When it was quite dark I pulled myself together enough to light a candle and begin to go wretchedly to bed. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door to the landing and Stephen called out:
“I don’t want to come in, but please read the note I’m pushing through to you.” I called back “All right,” and saw the note coming under the door. As I picked it up I heard his footsteps going downstairs, and then the noise of the front door shutting.
He had written:
DEAREST CASSANDRA
Please do not be unhappy. It will come right. It is just that you are so young. I forget that sometimes, because you are so clever. I cannot explain because I think it would make you feel worse and anyway I do not know how. But there was nothing wrong happened. It was all my fault. It you forgive me for shocking you so, please write YES on a piece of paper and put it under my door. I am going out now and will not come back until your light is out so you need not be frightened of meeting me. And I will go to work before you are up in the morning.
We won’t talk about it—anyway, not for a long time. You say when.
Truly it is all right, With love from X X X X X X but not until you want them.
On a separate sheet he had written: “Perhaps this will help you to understand. Of course it is only for when we are married”—and then he had copied out four lines from “Love’s Philosophy.” Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine In one another’s being mingle-Why not I with thine his By Percy Bysshe Shelley. (born 1792, died 1822.) I guessed he had put Shelley’s name and dates so that I wouldn’t think he was stealing poetry again. Oh, Stephen—I know so well why you used to steal it! I long and long to express my love for Simon and nothing of my own is worthy.
I wrote YES and put it under his door. I couldn’t bear not to-and, of course, it was true in a way; I did forgive him. But it let him believe a lie-that I was upset just because he had shocked me.
Since then, we haven’t been alone once. We talk fairly naturally in front of the others, but I never look straight at him. I suppose he just thinks I am shy.
Of course the honest thing would be to tell him it will never any good but, even if I could bear to hurt him so, I doubt if I could convince him without owning that I care for someone else because I certainly showed every sign of its being some good while he was making love to me. Oh, why did I let him his Let him his You encouraged him, my girl! But why, why? When my whole heart was longing for Simon! Perhaps I could understand myself better if I didn’t so loathe remembering it—even now I haven’t quite put down everything that happened.
I know this: asking him to go into the wood was a wicked thing, wicked to him and wicked to myself. Truly, being so sorry for him had something to do with it, but it was mostly sheer wickedness.
And it was only due to Stephen that it didn’t turn out much wickeder. I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame …… Oh dear, that was a great mistake! My mind wandered from repenting to thinking it wouldn’t have been sin if Stephen had been Simon. And changing them over has made me realize more and more how I have spoilt the memory of Simon’s kiss. Oh, how can I face my wretched future his I shall have to be Rose’s bridesmaid, see her living with Simon at Scoatney year after year, watch him worshipping her. And how am I going to hide my feelings, when I see them together?
If only I could go away! But the one thing I live for is to see Simon again.
I have just remembered I once wrote that I didn’t envy Rose, that I thought a happy marriage might be dull.
Heavens, what a fool I was! …… Father is cycling along the lane, after spending the day at Scoatney again, and the boys will be home any minute now. I suppose I must go down and get tea; tinned salmon would cheer me up most, I think. It is most strange and wretched coming back to the present after being in this journal so long—I have been writing all day with only one break when I took Heloise indoors for her dinner and gave myself a very few cold sausages.
One of my worst longings to cry has come over me.
I am going to run down the mound grinning and singing to fight it off.
Nine o’clock—written in bed.
Something has happened. Oh, I know I mustn’t build on it—but I know I am building.
While we were at tea, a telegram came for Stephen from Leda Fox-Cotton; she wants him to go up to London next weekend. So he went back to the farm to ask if they can spare him on Saturday morning. As soon as he had gone out, I turned off his wireless and went upstairs to play Simon’s—I never play it when Stephen is in the house. Thomas came too, and asked me to put the Bach Preludes and Fugues on the gramophone—he particularly likes them. We lay on the beds listening companionably. It seems to me that Thomas has been getting much more grownup and intelligent lately. He was always bright about his school work, but I never found him interesting to talk to. Now he often astonishes me.
Perhaps all the good food he has had lately has flown to his brain.
After we had played the Bach records he suddenly said:
“Do you remember Rose wishing on the stone head?”
I asked what on earth had made him think of that.
“Oh, listening to Simon’s gramophone, I suppose—it’s part of the difference the Cottons have made to our lives. It never struck me before that Rose wanted to sell herself to the Devil, wished and then in they walked.”
I stared at him.
“But Rose isn’t selling herself —she’s in love with Simon. She told me so and you know she never lies.”
“That’s true,” said Thomas.
“Then perhaps she managed to kid herself—because I know she isn’t in love. And she’s all wrong for Simon.”
“But how can you possibly know that she isn’t in love?”
“Well, for one thing, she hardly ever mentions Simon. Harry’s sister’s in love and she never stops talking about her fiance. Harry and I make bets about it. That last weekend I stayed there she mentioned him fifty-one times.”
“That’s nonsense,” I said.
“Rose happens to be more reticent.”
“Reticent? Rose? Why, she always talks her head off about anything she’s keen on. Do you know that in the letter I had from her there isn’t one word about Simon ?”
“When did you have a letter?” I asked.
“Couldn’t I see it?”
He said he had happened to meet the postman in the lane a few days ago.
“And I didn’t show you the letter because she asked me not to—but for a very silly reason, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t.
I’ll get it now.”
It was a most peculiar letter. There was certainly nothing about Simon in it—but there was nothing about anyone else, not even Rose herself, really. It was just one enormous list of things that had been bought for her and how much everything cost. At the end, she wrote: “I would rather you didn’t show this to Cassandra, because it seems awful that I have so many lovely things when she has so few.
You won’t be envious as you are not a girl And it is nice to be able to tell someone.”
“And I bet I know why she made that list,” said Thomas.
“It was to convince herself that marrying for money is worth it.
Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it too much; women are always marrying for money, you know. Anyway, it’s a godsend for us, all right, even if it’s a bit of a devil send for Rose.”
“And what about Simon ?” I demanded.
“Simon? Oh, he’s past help. Do you remember our last visit to Scoatney -before they all went up to London?
He mentioned Rose’s name forty-two times while we were walking round the stables—I counted. The horses must have been sick of the sound of her.”
I told him he hadn’t any real evidence about Rose’s feelings; but a wild hope was rising in my heart—for surely it is strange that there is nothing about Simon in her letter, surely one wants to write about the person one is in lov
e with his Why, I even write Simon’s name on scraps of paper! (and then get fits of nerves that I haven’t really torn them up.) After Thomas had gone off to do his homework, I got out the only letter Rose has written to me. At first it sent my hopes down to zero—for what could be more definite than: “It’s so wonderful that I can be in love with Simon as well as everything else.” But suppose she really is “kidding herself,” as Thomas suggested his There is so little about Simon. And part of the letter seems so sad—she writes of loneliness, of having to sit in the bathroom until she cheers up. Heavens, if I had Simon I could never be lonely!
I have been lying in bed trying to imagine the kind of letter I would have written had I been Rose. I don’t think I would have said much about my deepest feelings—I can quite understand Rose keeping those to herself. But I know I would have said which dresses Simon liked, what he thought about theatres-I know he would have been the most important thing in the letter.
Am I making it all up—believing what I want to believe? And even if she doesn’t love him, I know he loves her. But perhaps if she gave him up …… Oh, it is so hot in this room! I dar en open the window wide in case Heloise takes a flying leap out of it—one of her suitors, the sheep-dog from Four Stones, is prowling round the castle. Heloise, darling, he would be a most unsuitable match. I wonder if he has gone …… No, he hasn’t. There are two dogs now, just the other side of the moat; I can see four eyes glowing in the darkness.
I feel terribly sorry for love-lorn dogs.
I can’t say Heloise is minding much, though—she is looking rather smug …… I have just decided what to do. Somehow I have got to find out the truth. If Rose really loves him I will never try to take him from her, even in my thoughts. I will go away—perhaps to college, as she suggested. But I must know the truth. I must see her.
I will go to London with Stephen on Saturday.
XIV
I AM BACK. It wasn’t any good.
Nothing will ever be the same again between Rose and me.
All the time that Stephen and I were cycling to Scoatney station very early yesterday, I kept remembering the start of my last trip to London, when she was with me. I found myself talking to her as she was then; even asking her advice about what I should say to the new Rose. The Rose with the thousand-pound trousseau seemed an utterly different person from the Rose in the skimpy white suit who set out with me that bright April morning. How fresh the countryside was then! It was green yesterday, after the rain, but there was no hopeful, beginning feeling. The sun was hot, and though I was glad the bad weather was over, I found it rather glaring. High summer can be pitiless to the low spirited.
Being alone with Stephen was far less difficult than I had expected.
We talked very little and only about the most ordinary things. I felt guilty towards him and, most unfairly, slightly annoyed with him because I did. I resented being worried about him on top of everything else.
While we were waiting at the station, Heloise arrived, exhausted —having eluded Thomas and raced after our bicycles. She is out of purdah now, and we didn’t like to leave her on the platform, because once when we did that she stowed away on the next train and ended up at King’s Crypt police station. So Stephen got her a dog-ticket and the stationmaster gave her a long drink and found some string to make a leash. She behaved beautifully on the journey, except that after we changed into the London train she took a little boy’s cake away from him. I quickly thanked him for giving it to her and he took my word for it that he had meant to.
Stephen insisted on escorting me all the way to Park Lane. We arranged to telephone each other about what train we would go home by, and then he dashed off to St. John’s Wood.
I walked Heloise round the block of flats, then went in. It was a most palatial place with bouncy carpets and glittering porters and a lift you work yourself. There is a queer, irrevocable feeling when you have pressed the button and start to go up.
Heloise got claustrophobia and tried to climb the padded leather walls. It didn’t do them any good.
I have never seen any place look so determinedly quiet as the passage leading to the flat; it was hard to believe anyone lived behind the shining front doors. When Mrs.
Cotton’s was opened to me it came as quite a shock.
I asked for Rose and told the maid who I was.
“They’re all out,” she said.
I suddenly realized I ought to have let them know I was coming.
“When will they be back, please?” I asked.
“Madam said six-thirty—in time to dress for dinner. Won’t you come in, miss?”
She offered to get water for Heloise, who was panting histrionically, and asked if I would like anything. I said perhaps some milk and might I tidy up his She showed me into Rose’s bedroom. It was superb-the carpet was actually white; it seemed awful to walk on it. Everything was white or cream, except a great bunch of red roses in a marble vase on the bedside table. By it was a card sticking out of an envelope with “Good morning, darling,” on it, in Simon’s writing. While I was staring at the roses the maid came back with my milk, and water for Heloise; then left us alone.
Rose’s bathroom looked as if it had never been used—even her toothbrush was hidden away. She had said in her letter that there were clean towels every day, but I hadn’t visualized there being so many-three sizes, and the most fetching monogrammed face cloths When I had washed, I went back to the bedroom—and found Heloise blissfully relaxed on the white quilted bedspread; she did look nice. I took off my shoes and lay down beside her, trying to think out what I had better do. The scent of the roses was most beautiful.
I saw that it would be hopeless to talk to Rose if she didn’t get back until so late; I needed to go slow and be tactful, and there would be no time for that either before or after dinner, even if waited until the nine-thirty train. I wondered if I could find her surely she would come back if she knew I was at the flat his I rang for the maid, but when she came she had no idea where they had all gone.
“Wouldn’t anyone know?” I said desperately.
“Well, we could try Mr. Neil—though we haven’t seen much of him lately.” She rang up his hotel; but Neil was out. Then I wondered if the Fox-Cottons could help, and we got their number.
Leda Fox-Cotton didn’t sound at all pleased to talk to me.
“You silly child, why didn’t you warn them?” she said.
“No, of course I don’t know where they are. Wait a minute, I’ll ask Aubrey.
Topaz might have mentioned something to him.”
She was back in a minute.
“He only knows that Topaz will be home this evening—because he’s calling for her. I suppose you’d better lunch with us—you’ll have to wait till two, though, because I’m having a long morning with Stephen. I’ve got to take him to some film people this afternoon. You can amuse yourself for an hour or so, can’t you his Get a taxi at half-past one.”
I thought of refusing, but I did want to see her house and studio —and have another look at her and her husband; it sounded as if Topaz was very thick with him. So I thanked her and accepted.
After I stopped hearing her bleating voice, I told myself that it was really very kind of her to ask me and that I ought to get over my prejudice against her.
“That’ll be nice for you,” said the maid, “though Cook would have given you some lunch, of course. Let’s see, you’ve got an hour and a half to put in—I expect you’d like to look at some shops.”
But I didn’t fancy lugging Heloise round crowded streets, so I said I would just walk in Hyde Park.
“Your frock’s quite a bit creased, miss,” she told me.
“I could press it, if you like.”
I had a look at myself in Rose’s long glass.
It is strange what surroundings can do to clothes—I had washed and ironed my green dress the day before and thought it very nice, but in Rose’s room it seemed cheap and ordinary. And lying on the bed in it hadn’
t helped matters. But I didn’t like to take it off to be pressed, because my underclothes were so old and darned, so I thanked the maid and told her I wouldn’t bother.
It was hot walking in the Park so I sat down on the grass under some trees. Heloise rolled and then enticed me with waving paws to tickle her; but I was too lazy to make a good job of it so she turned over and went to sleep. I leaned back against a tree-trunk and gazed around me.
It struck me that this was the first time I had ever been on my own in London. Normally, I should have enjoyed getting the “feel” of it—you never quite do until you have been alone in a place-and even in my anxious state of mind it was pleasant sitting there quietly, looking at the distant scarlet ‘buses, the old cream-painted houses in Park Lane and the great new blocks of flats with their striped sun-blinds. And the feel of the Park itself was most strange and interesting—what I noticed most was its separateness; it seemed to be smiling and amiable, but somehow aloof from the miles and miles of London all around. At first I thought this was because it belonged to an older London-Victorian, eighteenth century, earlier than that. And then, as I watched the sheep peacefully nibbling the grass, it came to me that Hyde Park has never belonged to any London-that it has always been, in spirit, a stretch of the countryside;
and that it thus links the Londons of all periods together most magically-by remaining forever unchanged at the heart of the ever-changing town.
After I heard a clock strike quarter-past one, I went out to Oxford Street and found a nice open taxi. It was Heloise’s first through London and she barked almost continuously-the driver said it saved blowing his horn. I had never been to St. John’s Wood before; it is a fascinating with quiet, tree-lined roads and secret-looking houses, most of them old—so that the Fox-Cottons” scarlet front door seemed startling.