‘Aren’t you disappointed?’
‘I was at first. I don’t know, I don’t think I mind very much. I don’t seem to be keen any more. I’ve lost it.’
‘Poor old sweet.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Will you go on having lessons?’
‘I might as well, twice a week, anyway. I can practise there. Besides - it will give me something to do.’
‘Well, it’s rotten luck. I think the chap’s a fool, doesn’t know his job. Good thing for him you didn’t kick up a fuss.’ I fumbled in my pocket for my cigarette-case. Then I had to ask the garçon for a match.
‘What were we talking about?’ I said afterwards. ‘Oh! yes, your music. What a bore for you. Do you know, darling, I think I shall be able to get to work tightening up the book next week; it will be rather fun going back to it again. I’ve thought of a new ending which is really good.You remember the old one was too sudden? I’ll explain you the new idea.’ I leant forward excitedly, and went on to tell her about my book. It was quite late by the time we got home. Going over the new idea with her seemed to have stimulated me somehow; I could not rest, and I went over to the table in my room and sat down with the thought of noting down one or two little things. Once started, I did not seem to be able to leave it. I forgot the time. I heard Hesta calling to me from the other room.
‘Aren’t you coming to bed?’ she said.
‘I shan’t be long,’ I shouted; ‘go to sleep if you’re tired. I won’t wake you, anyway.’
She was silent a little while, and then she called me again.
‘Dick, it isn’t good for you to go on working so late. Do stop.’
I pretended not to hear. I did not answer. It was very important to me what I was doing.
Presently I heard her footstep, and she came into the room, in her pyjamas, and knelt beside me.
‘It’s nearly two o’clock,’ she said; ‘you must get some sleep; honestly, you can’t sit here all night.’
Why did she have to come in, she might see that it irritated me, just as I was on the flash of a thought.
‘Oh! darling, do leave me alone,’ I said, ‘you know how I hate being fussed. I’ll come to bed when I’m finished. Why should you worry? Do I stop you from sleeping?’
‘It’s not that,’ she said, ‘but you’re always late now. It goes on and on.’
‘Well, damn it, darling, I can’t help it if I write better in the evening.’
‘Oh! God,’ she said, looking white and queer, different from herself, ‘always this old writing. There’s never anything else, all the time, day and night, you and your writing.’
I stared at her, scarcely believing what she said.
‘Sweetheart, you’re crazy. What on earth is the matter?’
She slipped away from me, she sat back on the floor, small and thin, clutching her knees, shivering in her thin pyjamas.
‘It’s never like it used to be,’ she said, and her voice was strained and funny, as though she might cry.
‘All day you sit here and do your writing, and in the evening too, very often. We never go out like we did in the spring and the summer.’
‘Go out?’ I said. ‘How do you mean, darling, go out where?’
‘In Paris, to have fun, to laugh, to look at people. It’s different now, it’s been different ever since we came back.’
‘Hesta, love,’ I said, speaking rather gently as if she were a child, ‘you know I have to work, you know it’s the most important thing to me. You can’t expect me to fly around with you all the time, in Paris, and all over the place.’
‘You did in the summer,’ she said.
‘Well, it’s no good comparing the summer with now,’ I said; ‘we can’t always go on doing the same things.’
‘It’s because you don’t want to,’ she said.
‘Darling, that’s ridiculous.’ It would be easy for me to lose my temper.
‘We had a marvellous holiday, we had a grand time, and now you’re kicking that we have to settle down,’ I said. She stared up at me, white and wretched, biting the back of her hand.
‘It’s not going about that I miss,’ she said, ‘it’s being with you, it’s the fun of us together. It’s all gone, we don’t laugh like we used to do. I can’t explain. I get so lonely. . . .’
‘Lonely?’ I could not understand. ‘How can you be lonely? Why, I’m here all the time,’ I said.
‘Oh yes, you’re here - stuck at your desk.You and your writing. But you don’t care whether I’m here or not.’
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘we’ve got to get this straight.You know I love you, and you’re just making this scene because you’re bored. Are you bored?’
‘It’s not boredom. . . .’
‘Well, get something to do, darling. Go on with your music lessons.’
‘What help is music to me now? I can’t even play.’
‘That’s bloody rot. Of course you could play if you wanted to.’
‘Supposing I don’t want to?’
‘Well, damn it, sweetheart, that’s your look-out, isn’t it?’
‘Music meant everything to me, Dick, until you made me forget it.’
‘Oh! I made you forget it, did I?’
‘You know you did.’
I picked her up from the floor where she was crouching, and held her next to me.
‘Sweetheart, we mustn’t row like this. We mustn’t. It’s not a bit of good. I guess you’re disappointed over that concert, and it’s rotten, babe, just rotten. It’s not us, to quarrel, you know that.’
She put her arms round my neck.
‘I don’t want to quarrel,’ she said, ‘I don’t want anything but you.’
‘You’ve got me,’ I said.
‘No,’ she said. ‘We’re never happy now like we used to be. It’s never the same as Barbizon or Dieppe.’
‘I love you every bit as much. You don’t understand, Hesta, you’re part of me, you’re here. Don’t you see?’ I argued.
‘What’s the good of that to me?’ she said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘What’s the good of it, that settled thing, that quiet love? I want you so much in that other way - like Dieppe.’
I held her very close. I did not say anything. It gave me a profound and staggering shock, this coming from her.
‘Since we’ve been back,’ she said, ‘we’ve scarcely ever been like that. You’ve always had your writing, or else you’ve been tired, you haven’t thought about it. You don’t know how I’ve felt. Sometimes I thought I’d go mad.’
‘Darling,’ I said, ‘darling.’
I did not know what to do. I did not know what to say. How was I to know what she felt? How was I to know? It was terrible for her to say this thing.
‘You mustn’t,’ I said, ‘Hesta, sweet, you mustn’t be like that. It’s ghastly - it’s - I can’t explain. A woman should never tell a man she feels like that. Never. It’s terrible - it’s all wrong.’
‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why - I don’t see . . .’
‘Sweetheart, it’s beastly - it’s making a thing of it, it’s - it’s unattractive. It’s all right for me to want you, but not for you - at least, never to say. It’s terrible, darling.’
‘I can’t help it,’ she said. ‘I can’t alter myself. I did not know before I started how it would be. I never cared to, and you used to beg me and beg me, and be wretched until I did. Now that I want you, now that you’ve made me want you, you say it’s beastly - you say it’s wrong.’
This was appalling. I did not know what had happened.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t know you would think it so awful. I didn’t think it mattered, telling you.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said.
‘If it’s so unattractive,’ she went on, ‘perhaps you’d better send me away.You’ll be put off me.’
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘you’re not going to worry any more. You’re going to forget about all this. And t
omorrow we’ll see if the hotel at Barbizon will take us for a week. A few days away, out of Paris, will be wonderful. We ought to have gone before.’
‘Oh! Dick,’ she said, ‘you can’t just because of me. You can’t - I won’t take you from your writing.’
‘Sweetheart, there’s no argument about it. We’re going. See? I want to get away - I want to get away just as much as you. . . .’
I did not work any more that night. It was raining the next day. It scarcely looked hopeful for Barbizon.We decided we would wait a day or two until the weather cleared.
I took Hesta to dinner and to a theatre instead, and the following afternoon we had tickets for a concert. She said she enjoyed it, she said she was happy and everything was all right. I was worried, though; what she had told me had interfered with my sense of security. It was as if I had failed to understand her, it shocked me to realize I did not know anything about women. There had been a smooth regularity in my life since the summer which she had now disturbed. What had been perfect for me she had spoilt with this admission of her own loneliness. She had made herself into a responsibility, and I did not want that.
In my mind there had been my writing and her, and she had fitted into it to suit me, but now I saw these things were apart and could not be brought together. I wished she had not told me, I wished she could have gone on in some way without letting me know.
A responsibility - I had not bargained for that. And then she had lost interest in her music, she had lost the enjoyment of her own talent and the pleasure of being alone. I thought of her as I first knew her, cool, indifferent and remote, wearing her orange béret, not listening to what I said.
I wondered why she had to change. Perhaps I seemed different to her, too. These were problems, deep, intricate and hurtful, that we could not discuss with one another.We were lovers, but these things must remain unspoken.
I thought, however much two people may surrender themselves and become part of each other, they must realize, with a little sensation of helplessness, that they are always alone, in some great depth of solitude. I wished there was someone who could tell me what to do. Someone older than myself, experienced and wise, who would have understood.
After Hesta had told me how she felt, I could not think of anything else for three days; in spite of taking her about, in spite of the forced distraction, the thought lingered there, in the back of my mind.
During the interval at the concert I sat without speaking, my eyes fixed on the empty platform, and she reached out for my hand and held it between hers, and I looked at her and she was smiling.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said. ‘Aren’t you liking it, are you miserable? ’
‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s a splendid concert. I’m all right.’
‘What are you thinking about?’ she said.
‘Nothing, darling.’
‘You always say that, you always make this pretence of never thinking. Tell me, Dick, you look dreary and grey.’
‘I don’t know - I was thinking about you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I was just thinking over what you said the other night - you worried me a little; I feel I’ve not treated you right. I guess I’ve been a bore at times, Hesta.’
‘No, darling - never, never. Don’t think about what I said, I didn’t mean it. I was silly and tired, and besides, you needn’t worry, I’m happy - terribly happy.’
‘Are you, sweetheart?’ I said - ‘are you sure?’
‘Yes, Dick. These last few days have been so wonderful, I feel a beast for saying what I did the other night.You won’t remember, will you? Promise me you won’t. I’m happy, darling - happy.’
‘Really?’
‘Look at me.’
The second part of the concert began again after that, and I went on holding her hand as though we were a boy and a girl out for the first time, shy of love, having to touch each other. Somehow I felt easier after that. I glanced at her, sitting beside me, and it seemed as though the white drawn look had gone, also the thin lines at the corners of her mouth, and there was no longer a haunted shadow in her eyes. She had said she was happy. She looked happy. Perhaps I had been making too much of a thing of all this. Perhaps there was no need to be so serious. She had been disappointed about her music, and then tired, and I in my turn had been irritated and excited with the book. We had caught each other that night in difficult moods. In a week or so I would laugh at myself, I would know I had been a fool. A scene over nothing at all. Losing my sense of humour.
Hesta looked lovely. She was all right. I whispered across to her in the darkness: ‘I love you.’
The next day I felt that I could go on with my book. I asked Hesta first if she minded, and she said of course not. So that was a good thing, and I worked all day, but I left off quite early in the evening. The next day I worked a little longer, but made up for it by taking Hesta to a theatre in the evening. The weather was cold and grey.
‘What about Barbizon?’ I said.
‘I leave it to you, darling,’ she said.
‘It wouldn’t be too good this weather, would it?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘I mean, if we got there and it was like this, it would be pretty ghastly, eh?’
‘Yes, Dick.’
‘We’d only get fed up.’
‘Yes.’
‘What about putting it off till later?’
‘Next week, perhaps, or the week after?’ she said.
‘Something of that sort. The fact is, the book is going so strong, at the moment it seems almost a shame to leave it. But you’ve got to tell me first you don’t mind, you’ve got to promise you’re happy.’
‘I promise I’m happy. I promise I don’t mind,’ she said.
‘We’ll go some time, of course.’
‘Yes.’
‘Meanwhile, I should go on with your lessons, darling, I really should. I’m sure they’re good for you, and music is marvellous, isn’t it, and, anyway - Oh, I should.’
‘Yes, Dick.’
‘That’s right. Then I don’t have to worry you’re bored?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Darling. Then we’re happy, aren’t we?’
‘Yes, we’re happy.’
Somehow we did not go to Barbizon after all, Hesta not reminding me about it made me forget. She seemed content with her music lessons, and so I was able to concentrate once more on my writing.
7
In a flash I can see the progress of that autumn and the coming of winter. The grey afternoons, dark at half-past four, getting up from my chair and closing the shutters outside the window,> feeling the radiators with my hands and wondering why they gave out so little heat, and then back to the table looking about for my pen, rustling the pages of my writing-block. Hesta, singing up the stairs, going into the next room so as not to disturb me, and then flinging her music-case on to the bed, and moving a chair or opening a drawer.
I would go on writing and yet be aware of the life that continued around me, the comfort and the familiarity of little things. There would be Hesta’s book lying open on the floor, and her sweater hanging over the back of a chair. On my table were some flowers she had placed there in the morning. My cigarettes stood on the mantelpiece beside a silly stuffed cat I had bought one day for fun, and here also was a snapshot of Hesta taken in Dieppe. Her things and my things, part of each other, part of our life, and the room next door with the one divan in the corner, and my old coat hung on a hook on top of her mackintosh, my shoes lying untidily under the dressing-table, hers beneath a chair, and our tooth-brushes in a jar, and a sponge we shared. All these making up the atmosphere of Hesta and me, she coming to the sitting-room later and I looking up and saying: ‘Chuck me a cigarette, darling,’ and she saying: ‘What about dinner?’ patting the side of her hair, walking over to the mantelpiece. Scraps of conversation, she standing with a frown, putting her finger down her throat: ‘I
believe I’m getting a cold,’ and I not listening wholly: ‘Haven’t we any aspirin?’
Undressing together at night, Hesta with a sensitive skin always scratching at herself when she took off her things. ‘I forgot to tell you, the wretched blanchisseuse is down with ’flu, what are we going to do about the laundry this week?’ and I, leaning over the wash-basin, my mouth full of rinsing water for my teeth, shrugging my shoulders, then spitting out the water, rattling the brush round the glass: ‘I should ask the daughter to find somebody. ’
Lying in bed, the accustomed warmth of her body, the scent of the eau-de-Cologne she used on her skin, then yawning, settling myself in comfort by her side, caressing her mechanically with one hand. ‘Remind me to get that book in the morning,’ and she: ‘Oh! so funny. I saw one of the girls from the pension this afternoon; she didn’t see me, though.’
Falling asleep later, she on her side, me on my face, neither of us moving much, used to each other’s positions.
Sitting down to a meal at the Coupole, and glancing at an English paper, crumbling up her bread when I had finished my own.‘You know, darling, I think this place is going off, the service is shocking,’ then she leaving half-way through to be in time for her lesson. ‘Will you remember, Dick, to buy some chocolat: we’ve finished it all,’ and I saying ‘All right,’ and going on with my food, following her vaguely with my eyes as she swung through the doors, then looking down at the paper again.
In the evening, cutting work for a while, lounging in a chair, trying to read a French novel and missing half the meaning, with Hesta opposite me, squinting as she threaded a needle, bad at darning a hole in her stocking, sewing it up in a knot.
‘Some of the people are quite amusing this term; another girl and I are going to play duets, and she has a brother who composes.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s much more fun if one knows just two or three of them. I never bothered before, I don’t know why.’