What was the meaning of crépuscule? I never could remember. I couldn’t bother with a dictionary.
‘There’s rather an intriguing person who is quite new. The Professor says he is brilliant, he’s a violinist, but I haven’t heard him play. I bumped into him in the corridor yesterday. He gave me a sinister look.’
‘What does crépuscule mean, darling?’
‘Twilight, I think. There’s a dictionary somewhere. This queer man is Spanish, I believe, but he spoke English all right - he said “I’m very sorry” without an accent.’
‘Fancy,’ I yawned.
‘Oh! Wanda, the duet girl, asked me to go back with her tomorrow evening and stay for some supper, and practise together. Is that all right?’
‘Sure, sweetheart.’
‘I won’t be late, anyway. I believe, though, they’re giving some party at the end of the week, she and her brother; they’ve asked me to it. It might be fun.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s not as if we go out much,’ she said.
I turned over two or three pages of the book. There was a lot of description that did not matter.
‘Oh! rather, you’ll enjoy it,’ I said, reaching for a cigarette, not listening much.
She bit off a piece of cotton with her teeth and I went on reading the book.
The novel was finished, I read it and re-read it, and copied out pages that were scratched and dirty, and then laid all the pages on top of one another, and slipped a large india-rubber band round the whole of it. It looked grand. I put it carefully away beside my play.
I remember standing up and stretching myself, and then going over and leaning against the mantelpiece. My heart was beating, and my hands were trembling for no reason. There had never been anything like the thrill of writing the last word, of drawing a line at the bottom, of blotting the page. The breaking up of tension, the culmination of excitement, the supreme effort of that final word.
‘That’s that,’ I said aloud to myself, ‘that’s that.’ I was excited. I was happy. I wanted to walk swiftly somewhere with the wind in my face.
‘Anyway, I’ve done it,’ I thought; ‘whatever happens, I’ve done it.’
I felt as though I were tall, way up above everyone else. It would not matter what they said to me. I would go on alone in my own way. There was my father standing in a group of men, and one of them said to him: ‘It is really your son who has written this?’ and he, looking from one to the other, rousing himself from his lethargy, a little confused: ‘Yes, I believe so - Yes, it is Richard.’
Then I would come walking into the room and stand before him. Pictures leaping and thrusting themselves into my mind. I stood before the mantelpiece, lost in my dreams, and the door opened, and it was Hesta.
‘Hullo,’ she said, ‘I’m back early, aren’t I? What’s wrong with you? Is the book being a nuisance?’
I tried to be casual, I tried to hide my smile. ‘It’s finished,’ I said.
‘Darling - how clever of you.’ She came across to me and kissed me, and then wandered into the next room. I thought it would be different from this. I was aware of a little blank sensation. I followed her into the bedroom.
‘What’s the rush?’ I said.
‘Wanda and the rest are coming to pick me up,’ she said; ‘we’re dining and going to a concert. Out of the way, sweet; I want to get at my other dress.’
I stood aside while she fumbled with her things.
‘You didn’t tell me you were going out?’ I said.
‘H’m, darling, I did. I told you this morning. You must have forgotten.’
I wandered about while she changed.
‘You’re very thick with these people,’ I said.
‘Well, they’re amusing, I can’t help liking them. Where’s my belt? Oh! darling, have you seen my belt?’
‘There it is, on the floor.’
‘I never can find a thing in this room.’
‘Will you be late?’ I said.
‘I don’t know. It all depends. Don’t wait up for me.’
‘I shan’t sleep till you get back.’
‘Oh yes, of course you will. You’ll be tired with your book.’
‘How many of you are there?’ I said.
‘Wanda and her brother, and a divine couple of Hungarians and Julio.’
‘Who?’
‘Oh! you know, Dick, the violinist man; I’ve often told you about him.’
‘I don’t remember,’ I said.
‘Yes, darling, I have.You don’t listen. Look out, you’re treading on my other shoe.’
‘Is he in love with you?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said.
‘Is he?’
‘Of course not. Do I look all right? Do you like this hat?’
‘Why do you never wear bérets now?’ I said.
‘I’m sick of them. I don’t feel like them any more. Say you like the hat,’ she said.
‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s all right. It looks queer, right off your face.’
‘It’s the fashion,’ she said.
‘You never used to worry about fashion. Why do you have to put all that red on your lips? That’s new for you.’
‘You are personal, all of a sudden. I like red lips, they suit me,’ she said.
‘Who says so?’
‘Oh! Wanda and people.’
‘Do you have to go by them?’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Darling, how trying you are!’
‘It’s not like you, it’s like any other girl one sees. Red lips, hat off your face. You had a thing of your own. Why spoil it?’
‘You don’t understand, Dick, you’ve got so used to me dressed anyhow. You don’t appreciate me like this.’
‘I don’t know.’ I kicked my heels on the floor. There was a taxi blowing a hooter repeatedly in the street below.
‘There they are,’ said Hesta, ‘I must dash.’
‘What a filthy row,’ I said; ‘where are you going in the taxi?’
‘We’re dining in Paris, some new place Wanda knows. Good-bye, darling, have some dinner, and look after yourself.’
I stood by the window and watched her get into the taxi. Some fool of a man was in the street, his hat in his hand, and he was smoking a cigarette through a long holder. He took hold of Hesta by her arm and laughed down in her face. Bloody cheek. They climbed in the taxi and it drove away. I wandered back into the other room, bored, irritable, kicking at the floor. I did not see why she had to go out with those fools. I wanted her to be with me, happy, and talking about things. It was damn selfish of her. She had spoilt all the excitement now of having finished my book. It was a week now to Christmas. I thought I would wait until after the New Year and then go over to London and see about finding a publisher to read my book, and perhaps give his opinion on the play at the same time. I was not sure yet how I should go about this business. I might send the MS. to house after house, and it would be returned to me because it had not been properly read. Even if I had a personal interview with the head of the firm, I could not be certain he would go through the book himself. These publishers must be constantly bothered with unknown writers, making claims upon their time.
Yet I wanted to win through on my own merits; I hated the idea of trading on my father’s name, of getting my things read just because I was his son. It was all very difficult, I resolved not to decide anything before I arrived in London.
I asked Hesta what we were going to do about Christmas. Now that I had finished the book and was no longer working we could surely celebrate in some way.
‘What do you think, darling?’ I said.
‘I don’t know, whatever you suggest,’ she said. She was sitting on the floor in the sitting-room, putting some pink stuff on her nails.
‘That looks queer for you,’ I told her.
She shrugged her shoulders and laughed. ‘Hands are very important,’ she said.
‘You oughtn’t to have long nails when you play the pian
o,’ I said.
‘My piano-playing doesn’t mean much these days,’ she said.
‘Aren’t you really keen any more?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t think about it much. What were you saying?’
‘Oh! about Christmas. Where shall we go, darling?’
‘Go?’
‘Yes. Barbizon or the sea? It’s all the same to me.’
‘Do we have to go away, Dick?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Well - Paris is fun in itself. I can’t see there’s much point in shivering at the sea somewhere, or mooning about in Barbizon.’
‘Oh!’
‘What do you think?’ she said.
‘Darling, I thought you loved Barbizon.’
‘So I do, in the summer. Not now. How long did you want to go for, anyway?’
‘As long as we liked. Spend Christmas and the New Year.’
‘I see.’
‘You don’t seem keen, darling,’ I said.
‘Well, darling, I don’t know. Of course I had planned one or two amusing things. Wanda is giving a party on New Year’s Eve, and we had thought of motoring somewhere Boxing Day. They suggested you should come too.’
‘Very kind of them.’
‘Don’t be sniffy, sweet. They’re terribly good fun, and they’d love you to come.’
‘I don’t care about it.’
‘Yes, you would, you’d adore it once you got to know them properly. It would be such fun, all of us together.You’d like Wanda, she’s very attractive.’
‘I’ve seen her, I don’t rave. All that hair curling down her neck.’
‘Most people think she’s beautiful.’
‘They can have her, then.’
‘Oh! darling, you’ve got on your screwed-up grumpy face. I have to kiss you when you look like that.’
I had to take my handkerchief and wipe my face after kissing her now. She would leave great marks of red from her lips.
‘Hesta.’
‘What is it?’
‘Put your arms round me.’
‘Suddenly like this?’
‘Yes.’
‘This doesn’t happen very often,’ she said.
‘I want it to happen now.’
She laughed, digging her nails in me, biting the corner of my ear.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘Be like you used to be, still, just holding me. I hate this new stunt of yours.’
‘I can’t help it - I have to do things,’ she said.
‘You ought to let me do them.’
‘Why not both of us?’
We laughed, and I lifted her up from the floor.
‘You’re a wicked woman, darling.’
‘Don’t you like it?’ she said.
‘No.’
‘It’s your fault, all the same.’
‘It’s not.’
‘Yes, it is. You started me.’
‘Oh! darling . . .’
She was very small and light to hold. I kissed her closed eyes.
‘What am I going to do with you?’ I said.
She opened one eye.
‘Let’s go in the other room and see,’ she said.
I gave way about staying in Paris for Christmas. Perhaps she was right, and it would have been dreary at Barbizon.
We went over the other side and had a swell lunch on Christmas Day, and we ate and drank too much. So we had to come back and sleep all the afternoon.
On Boxing Day there was the expedition with these friends of hers to Chantilly. The fellow called Julio had a car, and drove it himself. I think he fancied himself at the wheel. I did not take to him much. Hesta sat in front with him, and I at the back with Wanda and another Hungarian girl. The girl’s husband and Wanda’s brother crouched on the floor. It was absurdly overcrowded, I thought we would have an accident. It came to me suddenly that if this had been eighteen months back, I should have been sitting on the hood and shouting, thinking it the grandest fun, longing for a puncture just for the thrill of danger, and here I was now, sober as a judge, between the two women, watching Hesta’s back ahead of me, bored, wondering about my book, thinking all these people were fools and making too much row.
We had lunch at Chantilly, but the château was not open. The fellow called Julio smoked through his amber cigarette-holder and talked a lot of muck about music. The women lapped it up, even Hesta, her chin on her hands, staring at him across the table. I felt hot for them all. I wandered away and had a chat with the old lady who ran the hotel. There was a kid, her grandchild, playing in the courtyard. He was very friendly, and pulled at my hand to show me something. I loved to hear a kid talk French, it sounded so clever. I chucked a ball to him, and he stumbled after it rather unsteadily on fat legs.
‘Vous voulez jouer avec moi?’ he said, in a deep bass voice.
‘Sure,’ I said, laughing, and he stared at me puzzled, a finger in his mouth. We went on chucking the ball backwards and forwards to each other. It was fun. Presently the others came out of the hotel.
‘Hesta,’ I called, ‘come here, I’m having a grand time, there’s the most marvellous child . . .’
‘What have you been doing?’ she said;‘it was rather rude going off like that.’
‘Sorry, darling,’ I said, ‘but do look here, I’ve never laughed so much.’
‘You are mad.’ She glanced at the little boy. ‘Come on, everyone’s waiting and we’re all driving to some place farther on.’
She seemed impatient to get back to the car. I gave my kid a two-franc piece.
‘Pour acheter des sucettes,’ I said. I shook his hand gravely, and then followed Hesta to the car.
She was peering into the looking-glass from her bag, smearing the red on to her lips with her finger.
‘Shall we sit as we did before?’ she said. She looked as though she were enjoying her day. We spent the rest of the week fairly quietly.
On New Year’s Eve there was the party with Hesta’s friends. I hated going, I wanted us to have gone somewhere by ourselves. Even if we had dined out in a crowd of people, we could have got back home by midnight and been together.
It was our first New Year. I felt we should have done a thing about it.
Hesta seemed keen on the party, though. It was a fancy-dress affair. We were going to have drinks at Wanda’s room first, and then go on to the other place and dance. Hesta dressed herself up as an apache. She had black trousers and a crimson shirt. She made up her face all white, with no colour at all except on her lips, and she brushed her hair behind her ears.
She stood in front of me, her hand on her hip.
‘Well?’ she said.
She had a new manner with me now at times, flirting with me, as though we were strangers. It was silly, rather. All the same, she looked marvellous.
‘If you were a boy I’d be sent to prison for an unnatural offence,’ I said; ‘you rouse my worst instincts. Come here.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘you’ll spoil me; I mustn’t be touched.’
‘Have we really got to go to this party, darling?’
‘Of course, be quick with your things,’ she said.
I had not coped at all. I had bought a cheap pair of velvet trousers and wore an old shirt of Hesta’s with a handkerchief knotted round my throat. God knows what I was meant to be. I looked a bloody fool, anyway. We found a taxi and went along to Wanda’s rooms. They were all there, and several other people besides. Hesta seemed to know them all. Her pal Julio was late, and when he did come he made a terrific entrance, acting like hell, fancying himself no end, all got up as a toreador.
‘Doesn’t he look wonderful!’ screamed Wanda. They all crowded round him. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders, pretending to be careless about his effect.
I rather stood in a corner, talking to a plain girl who looked all wrong draped in Eastern robes with bangles jingling. She asked me if I had been to Persia, and I said ‘No, I hadn’t,’ so that wasn’t muc
h fun, anyway, and we were both glad when somebody shouted: ‘Come on.’ I did not speak to the plain girl again the whole evening.
When we got to the dancing place there was some muddle about the table, and we could not have one long one, but two or three squashed together. The atmosphere was appalling, thick with scent and cigarette smoke and the silliness of fancy dress.
Hesta was miles away. She waved to me, smiling, and I waved back. Wanda was next to me. She was dressed as a Hungarian peasant. She looked all right. She was not such a fool, after all, and she asked me about my book. She seemed interested, wanting to know about it and what I should call it. She was not boring with her questions, and, anyway, she was good-looking.
The party was being quite fun, and there was plenty to drink, too. After a while we got up and danced. Wanda rather stuck herself into one, but it did not matter. She danced well, and she used a good scent.
‘Why don’t you come out with us more often?’ she said.
‘Oh! I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I’m generally working.’
‘You work too hard,’ she said.
The band played a good tune that did something to me inside. Wanda hummed vaguely under her breath.
‘I love this,’ she said.
‘So do I,’ I said.
We held on to each other more.
‘You’re more human tonight,’ said Wanda:‘I’m terrified of you, as a rule.’ I laughed. ‘Oh! rot,’ I said. It was all rather fun.
Then Hesta passed with Julio. She smiled vaguely at me. It bored me seeing her with him. Why did she have to dance with him, anyway? I wondered if she was enjoying it. It must be a bore being a girl, having to say ‘Yes’ when a fellow asked you. Seeing Hesta dancing with Julio spoilt my fun of dancing with Wanda.
When the band finished the tune we moved back towards the table, and I hoped we should reach it before they struck up again, otherwise I should have to ask her whether she cared to go on.
I pushed her rather, to get to the table in time.
‘Have a drink?’ I said.
It was nearly midnight before I found a chance of dancing with Hesta. She always seemed to be surrounded. It was queer seeing her with people and knowing what she was like alone. She seemed to put on another manner here. Laughing, raising her eyebrows, saying things in a different way. She talked louder, too, I thought.