‘Just as you wish, ma’am.’
‘I expect he’ll be frightfully hungry, don’t you? I’m sure it’s horrid in Berlin. I think that’s all, don’t you? It doesn’t seem only three months, does it, it seems three years since he’s been gone?’
‘Oh! It has been dull, ma’am. It will be a different place with him back.’
‘He’s always so gay, isn’t he, Mrs Cuff? Never dreary and depressed like other people.’
‘Please, ma’am, while I remember it – we want some more Ronuk.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in a bad temper. What did you say, Mrs Cuff? Ronuk? Is it stuff for swilling round basins?’
‘No, ma’am – for cleaning the floors.’
‘I’ll try and remember. All right then, an egg for my lunch and the saddle to-night.’ She went upstairs to see that his dressing-room was tidy.
‘Some day I’ll find you—
Moonlight behind you,’
she sang, and opened the cupboards in case the suits he had left behind, and might want to wear to-morrow, had not been brushed. The shabby old leather coat, not good enough for Berlin, still hung on its peg. She fingered the sleeve, and pressed her nose against the motoring cap that smelt of the stuff he put on his hair.
The photograph of herself swung crookedly from a drawing-pin on the wall, curling at the corners. She pretended not to notice it, hurt that he had never bothered to get a frame, never taken it to Berlin. ‘I suppose men think in a different way to women,’ she said to herself, and suddenly she closed her eyes and stood quite still without moving, because it had come to her swiftly like a wave covering her from head to foot, a wave of the sea and the sun, exquisite and strange, the realisation that in less than ten hours he really would be next to her – they would be together again – and they loved each other, and it was all true.
She had filled the two rooms with flowers, and had even drawn the curtains separating the dining-room aside, so that the space should be magnified. The canary still sang in his cage. ‘Louder, sweet, louder,’ she called and it seemed that the house was filled with his singing – a high, joyous clamour straight from his small bursting heart – and it mingled in some indescribable fashion with the beam of gold dust shining upon the carpet, the last lingering pattern made by the setting sun.
She poked the fire and dusted the ashes in the grate, thinking as she did so how, in the evening, she would be doing the same thing, and would remember this moment. The curtains would be drawn then, and the lamps lit, and the bird quiet in his cage, and he lounging in the arm-chair by the fire, stretching out his legs, watching her lazily. ‘Stop fussing – and come here,’ while she turned towards him, smiling, her hand on his knee. And she would think – ‘This afternoon I was alone and now I’m looking back remembering it,’ and the thought would be somehow delicious like a secret vice. She hugged her knees, and stared at the fire, childishly excited at the memory of the large, expensive bottle of bath salts she had bought that morning and put on his dressing-table, as well as the bowl of flowers.
When the telephone rang she sighed regretfully, unwilling to leave the fire, alter her position and be taken from the queer, lonely pleasure of her dreams to the conversation of someone who did not matter, forced and unreal.
‘Hullo,’ she said, and there came from the other end of the wire a little choking sound, the pitiful drawn breath of one who is crying, who cannot control her tears.
‘Is that you? It’s May . . . I had to ring you. I – I’m so desperately unhappy,’ and the voice trailed off, choked, suffocated.
‘Why,’ she said, ‘what on earth is the matter? Tell me, quick, can I do anything? Are you ill?’
She waited a moment, and then the voice came again, muffled and strange.
‘It’s Fred. It’s all over – we’ve finished. He wants me to divorce him – he’s stopped loving me.’ Then she heard a quiver and a sharp intake of breath, and the sound of sobbing, hideous, degrading, uncontrolled.
‘My poor darling!’ she began, amazed and horrified; ‘but how perfectly frightful. I can’t believe it – Fred – but it’s absurd.’
‘Please – please – come round and see me,’ begged the voice. ‘I think I’m going out of my mind – I don’t know what I’m doing.’
‘Yes – of course. I’ll come right away.’
As she put on her things she brushed from her mind the selfish regret she felt at leaving the fire and the book she was reading, and the idea of making toast for tea, all the things that were part of the loveliness of waiting for him, and she gave her thoughts to May, broken and distressed, crying helplessly, her happiness gone from her.
She went in a taxi, because, after all, May was her greatest friend, and one and six was not so much; and that reminded her she had forgotten about the Ronuk. Oh, well! never mind . . . and Mrs Cuff seemed pleased with the saddle of mutton . . . Was he crossing now? She wondered; how awful if he was sick, poor angel, how sweet . . . she must remember to think about May, though; Life was frightful, of course . . . and here she was at the door, thank goodness, only a shilling; still, she would go home in a bus, anyway . . .
May was lying face downwards on a sofa, her head buried in a cushion.
She knelt by her side, patting her shoulder, murmuring senseless little words of comfort.
‘May, darling May – you mustn’t cry like that, it’s so weakening for you; it will pull you down – try not to, please, try and pull yourself together, darling.’
And May lifted her head and showed her face, swollen, disfigured and blotched, so ravaged with her tears that it was shocking, something that should not be seen.
‘I can’t stop,’ May whispered; ‘you can’t understand what it is – it’s tearing at me like a knife, and I can’t forget his face as he told me, so cold and different . . . it wasn’t him at all, it was somebody else.’
‘But it’s simply unbelievable, May! Why should Fred suddenly take it into his head to tell you he doesn’t love you? He must have been drunk – it can’t be true.’
‘It is true.’ May was tearing her handkerchief to little shreds and biting the ends.
‘And it’s not sudden, that’s the whole thing; it’s been coming on for some while. I’ve never told you – I’ve never breathed a word to anyone. I kept hoping and praying it was only my imagination, but all the time I knew deep down that everything was wrong.’
‘Oh! my poor May. To think I didn’t know . . .’
‘Don’t you understand that there are some things one can’t tell, that are too intimate; that I was terrified to breathe, hoping if I kept silent they wouldn’t come true?’
‘Yes – yes – I see.’
‘And then to-day, when there was no longer any doubt, I suppose the agony and terror I had been holding inside could not stay silent any more; I had to give way.’
‘Oh! May – darling, darling May!’ she said, looking round the room hopelessly, as though by getting up and moving a piece of furniture she could do some good.
‘What a beast – what a brute!’ she said.
‘Oh, he’s not that!’ said May, staring before her, her voice weary from crying. ‘Fred’s only a man like other men. They’re all the same; they can’t help it. I don’t blame him. I’m only angry with myself for being such a fool to care.’
‘How long have you known?’
‘Ever since he came back from America.’
‘But, May, darling, that’s eight months ago. You surely have not been suffering all this time, keeping it for yourself? It’s impossible!’
‘Oh, my dear – it hasn’t been eight months to me, but an eternity! I don’t know if you can realise for one minute the hell that it’s been. Never quite being certain, the awful bewildering doubt and pretending that nothing was wrong. Then the degradation of trying to please him, of not noticing his manner, of making myself a sort of slave in the hope that he might come back to me. Eight months of misery and shame . . .’
‘
Oh, if only I could have helped!’ she began; and she was thinking, ‘But these things don’t happen to people – they can’t; it’s only in plays.’
‘Help isn’t any use,’ said May; ‘you have to go through it alone. I believe every moment has made its mark upon me, hurting and branding my heart – every moment from the very first until the last.’
‘But, May, darling, why should America have made any difference?’
‘Because going away does make a difference to men. Don’t you see that when Fred wasn’t with me he forgot about wanting to be with me, and once he forgot that he was ready to forget anything. And a different way of living, and seeing new things, and meeting new people.’
‘But still . . .’
‘Directly he came back I knew what had happened. I can’t describe to you the difference there was. Nothing marked or striking. But a queer, subtle change. Little things he said, his manner, even his voice – he talked louder, like someone who is trying to bluff a secret – can you understand? The very first day he was home I saw – and I pushed it aside but it hurt – and it went on hurting until to-day – and now I know at last what I’ve tried to hide.’
‘Is he in love with somebody else?’ she whispered.
‘Yes . . .’ and the voice broke again, the tears welling up into her eyes, ‘yes . . . there is some woman, of course – behind it; but it’s not only that – it’s our life he doesn’t want any more, this house – me – everything. He wants to break away altogether. He doesn’t want ties, or a home – he talks of going back to America . . .’
‘But Fred to behave like that – and all this time when I’ve seen you together, not a sign from either of you – my poor May!’
And though her words were full of pity and she held May close to her, trying to comfort her, she was aware that her heart could not hold any real sympathy, and that the sight of May’s tears awoke even a sense of irritation and contempt which was difficult to banish, and she said to herself, with her eye on the clock, ‘I suppose I can’t feel this because I know it couldn’t ever happen to me.’
‘I haven’t thought yet how I’m going to live,’ said May; ‘all I know is that it’s impossible to suffer more than I have suffered already. Those terrible months – and then to-day.’
‘Don’t cry, darling,’ she said, and she was thinking, ‘Oh, dear! is she going to begin all over again? It’s really too much. Besides, it’s getting late.’
‘Don’t you think,’ she said gently, ‘that a large brandy and soda would do you good? And your poor head must be splitting. If you go upstairs and go to bed with a nice hot bottle – and two aspirins – and try to forget . . .’
May smiled at her through her tears.
‘If you think that is a cure,’ she said. ‘No – I’m all right . . . don’t worry about me. You must get back, too . . . he’s coming home to-night, isn’t he? I’ve only just remembered.’
‘Yes,’ she said indifferently, trying not to parade her pleasure, and to make up for it she seized hold of May’s hands and said, ‘Darling – if you knew how terribly I feel for you, if only I could share it. What a wicked shameful thing life is – God shouldn’t let it happen – this horrid, miserable world, why were we ever born . . .’ and the tears came into her eyes, too, and they rocked together on the sofa, and she was thinking, her heart fluttering with absurd joy and the thought of his face before her – ‘Oh, dear – I’m so happy!’
Finally she tore herself away, the hands of the clock pointing to half-past six. ‘Of course I’ll come to-morrow,’ and supposing his train is early, she thought, and she wondered how she could possibly keep from smiling before poor May. ‘Darling, are you sure you are all right left alone?’ she said; and not waiting for the answer she was dragging on her coat and her hat, looking for her bag, trembling with the excitement which it was impossible to control any longer.
‘Good-night, darling,’ she said, kissing her fondly, patting the blotched, disfigured face which roused in her an insane desire to laugh (‘How vile of me,’ she thought), and she searched feverishly for some parting, consoling phrase; and because in half an hour she would be with him, blotted against him, losing herself, caring for no one, drunk and absurd – she said happily, her face radiant as she stood on the doorstep, ‘It’s all right; nothing hurts for long.’
For the fourth time she made up the fire, stabbing at the coal with the tongs, sparks flying on to the carpet, and she did not notice. She jumped up from her chair and touched the flowers, she sat down to the piano and played the bar of a tune, only to run across to the window and pull aside the curtain, thinking she heard a taxi.
She was not sure how she wanted him to find her. Crouched by the fire perhaps, or lying in a chair, or putting on the gramophone. The clock in the dining-room struck eight. ‘Oh! but it must be fast,’ she thought wildly, and called to the kitchen, ‘Mrs Cuff, what is the right time?’
‘Past eight, ma’am, and the dinner is spoiling.’
‘Can’t you keep it hot?’
‘I can keep it hot, ma’am, but the joint is overdone and the vegetables are cooked. Such a pity. He’s not going to enjoy it much.’
‘I can’t understand why he is late, Mrs Cuff. I’ve rung through to the station, and the train came in punctually at six forty-five. What can have happened?’
She walked from the dining-room to the kitchen, biting her nails, wondering if she was going to be sick. Surely he would have let her know if he had been coming by a later train. ‘He’ll be so ravenous when he does arrive he’ll eat anything – if it’s burnt to cinders,’ she said. She was not hungry herself; it would have choked her to touch the dinner.
‘He’s always up in the clouds,’ she thought; ‘he probably does not realise the time. That’s the worst of being temperamental. All the same . . .’
She put on a gramophone record, but the noise grated; the voice of Maurice Chevalier sounded high-pitched and ridiculous.
She went and stood before the looking-glass. Perhaps he would creep in suddenly and stand behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders, and lean his face against hers.
She closed her eyes. Darling! Was that a taxi? No – Nothing. ‘This wasn’t how I imagined it at all,’ she thought. She threw herself in a chair and tried to read. Hopeless – what nonsense people wrote, anyway. Why was one supposed to take an interest in the life of someone who did not exist? She wandered over to the piano once more and began to strum.
‘Some day I’ll find you,
Moonlight behind you,’
she sang, but her fingers were heavy and her voice a poor thin whisper of a thing that went flat and could not strike the right note. The canary in the cage pricked up his ears. He started his song, and soon it filled the room, deafening her, shrill and absurd, so loud that she flung the cover on to his cage in irritation.
‘Be quiet, can’t you, you horrid little thing!’ she said. It was being so different from the morning, and as she poked the fire again she remembered that moment during the afternoon when she had smiled to herself and thought, ‘I shall remember this minute.’
And the chair was still empty, and the room looked lifeless and dull, and she was a little girl whose mouth turned down at the corners, who bit the ends of her hair, who wriggled with hunched shoulders, sniffing in a hankie, ‘It isn’t fair.’
Soon she had to go upstairs again to do her face, because she had dressed herself all ready for him at half-past nine. Her face wanted doing again. Her nose must be powdered, her lips lightly touched (the stuff did come off so), and her hair brushed away from her face in the new way.
As she took a final peep in the glass she thought how cheap she was making herself – any girl waiting for a man – squalid, like birds who paraded before each other, and it seemed to her that the face that stared at her from the mirror, pretty and smiling, was not the real her at all, was forced and insincere; the real her was a frightened girl who did not care how she looked, whose heart was beating, who wanted only
to run out into the street and beg him to come home to her . . .
Then she stood quite still – because surely that was a taxi drawing up to the front door, and surely that was the sound of a key in the lock, and weren’t those voices in the hall, suitcases dumped down, and Mrs Cuff coming out of the kitchen, and his voice? For a moment she did not move; it was as though something rose in her throat, stifling her, and something crept down into her legs, paralysing her – and she wanted to go quickly and hide, locking herself somewhere. Then the wave of excitement broke over her once more, and she ran out of the bedroom and stood at the head of the staircase, looking down at him in the hall below.
He was bending over his suitcase, doing something with his keys. ‘You might take these things up right away, Mrs Cuff,’ he was saying; and then he straightened himself, hearing her step on the stair above, and he looked up and said, ‘Hullo, darling.’
How funny – why, he had got fatter surely, or was it just his coat? And he must have cut himself shaving, because he had a silly little bit of plaster on his chin.
She went down the stairs slowly, trying to smile, but odd somehow, shy.
‘I’ve been so worried,’ she said, ‘what ever happened? You must be absolutely famished.’
‘Oh! I missed my connection,’ he said, ‘I thought you would guess. It’s all right, Mrs Cuff, I had my dinner on the train.’
Had his dinner? But that was not how she had planned it.
He kissed her hurriedly, patting her shoulder as though she were a little girl, and then he laughed, and said, ‘Why – what on earth have you done to your hair?’
She laughed too, pretending she did not mind. ‘I’ve had it washed – it’s nothing, just a bit untidy.’ They went into the drawing-room.
‘Come and get warm,’ she said.
But he did not sit down, he lounged about, jingling the money in his pockets.
‘Of course I would come back and find a lousy fog,’ he said. ‘God – what a country.’
‘Is it foggy?’ she said. ‘I’d not noticed it.’ And then there was a pause for a moment, and she looked at him – Yes, he was fatter, different somehow – and she said stupidly ‘How did you like Berlin?’