Sir!' She Said

by Alec Waugh

  Julia nodded her head. Exciting. That’s what she had thought three years ago; and that was how she had shrugged away as a necessity the campaign of deceit she had embarked on. Step by step Jean was following in her footsteps. It would be Melanie’s turn next.

  And the afternoon passed on, slow and harassing; with telephone bells ringing, and customers worrying her with complaints and questions. Noise, noise, noise; never a moment’s peace.

  “And they call this being an independent woman,” she moaned bitterly to Jean Ryland in the one quiet moment of the afternoon. “And this is the freedom that all those Victorian women talked so much about and fought so hard for. I don’t know what we’ve got out of it. No more fun as far as I can see. We’ve got to get up so early and work so hard, that by the time the evening comes we’re too sunk to enjoy ourselves. Freedom. It is the thing we’re all talking of, the thing we’re all fighting for. We think it’s this and we think it’s that, and then when we’ve got our way we find that it isn’t this and it isn’t that. I’m beginning to wonder whether there’s such a thing.”

  She remembered once hearing her mother say that all that modern freedom and modern science had done for the woman of forty was to make her fair game for any man who chose to take advantage of her. But was not that, she thought, what modern methods, modern ideas, modern education had done for every woman? What else but fair game were any of them? She, Jean Ryland, and now Melanie. Druce Mander had been right. What man was going to bother to be chivalrous to women who claimed the right to meet men on equal terms? What chance did any of them stand now the standard of chivalry by which previously their sex had been protected was removed? At the moment Jean Ryland was happy; glad-hearted in a dawning tenderness. But already she had embarked on a campaign of treachery. Already there was in her eyes the first signs of that fretful, harassed look that would deepen soon into the restless defiant impatience of which she was herself the victim. That was the way things went. First of all one was like Melanie: gay, confident, with the world at her feet: then one was like Jean, proud and happy in the delight of loving: then that confidence and delight sank into the despondency that she knew. The wheel came full cycle—Melanie, Jean and herself were stages in an inevitable process. As Jean Ryland was last week so was Melanie to-day, as she, Jean, was to-day, Melanie would become tomorrow, and later for both Melanie and Jean, waited the disenchantment that she knew herself.

  Dismally the afternoon passed on: with its telephone calls; its fittings; its letters.

  And then at four o’clock there was a messenger boy arriving for Melanie’s frocks.

  “You’d better get a taxi,” Julia told him. “There are six boxes.”

  “I’ve got a taxi waiting. In a terrible hurry the young lady seemed to be.”

  “You’ve got the address?”

  “Carlton Hotel.”

  “Carlton Hotel?” Julia echoed.

  “That’s it. I was told to hurry.”

  Julia asked no further questions. Such little peace of mind as she possessed was rapidly deserting her. This terrible hurry for five frocks that were to be sent to the Carlton and not to her home. What did it mean? Whom did she know that was staying there? And why if she did. . .? Helplessly she lifted her hands against her head. Where was she, what was happening, in what typhoon of folly was her sister floundering? “I’m the only person who can save her,” she thought. “I must do something.”

  And yet there was only one thing that she could do. To go to her parents and tell them the whole story. To say, “thus and thus it was, and this is the kind of mess I’m in, and if you’re not careful in a few days Melanie’ll be in exactly the same mess. For Heaven’s sake keep a firm hold on her unless you want history to repeat itself.”

  And they would be firm with Melanie, she knew that, if she were to go to them in that spirit. There would be an end of this gadding around to cocktail parties with Druce Mander. An end of that. An end of how much else, too? An end, certainly, of her parents’ happiness, of their trust in her, of her own honoured position in the house, an end of her hopes of a marriage with Leon Carstairs, of Leon’s hopes of becoming a partner in the firm where he had worked for twenty years. It was a big price to pay for Melanie’s safety. And yet, and yet. . .

  After all, her parents’ happiness, her position in her home, Leon’s career and her share in it, were they not all portions of the past, whereas Melanie’s security was something of the future. Must not the past always be sacrificed to the future?

  “There’s only one thing for me to do,” she said, “and I must do it.”

  Chapter XVIII

  The Truth

  It was seven o’clock when she reached her parents’ house. The pleasant, comfortable house in that tranquil London square, built in the days when life was facile and assured, seemed to stand now in wistful commentary on the speed and agitation of the modern world. “And I’m bringing them an agreeable shock!” thought Julia. “Heaven knows how hard it’s going to hit them.”

  To her surprise, however, tranquillity was the last word that could have been chosen to describe the state of affairs that she was to discover on her arrival. She would not, indeed, have imagined it possible for two middle-aged persons and a staff of three servants to create such an atmosphere of confusion. The maid who opened the door was flustered, with her cheeks flushed and her cap awry. Doors were banging, both in the top stories and in the basement. The telephone was ringing unattended; there was a shouting over the banisters. “Heavens!” thought Julia, “has the place caught fire?” And then in partial explanation there was her father hurrying downstairs.

  “Oh, Julia, what a relief. I’ve been trying to get you everywhere. Where have you been? Oh, your Club, why did I never think of that? Faith, why did we never think of that? Of course Julia would be at her Club. And we’ve been ringing up all your friends, Gladys and Mrs. Hopkins, and I don’t know who we haven’t called. And all the time you were at your Club. Now that was stupid of us.”

  With an affectionate laugh Julia took him by the arm and led him towards the dining-room.

  “Now, father dear,” she said, “be calm.”

  “Be calm! How can I be calm?” he cried, in almost hysterical agitation, “with a thing like that happening. You’re so hard, you young people. You think we’re just the same, that we’ve no feelings either.”

  “Now, father dear, what is all this about?”

  “All this about? You don’t know? You’re pretending you don’t know, but of course you know. You’d be the first to know.”

  “But I assure you I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Not know! She didn’t tell you, then? I should have thought you’d have been the first person she would tell. I thought it was a conspiracy between you. And you mean that she’s not said anything to you?”

  “But who’s said nothing to me?”

  “Why, Melanie, of course!”

  “Melanie! What’s that, what’s that about Melanie?”

  “If only I knew, but she’s said so little, it’s so like her, that. What was it she said? Oh, I can’t remember. Where’s the telegram, Faith? Where did you put that telegram? Yes, Melanie’s telegram. What other telegram would there be? Did I put it in my pocket. No, there it is on the mantelpiece. Look, here it is, Julia. This is what she says. She says nothing, really.”

  Nor had she. The whole thing was typical.

  “Darling, we have run away. You will forgive me, won’t you? We so love each other. Melanie.”

  With a shrug of her shoulders Julia tossed the telegram upon the table. So that was that. then. And she was too late. The mischief was done. The irreparable had happened. First her; now Melanie. And there was her father, flustering and flustered, talking about the hardness of young people: just as though it was not his fault, his and her mother’s. Just as though it was not they that were to blame. Why couldn’t they have been firm? Why couldn’t they have protected their daughters?


  She laughed bitterly.

  “Well, what else could you expect?” she cried. “We’re only human. And you’ve let us go where we like, when we like, with whom we like. What’s fair for a boy is fair for a girl, you say. The sexes are equal nowadays. So we can have latchkeys and we have flats, and are free to make the mistakes that boys make. Only boys’ mistakes don’t matter and ours do.”

  She was beyond control, beyond reason, blind to the injustice, the monstrous injustice of her assault. The strain of the last hour coming upon the accumulated strain of the last three years had been too much. There was no need for her people to know of Carstairs now. That at least they could be spared. But she was in no mood to spare them anything. They had deserved it. They should have it. Like a Malay that has run amok, she was the slave of one desire; the desire to strike and strike. They should know the full extent of the damage that they had done.

  “You think you can trust us, but you can’t. How can you be so mad as to imagine that? Have you forgotten what it feels like to be twenty-one? We’re only human. We’ve got to be protected. And there’s that telephone. Oh, well, I’ll answer it. Yes, this is 8073, who is that?”

  To her astonishment she was answered by her sister’s voice. Her relief was so great that she could scarcely frame her sentence.

  “What, Melanie, you! Oh, my dear, and where are you? That’s your secret, you say. But you must tell me. I must know. It’s not too late. I’ll get a car and come straight away to bring you back here.”

  But it was by a laugh that she was answered.

  “Darling,” Melanie cried, “one can’t very well leave one’s husband on one’s wedding night.”

  And she laughed again, a clear bubbling laugh: a laugh into which went all the glamour and the glow of youth: the joy of giving and the joy of taking: of saying, “You are mine. I’m yours. Let the world slip. We are one another’s.” That laugh, with all it stood for, was the loveliest thing that Julia Terance had ever known. It made the whole business of living a richer thing. “To be able to feel like that,” she thought. “Mander’s not good enough. It’s a pity. Still, if she thinks he is. And she may never know. Or she may make him so. That’s the way to love, the way to marry. The one way.”

  Emotion stifled her; emotion and relief.

  “Then you’ll give Druce my best wishes,” she said weakly.

  At that there was another laugh: a merry, ironic laugh.

  “And who’s Druce?”

  “Druce Mander.”

  “But what’s he got to do with it?”

  “Well, he’s your husband, isn’t he?”

  At that point Melanie’s laughter passed beyond the limits of control.

  “Angel, you’re so sweet,” she spluttered. “And did you really think that I was going to marry Druce Mander?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Oh, but that’s too lovely!” And Julia could hear Melanie’s voice fainter since it had been turned away, calling into the room behind, “Howard, darling, what do you think?”

  At the name Howard, Julia started.

  “Howard!” she cried. “Is that Howard Savile?”

  “What other Howard could there be?”

  “And it’s him you’ve married?”

  “Silliest, of course. And you never guessed. How could you, though. It happened in such a rush, just as it does in books.”

  “Then why all this secrecy? What was the need for it?”

  “No need, darling, but you can’t think how exciting it’s made it all!”

  Exciting! Wearily Julia leant her head against her hands. Freedom and excitement. Those will-o’-the-wisps. Well, Melanie had been lucky with them. They’d led her safely. She’ld never know how much she had been so near to costing others. Wearily she turned back from the telephone to where her parents were standing, fidgeting with excitement and curiosity.

  “It’s Melanie,” she said. “You’ld like to speak to her, I expect. It’s all right. I was a pig, a fearful pig. I’m sorry.”

  And then something snapped and she was collapsing into a chair, with her head between her hands, and she had begun to sob, and sob and sob.

  She stayed on to dinner with her parents.

  It was a quiet evening: the kind of quiet that exists in the centre of the typhoon. There had been storms behind, and there were storms ahead, but here for the moment there was peace. For the most part they talked of Melanie; of where she would live, of whether she would follow Savile to America, of what Savile’s prospects were. But though they were talking of Melanie, they were thinking, each of them, of themselves. And of how this change would affect them.

  “Something’s died to-night,” thought Julia. “The corporate family life. It’s gone, and it won’t come back.” And in herself, too, something had died. One didn’t pass through such a crisis, one could not make the resolution she had made, and remain the same. For what, after all, had that decision of hers to confess to her parents amounted to but a willingness to sacrifice her future with Leon Carstairs? “Can I live without him?” she had asked herself. And in that going to her parents had been implicit the answer, “Yes.” She had decided to do without him. “It can never be the same again between us,” she thought, “not ever.”

  For a long while she sat that evening talking with her parents in the drawing-room that had been once her nursery. And when she rose to go it was with a feeling of tenderness for them that she had not felt for years. They would be lonely now, in this house that for nearly the quarter of a century had been made bright for them by young voices.

  “If you’re not doing anything particular tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll come and dine here.”

  Her father’s face flushed with pleasure. “My dear one, do!”

  “If it wouldn’t be inconvenient,” Julia added, “I think I’ll stay the night.”

  She was never sorry nowadays for an excuse to leave her flat.

  Chapter XIX

  Deauville

  There is a melancholy quality about the search for happiness. Happiness is the flower of a plant whose roots go deep. It blossoms out of self-fulfilment; out of an interior and hard-won-to peace of spirit. The quest for it is self defeated. An atmosphere of failure, of foiled endeavour overhangs the surface gaiety of the world’s pleasure grounds; the night clubs, the yachts, the beaches, the casinos, to which people repair in the belief that happiness is localised and for sale; the belief that by going to the Lido, to Cannes, to the Chateau de Madrid they will find the zest for living that the routine of their normal lives does not provide. In such places, on all except very young and very shallow natures, a feeling of lassitude descends speedily. It is not so much the intrinsic vulgarity of the life that depresses one—the ostentation, the arrogance, the display, the reduction of everything to a dollar level—not that so much as the purposelessness, the restlessness, the feeling of unfulfilment that this deliberate demand for a good time expresses. And Jean Ryland, as she lay sunning herself upon the sand on the last afternoon of her holiday at Deauville, found herself actually looking forward to her return to London, to the long mornings and afternoons in Brooke Street, to early evenings, to unexacting companionship, to the monotony of routine.

  It was not that she had not enjoyed herself. She had. To begin with, rapturously. It had been such an adventure. The departure by separate trains, the meeting in Paris. That first dinner with Gavin Todd, the heavenly feeling that at last they were alone and free. Their first real night together. The lovely intimacy that springs from love: the quiet happiness of waking at a lover’s side: of opening your eyes drowsily to find his eyes looking into them: to say “hullo” friendlily and to ring for coffee: to dawdle together over baths. They had been a dream, those first few hours.

  And it had been exciting arriving at Deauville: booking the small room for herself in the little hotel by the station which would serve as an alibi, to which she would have her letters sent, in which she would leave a couple of small suit-cases, of which she would make
use if any emergency required it: then driving on to the Normandie, to the large two-roomed suite with connecting doors; with Gavin coming in and talking to her as she unpacked her trunks, sitting on the bed without shyness as though they had been married months. Then there had been the first walk along the front with the sun warm and the sea air cool upon their cheeks. And afterwards the visit to the casino, the passport formalities, the card of membership, the first stroll through those warm thick carpeted rooms: the first hand of baccarat: and later the absurdly late dinner in the Casino café: the crowded restaurant; the music, the tinkled glasses, the thrill of looking pretty and well-dressed in a crowd of pretty and well-dressed women: of hearing in your ears as you danced the whisper, “How ordinary you make all these other women seem”; to know that soon, in an hour or so, you would be able to move out of this noise and away from all these people, into the happiness of loving and being loved.

  They had been a dream, those first few days. And later she had been happy, too. Later when her private happiness with Gavin had been invaded by the people with whom Gavin’s golf inevitably brought her into contact, who forced on them the necessity of circumspection, who kept inviting them to large parties which it would have been difficult to refuse, parties which began late and ended late, that it was hard to get away from early. She scarcely saw Gavin alone except for the few hours before dawn in their hotel suite, and then not always. More than one evening, when Gavin, on account of golf the next day, had to retire early, had resulted in herself, who had no excuse for retiring, being seen home to the small hotel by the station. It was only when she was seen home by Gavin that she could return to the Normandie.

  “It’s ridiculous,” Gavin had protested. “What does it matter what they think? As it is they probably suspect.”

  “Yes, but they don’t know. And if it were known that I was staying in the same hotel as you, even if they themselves didn’t realise what that meant, my people would if they got to hear of it. And I’m not risking that.”