered eagerly into conversation with Ralph, calling him by his first name, asking him, as they strolled across the lawn towards the Hall front door, all kinds of questions about his life at school, which Rosamond could see caused Ralph acute embarrassment. The boy was just of an age when he had begun to take social manners seriously, however, and was proud of knowing the right thing to do; he answered all Marian’s questions politely, if with some stumbling and hesitation, and for the first time that afternoon Tasker’s wife appeared pleased.

  They joined the crowd collected on the broad shallow steps, and Ralph politely excused himself and left them, to assist in tying at the back of the waiting car the traditional shoe. Rosamond too was just about to leave Mrs. Tasker and go in search of her brother, when the chatter about them swelled into a roar, and Walter and Elaine appeared in the hall within. There was the usual tumultuous assault upon bride and bridegroom, the usual showers of confetti, the usual lively expressions of good wishes and good will. Rosamond managed to push her way through the crowd, seize Walt
er and hug him heartily; he turned to her and gave her a brotherly kiss in exchange—the look of triumph on his face was unmistakeable; he’s got what he wanted, thought Rosamond, and tried to feel glad for his sake. Elaine, looking dazzingly fair in a neat travelling dress and coat of her favourite dove-like grey, at length emerged from the throng of her friends and reached the Crosland car—Walter’s own new car, in which they were to tour in the Highlands, awaited them a mile down the road. Walter climbed in after her; Mrs. Haigh, assisted to the step by Ralph, gave her son a last convulsive embrace through the window; Mrs. Crosland, gently weeping, cried out inaudible messages of love; Henry Clay Crosland shut the car door with his own hand, said quickly: “God bless you both,” and stood back with his hands to his sides in an attitude of acceptance and resignation; and the married couple drove away to their new life together.

  Contrary to Rosamond’s prognostications and Elaine’s fears, the honeymoon of Walter and Elaine was brilliantly happy, and they looked back on it all their lives gratefully. As if destiny were determined to favour Walter, the price of yarn had risen slightly but steadily throughout that spring up to his wedding-day, and Tasker, Haigh and Co. had paid an agreeable dividend in May (though Walter, busy with wedding preparations, had not gone very deeply into the question of how it had been earned, that was the auditor’s business); so that he felt sure the slump was over, and his future on every count about to be golden, and this gave him confidence, which was half the battle with Elaine. Then, his love for her was true and deep; he was well content to take her for better or worse, and would have been happy in an earthquake with her at his side; and sincerity of that kind shows itself in a thousand ways and carries its own conviction, even to a doubter such as Elaine. But above all it was such a triumph for Walter, over so many material obstacles, to hold Elaine in his arms, that he could not avoid a triumphant, victorious, all-conquering air, and indeed did not try to; his agreeable face sparkled with happiness, he whistled while he dressed and hummed with content when driving; he was so pleased with his own achievement that he didn’t care in the least what waiters or hotel-proprietors or guests or garage-men thought of him, and consequently dealt with them all in just the off-hand, pleasant, careless manner which Elaine considered correct. That she should have the power to confer such happiness was a rapture to Elaine; it convinced her of her real desirability—for Walter, she now felt, was a person whose good opinion was worth having. Everybody they met liked him; his good looks, his kindness and his charm were undeniable, and his rise from that deplorably mediocre household in Moorside Place showed his ability; while now that Walter was her husband, Elaine could no longer feel that he was a mere unimportant boy, for he had the terrible power of conferring or withholding ecstasy. So, if he loved her so much, surely she was intensely lovable. Then too Elaine for the first time in her life was now completely at ease, contented, satisfied; for she had found her art, her true mode of expression; she was doing what she was best fitted for; she had discovered that she had a genius for love. External circumstances favoured the pair; the weather was good, their route admirably planned; Walter drove well, and they had no breakdowns. They returned to their charming house delighted with marriage and with each other.