by Henry Green
“Carry on as usual I suppose.”
“Changing maids every eight weeks John?”
“Oh don’t!” he cried. “No I had the idea I might drift along to the Club perhaps for a bit.”
“And what sort of life is that for a man?” she demanded. “Besides you know you can’t afford standing drinks to all and sundry every hour of the day and night.”
“They have their licensing laws too you know.”
“Stuff and nonsense! Don’t tell me those men pay the smallest attention to stupid little regulations. No it would be so bad for you John.”
“Then how d’you propose I should live?”
“I’ve simply no idea darling which is why I’m so terribly worried.”
“Well I’m most flattered. Everyone seems to want to be told how I can manage. I just hadn’t considered it, that’s all.”
“And you’ll have had offers of help no doubt?”
“My dear if ever you hear of a responsible woman, what we used to call a cook general in the old days, who’ll have nothing whatever to do in the daytime on vast wages, then you’ll be my saviour.”
“That wasn’t what I meant in the least.”
“But Jane I can’t run to the expense of a married couple.”
“And have the husband drinking your gin and rowing with his wife all day, I should think not indeed!”
“What did you have in mind then?”
“Marriage John.”
“There can’t be a double ceremony, they’re so vulgar. Besides who’d have me?”
“Are you going to marry your Liz my dear?”
“Now Jane what is all this?”
“You should grant me certain privileges my loved one,” she said staring at him until he looked away. “The years as they roll on give me a sort of wretched right,” she announced. “And I’ll not sit idly by and see you make yourself miserable just because Mary says she must leave home.”
“There’s no question, none at all!”
“But yes! Oh my dear you’re going to be so lonely!”
“About Liz I mean.”
“Are you sure?”
“No Jane how can you say am I sure? I still know what goes on around me I should hope.”
“Does one ever?”
“I swear to you not a word’s been said.”
“Now John that makes not a scrap of difference, does it?”
“Yet to get married you have to say so don’t you?”
“It’s the final thing you say, yes.”
“You will go on talking in riddles Jane.”
“My dear I give you simple plain common or garden sense. You are like all men, lawyers every single one. You think there’s no contract until you’ve said yes or had your answer but the chances are you’ve unofficially sworn yourself away for ever all unbeknownst quite months before. Which makes it so wicked when men try and back out.”
“Now Jane to what is this referring?”
“Nothing my dear, at all.”
“You were.”
“On my honour. The past’s past. The little I’m saying is she has her heart set on you.”
“Well I suppose I might do worse at that.”
“There you go, utterly sweet, completely deceitful!”
He laughed. “But you just put the idea right into my mind,” he objected.
“I did nothing of the sort. And John don’t bridle in that delighted way when I suggest someone might like to be married to you. I can’t bear false modesty, which can be one of your little faults my dear. There are literally thousands of unattached women sitting by their telephones this very minute waiting waiting for the call that never comes.”
“I wish I met ’em.”
“Don’t be so tiresome please,” she said. “Who d’you think you are anyway?”
“Well who then?”
“A most attractive man whose family life may just about to be broken up from all accounts.”
“You flatter me.”
“No John you simply shall not take this stupid silly line. To all sorts and kinds of horrors waiting in their lairs you’re a whole line of goods freshly come into the swim.”
“Oh now you must grant me some powers of choice.”
“But that’s exactly it, I don’t. How can I? You’re only making fun while they’re in wait there with the dread wretched lives they lead—no to give the present government its due they always did though it’s not for me to praise politicians God help us,—those frightful endless days and nights have taught them so they’re on watch for the slightest sign of backsliding.”
“Now Jane you really can’t make poor Liz out into a harpy or a pike!”
“Can’t I!”
“You may not like her, she might not be the sort of person for you but at least she’s not that kind.”
“Well my dear,” she agreed “you know how I always do go rather far. Mr. Thicknesse has often told me. ‘Dear lady’ he’s said and isn’t it fantastic there are still people to call one that, ‘your tongue will one day cost a deal of money.’ It never has yet you know but then perhaps one’s friends are more loyal than sometimes we suppose. You see I expect they must be. Because when I say what I do about Liz I don’t really mean anything, only that she’s such a horrid beast who simply oughtn’t to be alive.”
“No Jane there are occasions you can go too far!”
There was a pause which she filled by getting him more sherry.
“I’m sorry John but I mean every word for the best.”
“Doesn’t one always? Is that a valid excuse?”
“She doesn’t.”
“Then what exactly do you hold against the poor woman?”
“She’s not poor, she’s even very attractive in her own way, though of course she must have been to have the success she had. Oh what it takes to keep on learning one isn’t the only pebble on the beach!”
“You don’t suppose Dick Abbot is enamoured?” he asked with a degree of sarcasm in his voice.
“Richard?” she cried. For a moment she returned to her usually gay manner. “That sweet man! Never in the whole wide world!! How could he be?”
“Then Jane you just can’t really accept any soul who sees Liz?”
“What d’you mean? That I care who she sees?”
“No quite,” he agreed in a small voice.
“All I said was,” she went on “and presuming oh yes I am on old friendship was that she couldn’t, mustn’t be the one for you,—I think I mean mustn’t, really John darling!”
“And why? How mustn’t?”
“But the woman drinks.”
“Now Jane that’s most unfair. You know she never has.”
“I’m very sorry to say I know nothing of the kind.”
“Good God then where and when?”
“My dear John! In the bedroom I expect.”
“How can you speak of her bedroom?”
“Why should I know? I don’t get in it.”
“No Jane this is honestly almost unpleasant. We might, we may from time to time have had something for each other, Liz and I, but really I don’t feel you have the right . . .”
“Don’t I darling?”
“In what way then?”
“If I see you take a wrong turn, after all these years can’t I say what I feel?”
“But we’re here tonight to talk about the children.”
“And isn’t that just what we are discussing John?”
“No we never seem to get away from my own marriage which I give you my word is the first I’ve heard and which seems to be Liz all the time.”
“Do you maintain she doesn’t drink then John?”
“Well she certainly wasn’t bottled at Eddie’s as Maud Winder said she might be.”
“How can you tell?”
“But I was there Jane.”
“I’m going to say something darling may make you rather cross. It’s simply that when you’re out with her you sometimes are inclined to take a dr
op too much yourself.”
“Oh now Jane this is preposterous! I wasn’t that way at Eddie’s.”
“How can you possibly judge my dear? Oh I’m not trying to make out you are a soak like poor William Smith, so much so that his wife had to leave him, you remember sad Myra—what’s happened to her—couldn’t face pouring the whisky down his throat when he lost his arms? I’m not pretending anything. I only maintain which I shall until the day I die that when you’re out with the woman, and it’s not necessarily anything noticeable, you aren’t sometimes a very good judge perhaps of how much someone else has taken.”
He swallowed air three or four times.
“I still don’t see how all this has to do with Philip and Mary,” he objected.
“I do,” she said.
“Well how then?” he almost shouted.
“Now you’re simply not to bully me in my own house,” she announced in a small voice. “I have such a headache into the bargain.”
“I’m sorry Jane,” he said, quieter.
There was a pause. After which she said in low tones,
“I had no call to tell you what I did either.”
“Oh I know you meant it for the best,” he smiled.
“I not only meant it, it was best,” she rejoined.
“Very well,” he agreed. “But you might admit you could be wrong about Liz.”
“Of course I may. Yet I’m not.”
He swallowed air again. “All right darling,” he admitted.
“That’s better,” she said.
“Still I don’t get drunk Jane.”
“No there I admit I went too far dear John. I got upset!”
“Dear me!” he smiled. “What we all go through when the children want to settle their lives for themselves.”
“What we go through to avoid what we might have to go through,” she took him up at once.
“Yes very well Jane,” he agreed.
“Oh my headache is so bad,” she said visibly wilting.
“You ought to lie down.”
At this moment Isabella flung the door open to announce something in a flood of words, presumably that dinner was served. Mrs. Weatherby thanked her.
“It’s hammering round my head,” she wailed.
“Why don’t you go along then Jane?”
“D’you know I simply feel I must. But whatever will you think of me?”
“I’ll bring you yours in on a tray.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” she objected. “What would Isabella simply think? No when I get one of my sick headaches I just can’t eat anything. I must shut my poor aching eyes in the dark. But what will you do John dear? Oh how rude I am!”
“I can get a bite at the Club.”
“Certainly not. No you’ll dine here I insist. Not that it’ll be worth having. Oh dear!”
“I’m so sorry Jane and I hope you’ll be better tomorrow. Sure there isn’t anything I’ve foolishly said?”
“How could there be? No you’ll simply have to forgive.”
While he kissed her cheek as she prepared to leave he ventured once more,
“And you’ve heard nothing fresh from the children?”
“Not a word,” she replied, then disappeared tragically smiling.
•
Soon after this, with the day’s work done, Mary Pomfret came to her father when he was alone over an evening paper.
“Daddy is there any news?” she asked.
“Of the wedding stakes?” he cried. “But I have none.”
“Because oh dear it’s not going well I think Daddy!”
“Engagements never do my dear.”
“You are such a comfort,” she said. “And it’s so complicated. Still I suppose everything always is.”
“I nearly went mad when I became engaged to your mother.”
“Did you? Oh Daddy what I want to know is the line Mrs. Weatherby’s taking?”
“Funny you should ask. I took old Dick Abbot out and put him that very question. I should think he sees more of Jane than anyone these days. He rather seemed to be of the opinion she hadn’t quite made her mind up yet. Now you know I consider I can read Jane as well as the next man and I’d say myself she was enthusiastic, hand on my heart I would.”
“Then you haven’t heard this extraordinary story that Philip and I are really half brother and sister?”
“What?” he yelled and nearly shot out of his chair, crushing the newspaper in the process.
“Here let me do that,” his daughter said and picked those sheets up to pat them flat again. She kept her eyes from off his face.
“If you would only tell me who’d said it then I’d have the law on ’em,” he panted.
“My future mother in law,” she murmured.
“Jane did! You can’t be serious Mary!”
“Daddy, do say it isn’t true!”
“True! You must be insane. Good God! Good God!!”
“Well is it?”
“No of course not.”
“How can you be sure Daddy?”
“Because I am.”
“I’m terribly sorry but you see this means rather a lot to me.”
He controlled himself. “Of course, must do monkey,” he said.
“And you couldn’t possibly be?” she insisted.
“Oh well you know how things are,” he lamely explained. “Jane and I certainly saw quite a bit of each other about that time, the time he was born I mean. But the thing’s utterly preposterous.”
“Because if it was true I don’t think I could ever speak to you again.”
“I do realize that Mary. Look you’ve got to listen to me. I know you’ll think I have a special reason for telling you this but you must believe your father!”
At this point she handed the newspaper back neatly folded.
“Oh thanks,” he said. It seemed as if his train of thought had been broken for when he went on he said,
“Jane surely never told you?”
“No she didn’t. I went down to ask her at Brighton as a matter of fact and when I got there I simply found I hadn’t the gumption.”
“I’m not surprised Mary.” He tried a laugh. She actually giggled a moment but still kept her eyes from his. “I must say!” he added and laughed louder. She did not respond however and he returned to his serious manner.
“Who’s been hinting?” he demanded.
“Well as a matter of fact Philip mentioned something.”
“Philip,” he echoed in noticeably brighter tones. “How can he know at his age?”
“No Daddy you’re not to laugh! You remember what I told you, I’d never speak to you again.”
“I’m not laughing,” he defended himself. “But you’ll agree my dear it isn’t a very pleasant thing to be confronted on without a word of warning.”
“And not nice for me either under the circumstances?”
“Frightful,” he agreed. “My God I’ve never heard anything like it. But where did your Philip get this extraordinary notion?”
“From his mother I fancy.”
“So that’s how it originated! She didn’t tell you then?”
“Oh no I’ve just said haven’t I? I went down to see her in the hotel and then couldn’t screw up my miserable courage.”
“You’re not to blame monkey good Lord! I should say not! But d’you mean to tell me Jane actually put it in so many words?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Then darling you must make doubly certain.”
“Why should I when you told me not a moment ago it could be.”
“Could be what?”
“True Daddy.”
“But my love I never said a word of the kind!”
“You did.”
“How did I?”
“Just now when you admitted you’d seen a lot of her about that time.”
“But the idea’s perfectly ridiculous,” he replied in blustering accents. “Why doesn’t he come and ask me himself? I�
��d soon tell him.”
“For the same reason I expect I couldn’t bring myself with his mother. But oh Daddy do say all this isn’t true.”
“I’ve already told you. It’s utterly ridiculous! I’ve never in my whole life heard such awful nonsense!”
“Then why did you say what you did?”
“Earlier on? For the simple reason this was the first time such an insane idea had ever been put to me. I was flabbergasted, absolutely stunned! And I’m so accustomed to the worst that for a second I even considered whether it mightn’t be a fact. But I tell you what. You know about that time things were pretty strained between the four of us, I mean he wasn’t even born then and his father began throwing writs about and cross-petitions,—we won’t go into all the business now, what’s over’s over, enough’s enough,—but if there could be a word of truth in this tale don’t you agree Weatherby would have used your story? And he didn’t! If you don’t believe me go and ask Mr. Thicknesse.”
“Oh Daddy so you really don’t think there’s anything?”
“Of course not my dear. Lord but you had me thoroughly rattled for a minute.”
“I’m such a nuisance,” she wailed, gazing straight at him, her eyes full of tears.
“You aren’t,” he said. “Besides why don’t you ask the others?”
“I have.”
He looked at her very hard.
“And what did they say?”
“I went to Arthur Morris and Philip did too, separately of course. He told us both the same or so Philip swears.”
“There you are then! With the poor fellow dying he’d surely never dare tell a lie.”
“But Daddy how simply dreadful! He isn’t is he?”
“So Liz says.”
“He simply can’t. He’s so sweet!”
“That’s the way things are my dear I’m afraid. Well we’ve all got to come to it. When he didn’t turn up at Jane’s party I thought he must be pretty bad. What’s the ring you’re wearing?”
“It’s mine. I mean the engagement ring.”
“Oh I say,” he cried “and you never told. Here let’s have a good look.”
They bent their heads together over her left hand.
“Well well,” he said. “This is quite pretty isn’t it? How much did he pay?”
“That’s my secret Daddy. We talked everything over of course. We decided we’d be insane to spend a lot of cash on what is out of date tripe. I never meant it to be more than just something to go on that especial finger.”
