I said, Ned, I can’t.’
The cabaret had begun. Three American negroes in sailor suits were dancing with a grotesque, compulsive slackness from hip to ankle that made me think of men at the end of ropes dancing on air. Ned ordered some whisky. We could not talk. We were too near the band. The trumpeter was splitting the air in two.
I was glad I had drunk almost nothing. Sobriety gave me confidence. I felt taller, statelier, older. I knew I looked well. Even in these horrible moments—and for all my detachment I knew that, looking back upon them later, I should find them horrible—I was excited because Ned’s sad, angry eyes admired me.
The negroes danced off. The band broke into a muted tune, catchy and neat. Three girls came on and one of them was Iris. They wore tight black gowns, blacks caps with paradise plumes, white furs. They minced into the middle of the floor, struck attitudes of elegant indecency, and began to sing something about Three little ladies from Leicester Square’.
Iris caught sight of me. I saw it in the slight twitching of her mechanical smile.
Suffering somewhat from wear and tear,’ she sang, having a line to herself. Her little, true voice was thinner than I had remembered it.
‘If those are meant to be whores,’ said Ned, ‘give me the parson’s daughter. God, what muck!’
The middle one’s Iris,’ I said.
Yes, I know. Your famous friend. I don’t forget faces.’ He paused. What do I care, anyway? Damn her eyes.’
He was ugly in his misery now, wanting to hurt me by coarseness, or, for that matter, by any means in the least likely to succeed; but he could not find a means. He was still speaking quietly, and he sat without stirring; yet I felt people were covertly watching us.
Iris paused for a second before our table, winked very slightly at me and sang her final line straight at Ned.
He looked back at her. Any means would do; any chance must be taken. He smiled.
The girls went off, and the star of the evening, a French diseuse, appeared. Ned and I watched her in silence. I had spilled a drop of wine on my dress; I dabbed and rubbed at it with a corner of my handkerchief which I had dipped in the water-jug. I was glad to have something to do.
The first part of the show came to an end. People started to dance.
Ned rose, took my hands in his and made me dance, too. The band was playing the tune he had requested again and again at Richmond, on the night I had disgraced myself, and I resented it because it weakened me. Yet for the moment I was happy simply to dance with him to this sad music, to feel his body supporting my own, to be one with him at this hour of parting. I found myself saying, I do love you, but not in that way. I told you that. You must see it.’
It is only when we are young that we hope to give comfort by this sort of distinction to a lover we no longer desire; yet many years later the same kind of thing was to be said to me, in terms more subtle, by someone far older than I; and I was to know the shame of accepting it and the never-ending regret that I had done so.
Ned said nothing at all.
When we sat down we found Iris at our table. She still wore her stage make-up, but had put on a blue evening dress. She looked self-consciously mischievous; she had the reticent glitter of a handful of diamond chips.
‘Caught you! ‘she said to me. ‘Christie, you’re caught out. Now you’ll have to introduce me to your mysterious Ned, won’t you? Though actually we’ve been introduced before.’
‘Yes, I remember.’ His voice was flat.
‘I didn’t know you were playing here,’ I said.
‘My dear, nor did I till last week! Someone fell out and I fell in. Isn’t the show awful? Such an awful song. And that costume makes me looked like a horse.’ There was something so perennial about Iris that it was rather a comfort, like one’s certainty about the cycle of the months. ‘Didn’t you think I looked like a horse? ‘she demanded of Ned. ‘All dressed up for the circus, with feathers on. All I want is a dear little nosebag.’
She turned on me again. ‘Christie! You pig! You shouldn’t have hidden him away like that. It’s greedy. I adore Christie,’ she went on, giving Ned her simple look; ‘she’s my very best friend.’
I asked her if she came on again later.
‘But thank God, no ! Mille fois non, darling. I’m through for the night. I just rushed into my things to join you for a few minutes.’
Ned asked her if she would have a drink.
‘A wonderful orange-squash,’ said Iris, who never touched alcohol, just to drink to you both. Is it true you’re getting married next week? You unspeakable beast, Christie, not to invite me.’
I said, rather feebly, that we had meant it to be very quiet.
But I can come! Say I can! Neddy—I’m going to call you Neddy—you invite me, and then I can go and sit with the bridegroom’s friends on the right of the aisle, and no one will be able to turn me out.’
He smiled and said nothing.
‘It may have to be put off for a little,’ I said. I explained that there were complications about our new home. Ned went on smiling. I had to remind him to order the orange-squash.
Oh, poor you! But remember, Iris is to come. She has said it.’
To my surprise Ned asked her to dance. I saw her flush, as she always did when greeting the success she felt was her natural right. But we can’t leave poor Christie all alone!’
I said I didn’t mind.
Well, a tiny dance, then.’ Iris rose and gave herself into Ned’s arms with the benevolent air of the chairman of a factory presenting an aged foreman with a marble clock upon the occasion of his retirement. I sat and watched them, feeling nothing but amazement. As they danced she talked, her face brilliant with animation. Ned looked out over her head and appeared to reply only brusquely. She rested her left hand on his upper arm, as her habit was: as if she were too small to reach a man’s shoulder. Once she threw back her head in a fit of laughter, bringing him to a halt. She disengaged her hand from his and waved to me.
When they came back to the table Ned seemed to me whiter than ever, but very cheerful. He was no longer monosyllabic; he teased Iris as if he had known her as long as I had.
I thought how lucky it was that I no longer needed to be jealous. Ned would not care much for her, of course, though she might amuse him. Certainly I doubted whether he had ever seen anyone prettier. Still, it startled me to find him so suddenly at ease.
Christie,’ she said to me, that yellow is your colour, definitely. It makes you look so frail.’
If you mean,’ I said with what I felt was a degree of stateliness, that it makes me look sallow, you may as well say so straight out.’ For I was free of Iris, no longer under her spell, no longer to be loved, cajoled, threatened or deprived by her.
Mee-ow! Oh, puss, puss, puss! Neddy, isn’t Christie too unkind?’
Chris is all right,’ he said. They were staring at each other.
She said, Now what a beautiful flower ! Neddy, you have a most gorgeous flower in your buttonhole. Iris would like it. She presses flowers in a little blotting-book.’
He hesitated.
It was as though the whole focus of that night, that week, of my whole life, had shifted. I was in love. I was in danger. I felt cold and sick.
‘Christie wouldn’t deny her friend a flower,’ Iris said. She touched my hand. ‘Would you?’
‘It’s Ned’s.’
I could hardly speak. It had always been like this. Nothing had changed. There was still the same fret. You let her take everything from you, poor Keith had said.
‘Why on earth do you let her take everything?’
Iris had her finger-tips to the carnation. She looked merry and secretive. As she glanced quickly at me there was real affection in her face, the affection that often spurts up between rivals. Shall I? Or shan’t I
?
‘You may have it if you want it,’ said Ned, but it’s a bit on the faded side.’ He took her hand and held it down, removed the flower himself and put it behind her ear.
‘You perfect sweet!’ she cried. Christie, he is nice. You’re a lucky, lucky girl. You must bring him round to see me—promise!’
I found myself promising. I was near to tears. I was not, as I had thought, grown-up and strong, and I hated her for weakening me. All I wanted was for Ned to take me away.
‘I’m dead tired,’ I said.
He called for the bill. All right.’ He turned to Iris. Can we run you home? I’ve got the car.’
Oh, how lovely! But I can’t. I’ve got to go on to a silly stupid old party, and if I don’t run along now I won’t have time to change my face.’ She gave her high peal of laughter. ‘And it does need changing! I’d like to change it altogether, I swear I would.’
She leaned over to kiss me. Her lips smelt of the violet cachous that she ate, strangely enough, simply because she liked them. And I think he’s a great dear,’ she said, as if we were alone together, and I wish you both oceans of luck, and you’re not to forget your poor old spinster friend who adores you.’ She looked speculatively at Ned. No, I mustn’t kiss you. We’re not sufficiently acquainted.’ She touched his cheek with the carnation he had given her, and scampered away, making diners look after her in admiration and amusement.
Come on,’ Ned said, his cheerfulness gone.
He said, as we drove home, That’s a ridiculous young woman.’
I believed he said it to deceive me. Like the rest of them, he had been instantly charmed by her, charmed away from me. She would even take Ned, whom I had not wanted.
‘I think she is,’ I replied stiffly, but I can hardly expect a man to.’
Ridiculous.’
She’s extremely pretty.’
Chocolate-box type. No character.’
‘You were willing enough to give her that wretched flower.’
‘Elementary politeness.’
Oh, nonsense,’ I said, my heart bursting. I was sure now, for no reason, that they meant to meet again. They had arranged it while they were dancing.
He stopped the car. We were halfway down Grosvenor Place, the leaves from the palace trees rattling above us in a sudden stiff wind. He held out his arms to me, and I put mine around his neck.
Next week,’ he said, as arranged.’
‘Next week.’
It was the first time I had known physical desire so strong. I was invaded by it, and frightened.
It will be all right,’ he told me; we’ll be happy together.’
Of course.’
It’s not been easy for me,’ he said, and, putting me away from him, drove on.
I went to bed in a rapture, a turmoil of thought, that made me think I should not sleep. Yet I slept at once, slept without dreams until six o’clock, when I awoke in the grey room that was hurrying to shrink back into the normal contours of day before I could catch it exposed in the secret transformation of the night. I sat up in bed, sober, fearful, longing for someone to come and talk to me, to reassure me—anyone, even Ned whom I did not want (how could I ever have wanted him?)—because I knew now what Iris had done.
She was the goddess in the machine, the descending mischief—idle, malicious, affectionate, who had taken the matter of my life out of my hands.
She had committed me.
PART THREE
Chapter One
Hatton had warned me that I should not like my presentation gift, but he was wrong. It was a handsome sunray clock, chosen by Mr. Baynard who had remembered me admiring the one in the office more than a year ago. In my already emotional state this evidence of thoughtfulness from an unexpected quarter so touched me that I was hard put to it not to cry. I had never liked the office. Now the time had come for me to leave it I felt I was being torn away from safety and from friends, from the known to the unknown. I stood in Mr. Fawcett’s room, the others grouped around me with their glasses of sherry, and tried to find words that were not lame.
The mood of the ceremony was transformed, however, by the discovery that the clock was far too heavy for me to carry home on the bus. Hatton said he would go with me and lend a hand; Mr. Baynard told him sharply that he couldn’t, because he had to pick up some money from a Mrs. Phipps at Claridge’s and could not be spared. Mr. Fawcett, after suggesting that Miss Cleek should assist me (her eyes filled at this, for she had arranged to meet her very first young man at Ken Wood that afternoon) experimentally raised the clock himself and decided that it was too much even for two girls to carry. So he decided that Hatton must fetch a taxi and put me and the clock into it. ‘I’ll pay for it, of course,’ he added. He looked at his watch. ‘I’ll have to be off now. Goodbye, Miss Jackson, and the best of luck in your future life.’
‘Time and tide wait for no man,’ said Mr. Baynard; ‘and if I dont buck up, too, my wife will have something to say. We’re always punctual in my family.’ He had a parting shot. ‘And the new Junior had better be, too, or I’ll know the reason why.’
He was gone. Mr. Fawcett was gone. Miss Cleek, to whom I was already part of the past, had slipped away to joy.
So there were only Miss Rosoman and Hatton to wave to me as I set off in the taxi, my gift at my side. Somehow it seemed to me unkind that the others should not have waited. This was so important a break in my own life, and there are some importances which are only endurable if veiled with ceremony; but it was important to no one but myself, and I felt lonely and belittled because it was not. I told myself that I should be happy to leave this trudging, unpromising life for the excitements and hopes of marriage; yet as I looked out of the window at Regent Street falling away behind me, at the trees of St. James’s Park swaying in the hot and dusty wind of autumn, at the horsewoman of Constitution Hill looming larger as she rode up the sky, I was inexplicably sad. I took hold of one of the sunrays which was poking through the green baize and held it, as if it were a finger, for comfort.
The last days of my freedom seemed to me now too fast, now too slow. Sometimes I was taken, especially if I woke at the first light, by a panic so energising that I wanted to grasp the intangible hours, and, by checking them minute by minute, force them to go slowly; sometimes I felt the days would never pass. And then, suddenly, the day had come and was speeding by me, inapprehensible, immemorable.
I had come to this marriage, half in doubt, half in the deceitful exhilaration of hope; yet it seems to me now that it is mistaken to describe any wedding at all as ‘memorable’ —at least, for the two persons concerned. They are too busy trying to feel the whole of this climactic experience to feel anything whatsoever; they are beyond observation, except of a kaleidoscopic nature. The most recognisable emotion they are likely to know is that of surprised, astonished disappointment that they are unable to ‘make the most of it’; there is so much to make the most of, and yet somehow the whole essence of the occasion has eluded them, has half-concealed itself between one of the Chinese screens of consciousness and will not be drawn forth. At my own wedding in St. Barnabas’ Church, on a mild yellow day in autumn, I found my attention concentrated upon a single detail; the shoes that had been a present from Caroline, satin shoes that would be no use to me afterwards, a luxury bestowed out of friendship and understanding. They made me love Caroline. I clung for steadiness to the thought of her.
I do not believe I can have looked well. It is another mistake to suppose that a girl looks her best upon her wedding-day. As a rule she does not. She has been too anxious about herself; she looks strained and bewildered. At her dressing-table she has been filled with the gnomic belief that some inspiration will occur to her whereby she can make herself more beautiful than she has ever been before. It does not occur. She labours with her appearance; when she looks in wild hope into the glass
it shows her her everyday face, no better, no worse. Cheated, she rises with something of a swagger; people will have to take her as she is, without the miracle. Added to the lines of strain is the small line of discouraged vanity.
At the reception held in Aunt Emilie’s flat (which seemed to me as crowded as a ballroom) I could feel at first only a hostessly fret about whether everyone had enough to eat and drink. ‘Happy?’ Ned whispered to me. I was not unhappy, certainly. I was simply strange to myself. And yet, as the time went on, I knew, beneath this confusion, the stirring of an excited pride. I was, I told myself, a married woman, not yet twenty years of age. Unworthily, it pleased me that I should have been married before Iris. I wanted to find an opportunity for signing my new name. And once, as Ned looked straight at me in momentary forgetfulness of the others, his face open with love, I was in love also.
It was an afternoon of curious lacunae; I found myself losing little patches of time as one may lose them on a summer afternoon in long grass, between sleeping and waking. Now and then I was puzzled and a little mortified to observe how quickly the conversation passed from Ned and me to general topics: as years later, at the first night of a friend’s play, I was puzzled to find the audience discussing anything but that play during the intervals and even after the fall of the final curtain as they poured out into St. Martin’s Lane.
I heard Ned whisper to me, ‘I think that in just about ten minutes we might make a move.’
I had cut the cake. Mr. Skelton had read aloud a batch of telegrams. Most of them were from Ned’s friends; I had an affectionate, umbrageous one from Iris, reading, ‘All wonderful luck darling from your old absent friend’; and another from Take Plato that the telegraphist had transcribed imperfectly but which should have read, ‘Cras amet qui nunquam amavit.’ This Mr. Skelton did not read, but, with a remark about ‘Double Dutch’, passed it to Ned, who passed it to me. ‘I don’t think Take Plato will be my favourite guest of the future,’ he observed. I was saddened. It seemed unlikely that many of my friends would be likely to rank as such.
An Impossible Marriage Page 19
