Sir!' She Said

by Alec Waugh

  She watched him fondly as he moved among his other guests, talking now to one, now to another, turning now and again that smile upon her. Once again she was happy and herself: once again she could talk freely and amusingly. All the time she was conscious of his watching her. The room seemed emptied of everything and everybody except themselves. He loves me, she thought. And she longed for eleven o’clock to come: for the others to start talking about wraps and taxis and late hours, so that they would be alone, really alone together.

  She felt nervous, though; desperately nervous when they were alone, when the last guest had gone, when Gavin had made her staying easy by saying, “You’re not in any one’s way, are you? I’ll see you home.” She felt nervous as he came over to her, his hands outheld.

  “Dear one,” he said, “I’m so glad they’ve gone. I couldn’t talk to you with all these others here.”

  He loves me, she thought, he loves me. But how much, she asked herself. For a moment she wished herself back into those simple days when in the words “I love you “had been implied the other words that she longed to hear: the words “for ever.” To know that it was for ever that he loved her. For ever that he wanted her. That was what those words had meant when her mother had first heard them. But now, who could say what those words meant? And she felt nervous and looked away as she listened to the eager words that were being whispered in her ear.

  “I love you. The first instant I saw you I fell in love with you.”

  She longed to turn into his arms to say, “I, too, I too. At the first instant. And as I never have before. For the first time, my dearest.”

  She longed to tell him how much she loved him. But she could not. Not till he had given her the right by telling her that in his life she was the first real love. If only he would tell her that. “Dear one, there have been other women. But they haven’t mattered. They were just a prelude to you, a waiting for you. I’ve never wanted any of them as I want you; for ever; in marriage, for the ages.”

  If only he would say that to her, so that “I, too,” she could whisper back to him, “I, too. There’ve been flirtations. But they haven’t mattered. I’ve known that they were nothing: known that sooner or later I’ld be meeting you. I’ve kept myself for that. I’ve been no other man’s. I’m yours, all yours, my darling.” If only he would give her the chance of saying that, of letting her be his as she longed to be; of knowing the ecstasy of complete surrender?

  “Darling, oh darlingest, do let me,” she longed to cry, “do let me love you! Let me say to you those things that one never has the chance of saying twice.”

  But he did not utter the words she longed for.

  “You’re sweet,” his voice was saying, “so beautiful, so brave. There’s not anything about you I don’t love. Not one hour that I don’t find a new thing to love in you.”

  And his arms were about her shoulders. Her face had been lifted up to his. And it was rapture, unutterable rapture, that first real kiss of her life. Her blood was beating, her nerves throbbing, her heart empty for the words he would not speak. “I’m yours,” she thought, “yours utterly. Yours to have: to make what you like of. I can refuse you nothing. But I can only give you what you’re prepared to take.”

  And the words grew wilder: fiercer, incoherent: her body lay limp in his arms, her eyes half closed, her senses reeling. She was hardly conscious of the sudden ceasing of those words and kisses, had scarcely the strength to wonder at that pause.

  Had she done so she would scarcely have understood it: could not have guessed how pathetically childish was that white face lifted in the half-light so unresistingly to his; could not have known how, by a ridiculous association of ideas that white face with the lipstick smudged across it, reminded Gavin of a small child, her face smeared with jam; nor how that memory brought a sudden feeling of compunction, of responsibility; nor how that feeling had been banished by later experience, by the thought, “What’s this to any of her crowd? What can I be but one of several?”

  That Jean could not have guessed, had she even noticed that second’s pause in that flood of words, that rain of kisses. A second more and that fierce flood was again about her. The power, the will to resist was gone. “He’ll never know,” she thought. “I’ll never tell him. I’ld die sooner than that, far sooner.” With a fraction of her mind she thought it, as she coiled her arm about his neck.

  Four hours later they were in the kitchen, talking quietly. Todd’s servants slept away. And they had gone in there to make themselves some tea. They were feeling hungry, and had ransacked the larder for eggs and bacon. “I’ll make you an omelette,” she had said, and while she had stood at the electric stove turning the bubbling yellow paste, Gavin sat on the table chatting happily. There was between them the informality of a picnic and the sweet intimacy that follows love. He was talking eagerly in the pride of conquest, in the delight of happiness. “We’re going to have such fun. We’re going to be so happy. We’ll have such lovely times. Let’s see now,” he paused considering. “I’m going to Deauville next month, to play in a championship. Why couldn’t you take a holiday and come over? It would be fun. Couldn’t you?”

  She nodded her head. Yes, she could, and they’ld have fun. And it would be lovely. But it would be only a part of herself that would be going there. It was only a part of her that he had taken. It had been only a part of her that he had wanted. So that however much Gavin might try, there would come another who would want all that other part of her that he could have had: that he had not wanted; another who would know how to take that other part. And she would go to him. She would go where she belonged. For she would never belong to Gavin, never as she had wanted to. It was fondly that she looked at him, half in pity, half in gratitude, half in tenderness. Yes, she’ld go to Deauville with him, and they’ld have fun. There and in other places. She’ld give him for as long as chance let him keep it, as much as he had wanted of her. “But I could have given you so much more,” she thought. ‘I could have made life sweet and fresh and tender for you. But you wouldn’t let me. You didn’t want that. So we shall drift apart. Some one else will take what you had no use for, and you’ll talk about woman’s faithlessness. But it won’t be anybody’s fault but yours. Because you’ve never wanted a whole woman, only a small piece of her. And you’ll be bitter and you’ll be angry, and life will grow just a little narrower for you. You’ll grow a little more self-centred, a little more self-contained. Life will contract for you instead of broadening.

  “You’ll never get the best out of life.”

  It was not of herself that she was thinking as she turned the omelette. Her eyes were pitying and tender.

  “I could have done so much for you” she thought.

  Chapter XV

  Mabel Carstairs’ Dinner Party

  Mabel Carstairs took a last glance at her dinner table: at the polished walnut: the heavy candelabra: the low bowl of tulips: the gleam of light on salt sellar and spoon and knife. Yes. It looked all right. And it should go all right. Her parties usually did. She took trouble over their stage-management. They ran with the smoothness, with the apparent absence of effort that is the proof of effort. There were no awkward pauses. There was no mauvais quart d’heure. Knowing the standard of unpunctuality to which her various guests attained, she invited them for different times. Half-past eight if they were punctual. A quarter-past if they were casual. Eight if they were established late arrivals. Her parties invariably went well. She took a pride in seeing that they did. But it was without any excitement that she took that last look at the table. She did not really care whether the party went well or not. She did not really enjoy parties any longer. There was a time when she had loved entertaining. As a young bride she had felt at her happiest as a hostess, sitting at her own table with her friends about her, happy in the pride of her success, in the knowledge that her party was going well; that she was herself gay, and pretty; with her husband’s eye turning every now and then with a tender adoring grateful look
in them. He had been so proud of her. And through that whole happy evening, the happiest thing had been the knowledge that when it was all over he would be taking her in his arms, to whisper eager, adoring words into her ear; to congratulate her, to tell her how proud he was of her, how grateful he was to her, how desperately happy he was to be married to her. Over an interval of a dozen years she could still hear the tenderness and fire of that whisper.

  At the memory she shrugged her shoulders. Well, that was over. Had ended with the birth of her second girl; with the illness that had taken her looks from her. As she turned away from the table, she met her reflection in the oval mirror above the mantelpiece. With a savage, perverse delight she looked at the reflection. Yes; they had gone all right. No one would call her pretty now; not even attractive. And yet she could not tell how her prettiness had gone. Her face had not fattened or lined; her complexion hadn’t mottled. Her hair was as thick as ever. Yet it had gone. And no beauty parlour could bring it back. As she looked at her reflection she half wondered whether beauty was really a thing that you possessed yourself, or whether it was not like the colour of the sea that was blue only when the sun shone on it: so that you were only pretty as long as people thought you pretty. Perhaps she would still be pretty if Leon loved her. Which he didn’t, of course, and never would. She knew that. You could not get a man back once you’d lost him.

  In an ill-humour she walked into the drawing-room. Leon was standing beside the fireplace. An extremely well-cut coat confirmed the easy supple lines of his body. His blonde hair lay back in a sleek wave from his high forehead. His cheeks were glowing after a bath and shave. He had not aged a day since they had married. With the same savage perversity that she had marked each sign of age in her own face, she marked the signs of youth in his. Bitterly she noted them.

  It was not fair that he should have remained young when she had aged. If only he were feeble and fat and unattractive, so that other women would not bother about him, so that he would be grateful to the one woman who clave to him. Or if she could have kept young so that he would still have loved her. They might still have been happy; might still have been in love with one another. She would have loved him so much if he had only let her; could still love him for that matter. And it was for the very reason that he wouldn’t let her, that she was never able to suppress a feeling of irritation when she was with him. The first question she put to him set the note of their conversation.

  “How many of you are going to this ‘Friendship’ party?”

  “The Richmonds, Julia Terance and myself.”

  “Where are you changing?”

  “Here.”

  “And taking your things on in suit-cases?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “What some people will put themselves to for the sake of pleasure! You’ll feel like rags tomorrow.”

  “That’s our business, isn’t it?”

  Mabel pouted. “I suppose so. But I can’t imagine how girls like Julia Terance can lead lives like that, and then go to work in the morning.”

  “She’s young.”

  It was said irritably. Mabel’s eyes flashed. Which I’m not, he’s trying to say, she thought.

  “She may be,” Mabel retorted, “but she won’t stay so, spending her whole time in night-clubs and cocktail bars.”

  “She doesn’t spend her time that way.”

  “Doesn’t she? Most of her friends do.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  “Really? Well, I can’t say I care anyhow how she spends her time. I’ve put her next to you at dinner by the bye. You’ld like that, wouldn’t you?”

  It was not particularly what he would have liked. It was very certainly the exact opposite of what Julia wanted. She had not wanted to come at all. She wanted to forget that Leon had a wife. She hated the idea of meeting her, of being entertained by her, of accepting the false position that the acceptance of that entertainment forced on her. Least of all did she want to be seated next to Leon. She would be able to find nothing to say to him. Two people who were intimate in an unrecognised intimacy, never could in public. They would be embarrassed by one another. They would be unable to behave as the casual acquaintances their friends took them for. Gloomily she sat herself on his left-hand side. She knew what it would be. She would sit silent the whole evening. She would grow self-conscious. She would feel that people were looking at her, were thinking things of her. “I must make an effort,” she thought. “I must try.” Resolutely she turned to take her part in the conversation.

  They were discussing the engagement of a mutual friend. “I can’t imagine how it can turn out well,” some one was saying. “She’s not in the least in love with him.”

  “But she isn’t marrying him for love,” Leon answered. “She’s marrying for position, for mutual tastes, for an agreeable way of life.”

  “Then what’s going to happen when she falls in love? She’ll feel she’s been cheated.”

  “Oh, no she won’t. She’ll have the things she married for. The woman who feels that she’s been cheated is the woman who marries for love, and finds that what she took for love wasn’t love at all. Marriage hasn’t given her what she thought it had. She feels cheated.”

  “That sounds like a plea for the mariage de convenances.”

  “There’s a lot to be said for it. You’re sure of what you’re getting then, don’t you agree?” he added to Julia.

  “In a way.”

  She had an impulse to develop the theme to its logical conclusion, to deny the worth of love, to extol the material side of life, to exasperate Leon by the implied disparagement of the feelings she had for him. She was angry with him for the glibness with which he was expressing views that were not his real views, or rather, that were at variance with the views that he expressed to her; angry, too, with him for forcing her to take part in such a conversation; for expecting her to express her views on love in public, to discuss in his presence the one subject in the world that it was impossible to discuss impersonally. Every honest opinion expressed on love was a chapter in one’s autobiography. You could only speak out of your own experience. And there was Leon elaborating his theme.

  “After all, you know,” he was saying, “the marriage of convenience is in point of fact exactly what the modern girl is making nowadays. Her parents made love marriages in protest against an older generation that tried to arrange their marriages for them. They demanded Romance. They were not, they said, going to lose their one chance of it. And of course to them marriage was that one chance. They were chaperoned. They had no latchkey. They had no cheque-book; their letters were examined. But to-day marriage isn’t by any means a girl’s one chance of romance. No more than it is a man’s. A girl marries in much the same way that a Victorian man did. She thinks it’s time she settled down.”

  With her nerves on edge, Julia listened. Yes, in a way it was true enough. That was how they did marry, more often than not, the girls of her generation. They had their fun; their freak parties: their flirtations, and then they got tired of it; they felt the need of a home and constancy. So they married, calm-blooded, open-eyed. The only difference between this generation and the mid-Victorian was that where the mid-Victorians had their marriage of convenience arranged for them by their parents, it was the young people themselves who arranged their marriages to-day. Yes, it was well enough, thought Julia. But if those were Leon’s views on marriage, why was his own life a complete contradiction of them. If marriage was an arrangement of convenience into which you need not enter, why was he ruining his own marriage because it happened to be loveless?

  He spoke so confidently, too, with such an assurance. She hated him to speak like that. She hated the appearance of strength it gave him. Once she had thought him strong, experienced, mature. It was his strength that had attracted her. And he wasn’t strong, she knew that now. His assurance, his aggressiveness was just a façade to hide his weakness. He was weak, weak, weak. He was afraid of life, querulous for protection aga
inst life. He was so helplessly weak that she had not the heart to hurt him. Just as it had been his strength that had attracted her, so was it his weakness that held her now: against her will: against her judgment: against her wishes. She would never have stood the strain, the indignity of such a relationship if she had not felt that by ending it she would break the faith and purpose of Leon’s life. He needed her so, he was so unhappy. He had so many troubles at his office and in his home. She was the one happiness he had in life. She could not take that little from him. She must do the best she could. Resolutely she took her part in the conversation.

  Morosely from behind the bowl of tulips Mabel looked down the table. She was not enjoying herself. What was the idea of these parties: why did one give them: why did people come to them? Because you owed somebody a dinner. Because you had an evening to fill in; because you were caught in the social machinery of giving and accepting invitations. Not because you liked people. Not because you felt the need of seeing them.

  In the days when Leon had loved her, she had seen the whole of life in terms of fondness and affection. Now that Leon no longer cared, that he stayed with her only out of duty, out of habit, she saw life in terms of duty and of habit. Would it matter to one of these people if she were to die tomorrow: would it matter to her if she were to see none of them again? Not one: not a single one. That Terance girl. Why should she be here? She was Leon’s friend, not hers. They were always together. People kept saying to her, “I saw your husband to-day with such a pretty girl.” Were they in love with one another? Was there anything to it? She did not know. One was always the last person to learn that kind of thing oneself. Probably every one in the room knew the facts except herself. It might be true. It was likely that Leon should search elsewhere for what he could not find at home. Men were like that. But since they were, they should keep that side of their life apart from their home life. They shouldn’t bring their mistresses into their wives’ houses. Things had been better in the days when men had set up shop girls; been humiliated and duped by them; but at least had confined their intrigues to women of another class: had allowed their wives to retain their dignity. The Victorians had been cleaner about those things. Why should she have to meet this girl?