He was, obviously, blankly unconscious that he was treating Lambert with quite abominable rudeness and arrogance: his long face remained affable, and very friendly. In his fury Lambert would have slapped it with pleasure. He had a sudden sharp impulse to wipe out both arrogance and affability — so sharp and convulsive that the words were half out of his mouth before he could check them.
‘There’s something I want to…’
‘What were you going to say?’ asked Blount idly.
But why the devil not? he thought, his mind jumping. Who could be a better person to advise us? Gregory’s brother-in-law, after all — and a man whose opinion means something to him. It might save us all a great deal of trouble. As discreet a chap as you could want…. Don’t make too much of it, he warned himself. In an easy good-humoured voice he said,
‘I’d be glad of your advice on a small matter. Well, guidance. We had a young woman turn up here the other day, asking for Gregory. He wasn’t in the office — one of his days at home. I saw her, and she — I won’t make a long story of it — she said that Gregory had picked her up in Nice, slept with her, and got her with child.’ He smiled. ‘She’s certainly with child. She was asking for money, of course.’
Merely to be telling the story, sensibly and competently, as if he were stating a case in a law court, soothed him. He felt that he had everything — and Arthur Blount, too — well in hand.
Blount had listened without any show of emotion, with an air of having removed himself to a distance and to be listening from there. ‘Naturally you told Gregory?’
‘Of course.’
Blount raised his hand to cover a trace of a yawn. ‘Well?’
‘Oh, he said she was an impostor. Or possibly a blackmailer.’ He added quickly, ‘I’m quite certain she’s not blackmailing…. The other possibility is that she’s cracked — saw Gregory’s name in a list of visitors to Nice and took it into her addled head that he was the scoundrel…. We could settle the whole thing in a jiffy if Gregory would agree to see the girl, but — ‘ he shrugged his shoulders — ‘for some reason best known to himself, he refuses.’
‘Refuses?’
‘Absolutely. I can’t move him. He all but puts his hands over his ears. To tell you the truth, I’m astonished by his… I don’t know whether it’s obstinacy or the fear of taking a rather indelicate bull by the horns.’ He laughed.
‘Shouldn’t you leave it to him to manage his affairs?’ Blount said coldly, indifferently.
Lambert felt a little annoyed. ‘That’s all very well. But we don’t want a scandal.’
‘Aren’t you needlessly timid? A young woman comes here with a grotesque and entirely unsubstantiated story… either a dupe or an impostor. Do you seriously imagine that there’s any likelihood of a scandal?’
He had pushed his chair back from the table and was lolling in it, almost at length, his legs in a pair of wonderfully smooth black trousers stretched out. This air of indolence annoyed Lambert almost as much as the drawling voice: he had not meant to say anything more, but his irritation got the better of him. ‘Her visit here was her second attempt to see him. Before she came here she had called at his house one evening, and been turned away — on Gregory’s orders.’
After a moment Blount said,
‘If I may say so, you seem to be taking a little too much on yourself. You asked for my advice. My advice, my dear sir, is to do nothing. Don’t meddle. More trouble is caused in the world by people insisting on being competent and longsighted and busy than by any negligence. Believe me.’
If he had been speaking to a servant who had so far forgotten himself as to put his word in during a family discussion, he could not have used any other tone. Lambert’s resentment and anger almost suffocated him. He forced himself to speak in a civil voice. ‘Then you really think——’
‘I think that will do,’ Blount interrupted coolly. He gathered himself to his feet.
‘Good of you to listen,’ Lambert said.
‘Not at all. Very interesting.’
Lambert rang. ‘Take Mr. Blount downstairs, Bonnifet.’
‘Not necessary. Goodbye.’
For a few minutes after the door shut on Blount’s lean drooping person, Lambert felt that the only thing in the world he really wanted was a scandal to break and blast him to kingdom come. He was smarting as he used to in the past when someone like Cowley snubbed him. The brute, he thought, the complacent brute…. He felt briefly uneasy. Had he made a mistake? Gone a little too far? Oh, be damned to that, he thought. Who am I trying to help? Not myself. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to pull poor old Gregory out of a mess. Sooner or later he’ll thank me. Not that I want thanks…. No one could question the decency and kindliness of his efforts. The very unpleasantness of the interview with Blount justified them. Would anyone, however anxious, risk so distasteful and thankless an interference except on the most compelling, the most genial impulse? If ever there were an act of pure friendship…
Chapter Fourteen
His brother-in-law’s letter — Arthur detested the telephone, and used it only to talk to his stockbroker — gave Gregory the shock he would have felt if he had turned and found the girl at his elbow. It was a short discreet letter, the envelope marked Strictly personal; even if she had opened it, his secretary would have gathered little of moment from its few lines. Arthur began with an account, brief, of his talk with the Queen Mother. ‘… and now, if you would draw up a list, say, sixty or seventy of the delegates, those you think suitable or entitled to expect to be chosen, we could run through it together and winnow it to the fifty needed. I could come in and see you on Saturday afternoon — if you don’t mind dealing with this sort of thing at home? And by the way, I have been told, by your admirable Mr. Corry, an absurd story about some woman who has been pestering you. You might care to tell me about it — unless it bores you too much….’
He laid the letter down, his mind gone and his body for an instant curiously weak. The pen he was holding rolled on to the floor. Picking it up he began, almost without volition, to draft an answer to the letter. The effort steadied him: he found whole sentences waiting ready formed in his mind; they came as rapidly off the end of his pen as if it were a page of his novel that was going smoothly. After a minute or two he stopped — a letter might be the wrong thing. But his brain went on feverishly building up a version of the affair which became more and more reasonable and incontrovertible and consoling as it filled out — no longer a version, not merely true in a way, but true: the essential truth.
In his mind’s ear he heard the very tones of his voice answering the questions he invented — less clear, these — for his brother-in-law to put to him…. ‘I’m afraid I’m to blame, it was indiscreet to do more than help the young woman out of her trouble with the waiter. You know how abominably these waiters can behave — the poor young creature was in tears. I should have left it at that, of course, but — ‘ he spread his hands in a light gesture — ‘I was going to dine at Ruhl’s before I went back to the hotel, and the temptation — to give her one evening she would think splendid — was too much for me. She had rather strange looks…. Well, yes, partly my writer’s curiosity — it occurred to me that I might possibly, one never knows, make some use of her in a novel…. Yes, I gave her dinner, and she went back to her boarding-house. I suppose some less, what shall I say?, disinterested person picked her up afterwards — she didn’t strike me as very bright…. No, no, I haven’t the faintest idea how she knew who I was. It didn’t occur to me to tell her….’ The shadowy listener asked a question of some sort, indistinct, or made a comment…. ‘My dear Arthur, if you think I ought to see her, I will. But — frankly — I would rather not, poor silly creature. Perhaps a cheque — or would that be misunderstood? What do you think…?’ His own voice, light, worldly, amused, ran on. He was smiling ironically…. ‘I’m afraid I’m not an experienced rake. If I were, I should have known better than to be kind to a young woman of that class. What —? Oh
, I don’t know — perhaps a typist….’
The real story, the bare unpalatable facts, hung like a small patch of mist, a dark vapour, low down in the back of his mind, infinitely less substantial than the decent innocent story he had — not invented — re-presented, rearranged, to make it fit for other possibly unfriendly eyes. Looking at it through Arthur’s eyes, he did not see a flaw in it; it was not discreditable, not abjectly silly: it was simply what — in essence, in the essential innocence and goodness of his heart — had happened.
Fragments of speech, his own and Arthur’s, floated through his mind. He felt confident and happier. Tearing up the half-written letter, he ordered himself to put the whole thing out of his mind until Saturday, not to brood over it, confusing and tiring himself. Fleetingly, almost without putting words to it, he thought that, with the scene he had just rehearsed safely over, he would have turned a corner, and could decide easily and coolly what to do for the wretched girl. He must, of course — the vapour in the back of his mind moved slightly — do something.
There was one thing he had to do at once. He spoke to Diana on his desk telephone. ‘Ask Mr. Corry to come and talk to me for a minute.’
When he saw Lambert coming in, brisk, smiling, moving his agile body like a well turned-out scarecrow, he felt a spasm of anger.
‘Why did you tell Arthur Blount this nonsense?’
If he had expected to disconcert the other man, he had no luck. Lambert’s smile sharpened a little, but it persisted. ‘But why not? You know what I think — the young woman is more than likely to make a public scandal. We ought to have a powerful voice on our side.’
‘Our side?’
‘My dear boy, I’m wholly on your side in the matter. Whatever you’ve been up to, however — ‘ he hesitated briefly— ’indiscreet you’ve been, I only want to see you through. And safe. You know you can count on me.’
‘If I could count on you to mind your own business I should be obliged,’ Gregory said, drily and coldly.
‘Nonsense. You’re my business.’
‘Nothing of the kind. I wish you’d try to drop that idea…. All right.’
‘Anything else you want me for?’ Lambert asked jauntily.
‘No.’
He had been going to ask Lambert exactly what it was he had told Arthur — so that he knew where he stood. He found he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bring himself to ask one further question or add one word to the few he had said. It was partly revulsion from his friend’s inquisitive smile and terrible readiness to froth over with sensible advice. And partly he shrank from seeing nakedly whatever might be in Lambert’s mind about him. With relief, he watched his nimble friend reach the door and shut it noiselessly behind him.
Only let me get through this, and I’ll walk carefully all the days of my life, he thought, with despair. He closed his eyes. The simple obvious course was right under his hand. He had only to take Lambert into his confidence…. My dear fellow, I haven’t been frank with you. The fact is… and the whole tiresome humiliating business could be left to him, he would arrange everything, prudently, efficiently, with the least possible fuss. Then why not let him? Why not?
Because I can’t face it, he thought. Too sordid, too… slimily indecent.
There was — felt, not looked at — some other reason. One he was not yet ready to face.
Chapter Fifteen
The Motts were rarely alone at dinner—on two evenings a month, perhaps. This evening was one of them. Beatrice had been to the theatre that afternoon, and was tearing the play to pieces with a delicate cruelty. Gregory listened attentively: he had no doubt she was right, but her acid good sense bored him, and he said nothing. His silence mortified his wife. How terribly I bore him, she thought. She went on talking throughout dinner. Afterwards, when they were in the drawing-room, she smiled at him, a smile without gaiety, which drew two lines down her yellow cheeks, and said,
‘You find being alone with me unbearably dull, don’t you?’
He roused himself. ‘Certainly not. What put that into your head? What have I been saying?’
‘Nothing. For the last hour. Nothing at all.’
Why, at this moment, she asked herself — after years of accepting patience, respect, politeness, as her sole benefit from their marriage — discover that they were intolerable? Why? As if her habit of mocking and deflating him had hardened abruptly into a bitterness stronger than her training, her good sense, and such love as she still had for him…. She outraged all these by saying,
‘Did you ever, even at first, love me? Or have I always been a thing that fitted neatly into your idea of yourself as a great writer — I ought to say: a writer dedicated to being great? One of your moral principles, not a woman at all?’
He looked at her with surprise and a trace of irritation. ‘Aren’t you being a little absurd?’
‘No. Yes. Absurd to imagine you would make any effort to answer me.’ She flushed a disagreeable red. ‘I wonder if you have any idea how dishonest you are. Or how beyond belief vain.’
‘You have often told me so,’ he said.
Vexed with herself, loathing the hysteria she felt rising in her throat, she tried to make her voice less harsh. ‘No, I have no right to complain. Not even the right to complain that all your real affection and respect has been for other women — Emily Grosmont — Harriet. There have been others. If I was no use to you even as a friend, you had every right to look elsewhere for friendship…. A sickly wife, with very little to say about your work…. Do me the justice to agree that I’ve at least tolerated your spiritual infidelities.’
‘None of them — whatever you like to call them — need have vexed you——’
‘Not even my vanity?’ she said sadly. ‘My vanity has suffered — for years. I could have put up with the usual unfaithfulness far more easily. After all, that is something one expects. But to be considered not worth talking to…. Or are you fool enough to think that vanity doesn’t bleed when it’s pricked?’
Her husband looked at her in consternation. Used as he was to taking her moods with a degree of placidity, he wished she had chosen some other time for this outburst. Quite incomprehensible. He saw that she was unhappy, genuinely unhappy, that she suffered, but for the life of him he could not see why.
‘What have you to complain of?’ he asked calmly.
‘Nothing. Everything. That you married me without feeling any love for me.’
‘That is not true.’
She gave him a hard blue stare. ‘It’s true that it didn’t last long.’
When had she given him the faintest hint that she resented being left undisturbed at night? Never, that he remembered. He glanced at her with a certain wry pity. Women of her age were supposed to be liable to attacks of hysteria. He had no idea what to say to her. He said gently,
‘You know I have the greatest respect for you — you are a good woman, Beatrice. And you know — you ought to know — that I’m grateful to you for a lot of things. I — ’he frowned — ‘I can’t imagine myself living any other life than the one we live.’
Beatrice smiled sharply. ‘Respect? Gratitude? They don’t add up even to liking — let alone anything else.’
‘And do you really think I should go on living here if I didn’t like you?’
‘You might,’ she said, with a shrewd glance. ‘Nothing is so important to you as being able to write in peace. I’ve at least done that for you.’
Gregory’s mouth twitched into its one-sided slightly ironical smile. ‘Yet you won’t let me say I’m grateful.’
Beatrice was silent. After a time she said, ‘Then — if you’re not more than normally bored with me this evening, what’s the matter?’
He had an impulse to tell her the truth. He hesitated, and asked himself: Why do I want to tell her? To quiet my conscience? To make her feel that I rely on her? If the whole of our life together has been as false as she thinks — and she may be right — to talk to her brutally frankly would bring a lit
tle truth into it — a little energy.
‘Are you sure you would have preferred an ordinary unfaithfulness?’
She said in her roughest most sarcastic voice, ‘It would have given me something to sink my claws into!’
He had a brief horrifying vision of the young woman’s narrow white body and immature breasts, exposed to her like a small bird to a hawk. ‘This is a very silly and pointless conversation,’ he said. ‘Forgive me for starting it.’
He is evading me again, his wife thought impulsively. She felt an uprush of anger and blind hatred — anger against his indifference to her, his great gifts, his charm, his success, the adulation given him. And above all, hatred of herself for not being able even now to free herself from the hold he had on her emotions. This hatred was a wonderful feeling. Half closing her eyes, she gave herself up to it, steadying her voice to say with acid lightness,
‘My dear boy, the truth is you’re bogus — a magnificent humbug. Is anything about you real except your quite impenetrable egoism? You haven’t been unkind, but did you ever, in your whole life, do a spontaneous thing? Something that wasn’t part of your splendid design for living?’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘I suppose the reason for our marriage is that Emily Grosmont arranged it for you as the next most useful move.’
Gregory stood up. ‘Shall I send Mrs. Bedford to you?’
‘No.’ She was horrified by what she had done, and saw no way of undoing it. ‘Please go,’ she said stiffly.
‘You’re sure you’re all right?’
‘Yes, yes, do go.’
When he had gone, she sat rigid, enduring the disorder of her mind. I behaved abominably, she thought: like a fishwife. But he… What was he going to tell me? That he is having a serious affair. Who is it?
Chapter Sixteen
Outside the door Gregory hesitated a minute, then went downstairs to go out. As he crossed the hall, old William came through the baize-covered door at the back, looked at him in a sour way, and speaking as though both of them were deaf, said, ‘If you ’re going out you want an overcoat. I’ll get it.’
The Road from the Monument Page 24
