by Francis King
She resented the money he spent on books, excursions to the country, the hire of a yacht. All these things she regarded as hostile to her. They drained his time and his energies when she should have them exclusively. They were almost as hateful as those other enemies—his friends.
Once, coming home from a day in the New Forest, he thought she greeted him with undue effusiveness. Yet somehow she seemed constrained, triumphant. "Let’s have some wine," she said at dinner: and later, in their room, she began to whirl round and round in a waltz, her skirt swinging outwards, the colour mounting to her cheeks. Then she collapsed on to the bed, dizzy, laughing, coughing.
Suddenly and for no reason he felt angry with her. He had to repress the desire to strike her face. "I’m going to bed now," he said, and went into the dressing-room.
Then he saw what had happened.
"Where is that book?" he demanded.
"What book, dear?"
"The book that was by my bed."
"I don’t know what you are talking about."
"You know perfectly well. The one that arrived this morning. S. N. George’s new book."
"No, really, dearest—"
"Don’t lie to me!" In a sudden rage he caught one of her wrists and twisted it. "Where is that book? What have you done to it?"
She moaned, struggled; tears ran down her cheeks. "Let go! You’re hurting! Let go!"
"Where is that book?" he repeated, suddenly seeing the whole scene in the mirror above the mantelpiece and feeling ashamed of himself. But he still gripped her wrist, still shook her.
"I burned it."
"Burned it!"
"Oh, darling, it was horrible. I couldn’t bear to have it lying in our rooms. I didn’t want you to read it. I picked it up quite by chance, you see. And then ... You do understand, don’t you? You’re not cross with me?"
He looked at her in incredulity. "Horrible? What do you mean? What’s wrong with the book?"
"That first poem ... It was all that I read. It was—‘On the Statue of a Greek Boy’—or something like that. I—I didn’t know that men thought such things. It frightened me." She rested her head in his lap, where he had sunk on to the bed, the warm tears splashing his hands.
He could not help being tender towards her: "There’s nothing to be frightened of—nothing to upset you. You see, S. N. G. was trying to recapture the spirit of a Greek sculptor—and he must have felt rather like that. The Greeks thought differently from us, that’s all. It’s not a matter of right or wrong... Théocritus, Virgil—" How could he go on? He knew he could never explain to her. Gently, but resolutely, he freed himself from her grasp.
But: "Yes. Yes, I see," she said, seeing nothing, seeing only his anger. "You must forgive me then. I—I know so very little, I suppose. I mean, Mumsie—I never realised that people could feel that sort of thing. It still seems queer to me. I can’t help it... If it had been anyone but S. N. George—" She broke off, her eyes fell to the carpet. With one finger she began to trace the acanthus pattern on the eiderdown.
"What do you mean?" Again fury made him breathless.
"Well, dear—it’s only—to be frank with you—I’ve never liked him. He’s very kind, of course," she added hastily, "and he must be frightfully clever. But sometimes I’m afraid—of his influence—on you..."
"On me! Are you mad, Lucy? What sort of influence can poor S. N. G.—"
"Oh, not him only!" Suddenly eloquent, she rose to her feet and began pacing the room, clasping and unclasping her hands, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "It’s all your artistic friends. They frighten me. I don’t understand them, I suppose. But they seem evil, somehow—somehow unhealthy. And when you’re with them, dear, you change, you know. Oh, yes, you’re different, dear—quite different. It’s your whole attitude. As if you were two people—my Hugh, and their Hugh... I don’t think you really belong to them. They’re unlike us. They don’t believe in the same things as we do. It’s silly to try and imitate them, merely because they are clever—"
"Be quiet!” he shouted at her. "Your insane drivel will drive me out of my head. Be quiet—do you hear!"
She clutched the mantelpiece, her lips white. "Darling! You’ve never spoken like that before. We’ve quarrelled, yes... But you’ve never—"
"So you resent my friends. So that’s it, is it? So you want to condemn me to the imbecilities of Mrs. Meakins and Colonel Hale, and the rest of them—for life. So you want to have me to yourself, away from whatever is real and valuable—"
"No, no, dear! No no! You’ve misunderstood me! How can you be so cruel! I like so many of your friends—so many of them." Piteously, she sobbed on the bed, choking, face downwards, nails scratching on the pillow. He could not help feeling compassionate towards her. "Be kind to me, dearest. Try to understand. I know I’m not very clever..." Then through paroxysms of weeping again came the words: "It’s—just—your—artistic friends..."
Faced with such anguished stupidity what could he do but go out?
There was a reconciliation, of course, with them both clasped in each other’s arms, naked, before the gas-fire in their hotel bedroom. Not very romantic. Not even comfortable. Or so Hugh thought, one side scorched, one frozen. But Lucy said: "I’ve never been so divinely happy, dear—unless we count that time in the jungle—the first time." And Hugh meditated, wondering why the thing they had attained in the discomfort of noonday, with the heat and the flies and the danger of being seen, should no longer be attainable in Miss Acre’s pension, Bournemouth, before a gas-fire. It was, he decided, not solely a matter of place.
The next day they were quarrelling once more—over something so trivial—so unimportant. Perhaps this is the way to quarrel. Perhaps this is the art of quarrelling. To quarrel over nothing.
When they came in from a ‘stroll’ along the front—they called it a stroll though Hugh was always inclined to turn it into a scamper—Lucy, as usual, went up to the reception desk, where Miss Acre presided behind a telephone, an inkstand, and a carafe of water, and asked if there were any letters.
"Oh, three for me!" she said proudly, triumphantly, as Miss Acre handed them to her. "Three! How lovely!"
Hugh was looking over her shoulder. " But, dearest—two are addressed to me. That only leaves one."
He said this laughingly. But Lucy flushed, threw down the letters, and ran upstairs, as though he had offended her for ever. Miss Acre and such of the residents as were in the lounge exchanged delighted and scandalised glances.
Hugh followed Lucy slowly, determined that there should be no scenes, above all no tears. But she was already weeping on the couch where they had staged their reconciliation three nights ago.
"What is the matter?" he asked coldly.
"You know p-p-p-perfectly well!"
"No, really, I don’t."
She sat up, suddenly, abruptly, her face red and ugly with grief. "Was it necessary to humiliate me in front of Miss Acre and all those people?" she snapped.
"But, Lucy, dear—" He tried to lodge himself beside her on the sofa, failed, and instead stroked her hair.
"Don’t touch me!" she screamed piercingly. "Leave me alone! Don’t touch me!"
"Lucy, dearest—do pull yourself together. You’re behaving like a child."
"Beast, beast! I hate you, I hate you!" Out into the passage she rushed, down the stairs, into the street. "I’ll never come back! Never, never, never!"
More glances, eyebrows raised, Miss Acre, overcome, sipping water from the carafe—Hugh perceived all this as he ran after her.
"Come home, Lucy!" he shouted breathlessly as they dodged between the traffic. "Don’t make such a fool of yourself."
"Never! I’ll never come home! I don’t want to see you again." At that moment she almost tripped against the pavement: if she had, the whole scene would have ended in farce. But somehow she regained her balance and scurried on. "Go away!" she yelled.
/> "Certainly not. When you’re in this state—it would be unsafe—"
"Go away! I’ll call a policeman! I warn you! Go away!"
How people stared! The excitement! Later, it was said that one old woman had thrown a fit in her bath-chair. But as she had been throwing fits for an odd sixty years there was nothing remarkable in that. What was remarkable was the stir, the bustle, the end to lethargy. Livers ceased to be sluggish, attendants trundled their bath-chairs as though they were wheel-barrows.
"Lucy—what are you going to do?"
"That’s my business. Go away!"
"Where are you going?"
"Go away!"
"If you don’t answer, I shall have to follow you. Can’t you see what a fool—?"
"That’s right! That’s all you think of—your precious dignity!"
"But, Lucy, what are you going to do?"
"If you must know—if it’ll get rid of you—I—I—I’m going to kill myself." Again she began weeping, a handkerchief pressed to her mouth.
"No, Lucy. Don’t do that... Lucy, listen to me! I love you, dearest. I love you! Why should you want to kill yourself?" But already they were nearing the cliffs and Lucy was walking resolutely towards them.
Then, in sudden exasperation, he caught her by the shoulders, turned her round, and slapped her face, hard, three or four times. "You little fool," he said. "For heaven’s sake pull yourself together. Everyone’s staring at you."
At first she went rigid with rage. Then: "Darling! Oh, darling!" She was in his arms, kissing him, stroking his hair. "I thought I’d lost you. But that was you—the old you. So you do care. You do care! ... Hit me again, darling."
But he only gaped at her in amazement.
Soon after this Tiger, Lucy’s Tiggs or Tiggo, joined them on their strolls, their excursions, their meals. Apart from two dark stripes on an otherwise weak-whisky coat he was not in the least like a tiger. Lucy was nearer the mark when she called him a lamb. He was woolly, and skittish, and silly.
Impossible to forget the day when they bought him. For on that day Hugh had experienced something, a vision one might have called it; but a vision must be decisive, and this decided nothing; it only made conflicts, posed questions showed a diversity of ways.
He and Lucy had driven into Southampton, bickering aimlessly, without passion; and as they drove he had suddenly felt the complete emptiness, the triviality of all they did. It was as if a light had been blown out by the wind, leaving everything dark. And he found, most terrible of all, that he no longer cared if the light was out. He simply did not care.
That was the beginning.
Then, driving past the docks, he had suddenly seen the big ships, smelled salt and tar and the less pleasant smells; and for no reason, he had drawn up, there, in the middle of it all, with Lucy protesting and threatening to get out and walk.
Climbing out of the car and leaving her he walked to the edge, his hat in his hand. It was then that the thing happened. It began with a ship’s siren which reverberated, plangently, like a gong, across and across and across the bay. And for no reason a great longing filled him, a great ache, which seemed to drain him of all strength and strike upwards as if it would smash through the bones of his chest. What he saw then could never he described: perhaps he saw nothing. Perhaps all that he experienced was a special miracle of light, a special absence of all sound. But afterwards he knew that he associated with that moment islands, tropical birds, women singing, the touch and scent of enormous blooms. Happiness would be too commonplace a word for it: and besides, this was an anguish.
And somehow Andrée was a part of all these visionary splendours, no longer a child, naïvely voluptuous in a white cotton dress, but a figurehead, carved by the wind, a figurehead on a ship with sails. And the crooked was made straight, and rough places were made plain... For that second only. Afterwards everything tumbled into chaos again; and two drunken sailors lurched against him; and Lucy called out from the car petulantly: "Oh, do hurry, dear. Do hurry. I’m getting so hungry."
And that was that.
Lucy appeased her hunger on scones and cakes and ice-cream at a café in the New Forest. It was then that Tiger, Tiggs, Tiggo was found.
As they ate, this dog, half puppy, ceased to scratch itself and came and watched them. Saliva trickled from its mouth. Then, all at once, it had jumped on to the flowered silk of Lucy’s frock and was reaching for the scone that she held in one hand. Its eyes were small and avaricious, its tongue was red.
"Darling!" Lucy exclaimed, suddenly forgetting to look peeved, and twisting her finger in its woolly coat. "Oh, look! He’s like a tiger. And he loves me... Don’t you, darling? You love little Lucy." (The inference being that Hugh did not.) Turning, she said: "I must have him, Hugh."
"Have him? What on earth do you mean?"
She touched his sleeve decisively. "Buy him for me."
"But, my dear Lucy—he’s not for sale. I really can’t—"
"Buy him for me."
So Tiger, the mongrel, was bought for a five-pound note.
He became Lucy’s ally, brushed, overfed, the fleas evicted. When she and Hugh quarrelled she had a way of talking to the dog which infuriated him: "I’m sorry, Mr. Tiggs. No walk along the front this morning, ’cos Master’s very, very cross—very, very cross. No walk for poor little Tiggsie-Wiggsie. No walk for poor little Lucy. No walk. Master’s cross, that’s why." And Tiggs would wag his tail.
When she wept on the couch she would embrace the animal, murmuring: "No one loves little Lucy. No one loves her any, any more. But Tiggsie does. You do love me, don’t you, Tiggsie? You’ll never leave me? You’ll never leave poor little Lucy?"
"Oh, for God’s sake shut up!" Hugh would bawl at her, exasperated, losing his temper as she hoped he would. " I can’t bear this sentimental drivel."
But: "Oh—oh—oh! Tiggsie, did you hear that? Did you hear Master shouting?" was the only response.
She certainly loved the dog, with the animal-love of those who have failed in human relationships. But given this love how could one explain the scene that he witnessed one afternoon, by accident? Lucy was sitting on the tennis lawn of the hotel with Tiggs, while he was upstairs writing letters. Suddenly bored he looked out of the window. Someone had taken down the tennis net, and Lucy knelt by it, where it lay in a heap, and played with Tiggs. Over and over she rolled him, patting his distended stomach, pulling his ears. Hugh thought it rather a delightful picture, with Lucy in a green cotton dress, her hair piled on to her head. Then, still playfully, she pulled a bit of the net over Tiggs: Tiggs struggled, collapsed. More of the net. And again more. Tiggs was being wrapped round and round like a cocoon, entangled, fighting, catching his ears and nose and tail in the meshes. Then, when he began to squeal, she watched him for a while, smiling. Finally she left him, going into the house.
Hugh met her on the stairs. "Tiggs is squealing," he said.
"Is he? I wonder why. I’ve only just left him."
She followed Hugh out on to the lawn. Then, with a sudden cry, as though it was only now that she saw it, she ran forward: "Oh, poor Mr. Tiggs! He must have been having a roll—and now look! Help me, dear... Oh, the poor darling! His paw’s caught. He might have been suffocated." Tears glistened in her eyes.
Kneeling down together, side by side, they began to undo the net. Hugh did not tell her what he had seen.
A week later old Sir Humbert died while playing croquet in the grounds of his Hampshire house. His death was said to be caused by excitement at the possibility of beating his neighbour, the colonel. At any rate, Hugh and Lucy arrived to a hushed house, the blinds drawn, the housekeeper in tears. The croquet mallets and balls still lay out on the lawn, unheeded.
After they had seen the body Lucy and Hugh went into the drawing-room and sat down, beneath sabres, tusks, skins. They shivered; there was no fire.
"Darling—I’m terribly sorry," Lucy sai
d. "Were you awfully fond of him?"
He nodded mutely.
"I know how I should feel if Mumsie, or Papa ... Oh, I do hate death. It terrifies me." She came across to him and caressed his face. "Poor darling! Poor, poor darling!"
At that moment the family solicitor was announced. He stumbled into the room, blindly, peering from the back of gold-rimmed spectacles, his face greenish. He had known the family for years, for years and years. "Oh, dear," he began in a voice that was pitched oddly high. "Oh dear, oh dear! I can’t believe it... So sudden. No warning... Only the other day—the Hunt Ball... Oh, Mr. Hugh!"
"Sir Hugh," interjected Lucy emphatically.
And a few days later, back in Bournemouth, she suddenly said: "I suppose we could go abroad now."
"Abroad? ... Oh—yes. I suppose we could."
"Oh, let’s! Oh, do let’s!" She clapped her hands with excitement.
So before moving into the house they went to Switzerland—on the legacy.
Then the war. Strange that what was for others disruptive, explosive, unsettling, should be the means by which these two resolved conflicts, found satisfaction, found peace. On his leaves they no longer quarrelled. They were passionate once more—in taxis, on walks, even in a box at the theatre. And Hugh begot a son, Dennis, who was strong, and tough, and quick tempered. And at the age of two the boy threw a brick at Lucy and cut her cheek. And Hugh thrashed him.
Lucy had turned the house in Hampshire into a convalescent home: while Hugh won distinction in the Balkans and later in France. For both of them these were full, satisfying years. It was as if a tree that had seemed withered had suddenly showered fruit into their laps.
Mrs. Meakins said that Lucy was wonderful, quite wonderful with the patients. She often attended operations; she bandaged and washed them; she wrote their letters home. Some deep-seated craving had at last been satisfied. Power, perhaps. Pity, perhaps. Perhaps something far more subtle and dangerous.
