“You’re right,” cried Jonathan brightly, smiling at her.
“The whole thing frightens me, how many things do I completely misunderstand then? Imagine that I had come to England to find that out!”
“That’s the way we’re educated,” Jonathan said. “So you thought you were moral and you find you’re immoral!” He laughed. “How far does that go?”
“Pretty far, I expect.”
“Yes.” After a silence, he forced himself again. “We don’t know ourselves.” A silence. “Is it worth while finding out?” A silence. “Eh?” said Johnny.
“Of course.”
“Is it worth while going to the end of the night, digging in deep and finding what we really mean, our needs?”
“What is worth more?”
“And so you are getting to know yourself?” Johnny said and to Teresa he appeared to be shifting ground. She said listlessly: “Yes.”
“Know thyself, a difficult injunction. We don’t like what we find.”
“I do,” she said.
“Yes? And what do you find?”
“Don’t ask me, you don’t want to hear that, Johnny. I’m going to write a book about Miss Haviland.”
He was full of pleased surprise. He challenged her. Why Miss Haviland, why this, why that? Wasn’t she letting unnecessary sympathy run away with her? Miss Haviland had wanted an academic standing, she had it. Wasn’t she a drybones? Imagine that for an ideal! When he heard she had her various sheepskins up, framed, in her study, he was through with her. Fancy bits of papers, signatures of pedagogues meaning so much to her. He had always thought she had more in her than that, but when she told him, almost with tears in her eyes, that these meant so much to her, he was finished with Miss Haviland. “Ridiculous old dowd,” said Jonathan. “Isn’t that a schoolteacher for you?” Teresa said she was a sheep-shearer’s daughter, cooking for twelve men when she was just a child. She had studied at night, with the insects crowding the kerosene lamp. She came to the university twelve years late. Desert suns, privations, her force of character and application, also, had taken away all her femining charm, she had no money for clothes. “I never knew,” said Jonathan. He was silent for a moment. “But what is there to write about in that. It was ridiculous, wasn’t it?”
“What she might have been if she had had a chance!”
“The might-have-beens—that is romance, you know. I worked with her for years, she had a second-rate brain. What had she? I’m afraid I don’t subscribe to the mute inglorious Milton theory. It’s easy to build on a negative, nothing contradicts you.” He rolled in his chair, laughing. “I remember her, her hats—the men used to wait to see them! And you and she became great friends,” he said condescendingly.
“She had to sew them herself.”
“Is a person a hero to you just because he is a sort of failure?”
He laughed, got up and went to his bookcase, picked up a book, looked at her over his shoulder and came back with bright eyes. “That reminds me, she wrote me a letter about two years ago, telling me about our mutual friends.”
“Yes.”
He put his hand on the back of his chair and stood looking at her. He said whimsically: “She seemed to have some idea that you were coming over here for me.”
Teresa looked at him proudly. Jonathan knelt down on the rug and bent over the teapot, on the gas-ring near him. “I’d like to know how she got that idea,” said Jonathan.
“She was very fond of me.”
“You told her you were coming over for me?”
“I dare say she knew.”
He had not lighted the gas. He raised his eyes, sat up, keeping his eyes fixed on her. “Did you tell her we were going to get married?”
She flushed, got up, looked down at him. “You know I didn’t. How could I?”
“Someone got the idea,” he said in a hard tone.
She was silent.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” his tone was softer. “Only I’m not going to marry and I don’t want anyone to get the idea that I am.” She went to the window. She heard him laugh, he rattled something and came after her. He stuck his prominent chin over her shoulder; still flushed, she flinched and looked round angrily at him. He smiled at her. “Don’t be silly,” he said. “I know you always knew I wouldn’t marry. I didn’t mean it was you.”
“All right. I didn’t.”
He laughed outright. “Well, what harm, if you never did?” he asked merrily. “Well, that’s that, let bygones be bygones.” He went briskly to the kettle and lit the gas. “Did you see that new book of Lemski’s? I got it hot from the press. We had bets as to who’d get a copy first. I know a girl in a bookshop off Kingsway who promised it to me, she got it two nights before it was published from some reviewer and she slipped it to me. I hurried to the Union the next day, waving it at them. They were all furious. Chambers, that’s the fellow I want you to meet, a big hulking pug, with specs, he only keeps out of the ring on account of his eyes, Chambers swore he’d been sleeping with a prof’s wife, to get it first—generally does get them first. I wonder if there’s anything in that tale? What do you think, eh? I told them I got it off a woman, anyway! But I wouldn’t give her address. Anyhow, next day Chambers beat me to it, for he had a copy of Banquet’s review, Banquet’s the prof who does the reviewing, and he had an opinion all complete. I had only swallowed four chapters!” He laughed heartily. “I didn’t even kiss the girl in the bookshop.” He turned round to her, very merry. “But I dare say I will have to next time.” He grimaced. “She has glasses, too bad, but I’ve got to keep up her interest. They’ll trail me one of these days and my influence will be gone. For if any of those fellows offered to sleep with her, my brief day would be over. I don’t think it’s ever happened to her yet. In fact I’m sure. She was telling me, with bated breath, a mystery story of some man that followed her home. I bet she looks under the bed at night, fearing yet hoping.” He got up, dusted his knees and flung himself in his chair. “Sit down, Tess, why don’t you?”
“Shall I make the tea?”
“No,” he said firmly. “I’ll make the tea.”
“Let me.”
He frowned. “Stay where you are.”
She looked at him with frightened eyes. He smiled reluctantly. “There you go, with your womanism.”
She sat still while he made the tea, arranged the cups, and poured it out. He pushed the milk and sugar over to her. “Help yourself.”
“You don’t understand,” she said in a troubled voice, “that I used to wait at table at home, on the boys and father, I mean.”
“You won’t wait on me.”
She drank some tea. He said sentimentally: “Mum ate every meal of her life on her feet, I believe, looking after us boys and Dad. Sometimes, when we were alone, she sat down, but that was because I was her Benjamin and she felt she didn’t have to put on swank with me.” He laughed and poured himself some more tea. “We had oilcloth on the table,” he continued, “and why not? Table-cloths mean laundry, meaning some servant or extra work for the woman.”
“I wouldn’t mind that extra work.”
“The woman clings to conspicuous waste,” said Jonathan, “because it has become unconsciously associated with servants, a fine house and all that trumpery, in other words, with ladyhood.” He continued good-humouredly: “That’s another of your illusions, you see, that you ought to get rid of.”
She laughed. “But I won’t.” She got up for another cup of tea and he let her get it. He told her about Gene Burt and his wife, about the bad plumbing in his present house, not yet fixed up, and about an admirable woman on the top floor who lived there with a man without being married; both put their names on the bell on the front door. He asked her if, since she was going to write a book about a woman’s life, she had read Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. She had never heard either name. “You must,” said he. “There’s a woman there who lives with a man for years without being married.”
&n
bsp; “Sister Carrie? All right.”
“Gee, I admire women who have the courage of their convictions and live freely with men,” he proceeded.
She was silent, considering this state of affairs with fright. How did you go about it? What propositions were mutually made? She imagined them all as beautiful, lusty women with strong limbs and money of their own; handsome, tanned, rowdy women, full of words and arts.
“I’ve heard of women who proposed to men, told them they loved them or wanted them, or whatever it was,” said Johnny.
“Do they here?”
He said loftily: “They’re more advanced here. Could you?” he inquired, seeing her pause.
“Certainly!” Suddenly, her convictions, the force of her youth came back. “I always said I would. I’m free.”
“And did you ever?” he inquired with a crafty smile.
“Not yet. But I would.”
“Good on you,” he said. He got up indifferently and took the things off the table, to put them on a tray at the far end of the room.
She said: “We love like men. But men don’t like it. You see, they’re backward too.”
He carped, from the end of the room: “So you only don’t do it because you’re afraid to lose the men, eh, is that it?” He came back, smiling. “You see, you are yourselves responsible for the kind of lives you lead, you’d rather be an old maid than be frank about your feelings.”
She was so startled that she got up. “That’s quite untrue. I’m frank about mine.” She looked straight at him, full of her integrity.
He smiled to himself, put his hand on the back of his chair and slid into it, one leg over the arm. He continued: “I saw Miss Hamilton, that’s the girl who lives with the man, on the stairs yesterday morning. She’s a fine-looking girl, clever, well-dressed, very much the girl about town, she said hullo to me. She evidently feels nothing about her position. To me, she’s the modern woman, she’s what women ought to be.”
Teresa imagined that he was falling in love with Miss Hamilton. She lowered her gaze and sat down, defeated. Jonathan said softly: “I was thinking it all over, and I thought that perhaps you ought to come and see me on regular nights, say two nights a week, Tuesday and Friday, could you do that?”
She muttered: “I suppose so.”
“It wouldn’t be too much for you?”
“Oh, no, it’s too little.”
“It wouldn’t be too much for you?”
She looked up.
“To see me on that basis?”
“No,” she said mournfully.
“The other nights I have friends who drop in, classes and so forth, and I thought that instead of writing each time, it would make it easier if we had this understanding, just to meet twice a week.”
“It would make it easier for me, Johnny, till I get used to not seeing you. It was a bid of a shock to me—”
“What was?” He asked it with interest but cautiously. “You know.”
“I don’t know,” he wagged his head innocently.
She said no more.
“What was?” he repeated.
“Well, you know, I thought you did say something about—for instance, we were to go walking in Wales. Now we’re not.”
“No.” He frowned.
It was getting darker. She could see the white patches of his clothing and hands and face; to him, she was a dark shape against the fading window.
“That’s all off?”
“That’s all off.”
She said softly: “Can’t you get someone to go with you?”
“No.” He was sullen and she was afraid of him.
She continued: “I thought we were going at one time; when I came here and found things were different, it was a surprise.”
“Yes, things are different.”
Their faces and forms, so new to each other, at their present age, were getting darker and softer and of grander proportions.
“This is what I meant, it would help me until I begin to look elsewhere for friends, for of course I will find other friends.”
“You have already,” he said harshly.
“Who? Oh, Francine.” She laughed. “Yes, she is charming, pretty, friendly.”
“I should like to meet her.”
“If you like.”
“Will you bring her over?”
“Yes, any time she can come.”
“I’d like to see her,” he said softly with a strange tone and motion that suggested the licking of his chops.
“You’d like her,” cried Teresa. “She’s pretty, dainty.”
“The proof of the pudding is in the eating,” said Jonathan, laughing and stirring in the dark. “Bring her over and I’ll see.”
She ran on, spilling all she knew about Francine. She had been brought over by a merchant, on the promise of a big salary and week-ends in his house in the country with his sister. He engaged a state-room for her on the Channel steamer. Teresa guessed that they had made love together. Francine said: “When I got here, no more mention of the week-ends, except that he said once his sister was a curious woman, changeable, and that she was in a bad temper.” Teresa concluded, “I am sure it is not his sister.”
Jonathan was silent for some time and then murmured: “Yes, you do that. You come every Tuesday and Friday at eight-thirty and bring your friend, if you want to—only let me know.”
“I’d better go,” said Teresa.
“No, no, stay. I’m lonely, no one’s coming this evening. But I’d better put the light on for I believe the maid hangs round here sometimes, rubbernecking.”
“Do you really think so, after you were so kind to her?”
She heard him laugh as he stood up to reach the light, then he said suddenly: “Listen, there she is!”
“The maid?”
“Miss Hamilton, I know her step already,” he said eagerly. “That’s the sort of woman you ought to know. Wouldn’t you like to?”
She thought of the woman with fear, brilliant, young, well-dressed. “She doesn’t want me,” she said. “Who am I?”
He shrank into himself. “There you are,” he muttered, “you’re a masochist, like with the D.T. girl on the boat, sacrificing yourself, retiring. What about Nietzsche?”
“It was well for Nietzsche—he had aunts to support him, later he was a university teacher, he did not really have to work.”
“Like me,” he said violently. “I am supported and it’s going to be for all my life, if I can.”
“Why, Jonathan? Why don’t you try to get out of it?”
“I have no ability. I belong in the belly of the bell-shaped curve.”
“Who’s the masochist?”
“I’m not a masochist, I’m a—” He clenched his fists together and looked darkly at her.
“A what?”
“A sadist, I suppose.” He hunched into himself hopelessly.
She gave a long clear laugh. “Oh, Johnny, why you—you’re an angel, it’s only the really good people who have such remorse of conscience as you have.” She laughed again. “Why, what you have done for everyone—for Gene, you told me, for Lucy, you fixed up the house for Mrs Bagshawe, you said, you got Burton out of jail, you are so good to me—it’s ridiculous!”
His face had cleared, he lifted his head and looked at her pleasantly, but muttered: “You don’t know me.”
She said tenderly: “I don’t know you? Then who does?”
“No,” he said, melancholy. “You don’t know me. I don’t know myself. But I am a sadist and why not—” he lifted his head, challenging, “—why not try anything once? That’s my motto. I was one of those kids who pick wings off flies and tie tin cans to dogs’ tails.”
“Boys do.”
“Boys—all boys and all men—are sadists. Women offer themselves as victims, it’s the sexual difference. Sex makes us suffer and men don’t like to suffer, so we pick the wings off flies.”
She laughed at him.
“It’s a kind of sexual satisfaction
,” said Johnny, in a low tone, “when you can’t get any other.”
She looked at him. Jonathan continued: “If they deny me one, because I won’t marry, won’t I try all the others?”
After a silence, he continued, looking down: “The brutality of the success system! I’m bred and broken to it and I can’t get out of it. No one knows how we feel. I’m haunted all the time by this need. How would you like it, never to have loved at all?”
She stared at him.
“Never to have loved once.” He came up close and stared down at her. “To be tormented by thirst—lust, that is—all the time? That’s something you don’t understand.”
After her silence, he plunged his hands in his pockets and turned away. “I suppose I have got to suffer. Who will release me? They won’t acknowledge the facts.” He lounged against the bookcase, hands in pockets, repeating the same thing in different words, over and over again. When she was completely broken, helpless, and silent, he said: “Well, I suppose you’d better go now.”
“Yes,” said Teresa. She picked up her things and went out to the door with him; he did not touch her but stood back and as he was closing the door, said: “Well, remember Tuesday, eight-thirty.”
“Yes,” she said obediently.
The door closed. She walked three times up and down the street, in the dark, half-inclined to go back and comfort him in some way—but what way, indeed? Then she turned home, wretched, and as desperately in love with him as ever before. She knew she was taken again, she had nothing to do but work her way out another way, slowly to die, eventually to get away from his mortal fascination. In the meantime, she needed him to keep alive, and she must keep alive to die.
30
James Quick Lived in a Flat in Mayfair
James Quick lived in a flat in Mayfair which he had rent free for a particular reason. He was alone in London, had made few friends, and so he walked home each night from the city, and each night by a different way, stopping at small eating-houses, if it was before closing time at seven, and going to larger and more fashionable ones if he was hungry after seven. He was abstemious by habit, neither drinking, eating, nor loving much.
For Love Alone Page 42
