He knew this voice. ‘Darling, don’t be ridiculous. You know I don’t care a damn whether I see this fellow or not.’
‘Why do you go, then?’
There was no argument to this. He yawned self-consciously and avoided her eyes.
She waited without saying a word. He pretended to lose his temper.
‘I’ve told you I don’t want to offend him. It’s a bit thick; there’s always this same old argument whenever I go out. Good God, it’s only for a few hours! If you had your way you’d leave me without a friend in the world. You seem to be jealous if I speak to a dog.’
Jealous! She laughed contemptuously. He had misunderstood her again. As if she could possibly be jealous of the people he knew. It would be different if there was someone worth while. But this careless, selfish way he left her for anyone, for some creature he might not even see again! She despised the weak manner in which he shifted responsibility from himself.
‘Go then,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders, ‘since it pains you to hurt a comparative stranger. I’m glad you’ve let me know. I shall remember in future. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that last Monday you promised this sort of thing would never happen again. I realise now that I can’t depend on you at all. I’ve been making rather a fool of myself over you, haven’t I? Well, aren’t you going?’
Her eyes were cold. She had wrapped herself in a sheet of armour.
He turned his back and looked out of the window.
‘Charming little scene for nothing at all,’ he laughed lightly. ‘It’s pleasant, isn’t it, living like this? Makes such an attractive atmosphere in the house. Scarcely a day passes without some sort of discussion, does it?’ He rocked backwards and forwards on his heels, whistling a tune. He knew that every word tore at her like a knife. He was pleased. He wanted to hurt her. He didn’t care.
She sat quite still, pretending to do accounts on a piece of paper. Calmly, dispassionately, she wondered why she loved him. His cruel, selfish nature, the way he took everything from her and gave nothing in return. If he would only realise that the smallest touch of recognition from him, the faintest sign that he would give up something unimportant for her sake, would send a flood of warmth to her heart. He did nothing. She felt herself drawing farther away from him, a lonely figure in an imaginary train. A grey shadow in a world of shadows. There was no one even to wave good-bye.
He watched her out of the tail of his eye. Why must she always parade her suffering before him? Not openly, not something that he could get hold of and flaunt in her face, but quietly, with the resignation of a martyr. A tear ran down her cheek and fell on to the blotting paper. Oh! hell – he wasn’t going to stand for it. It was damn selfish of her, spoiling his day.
‘Look here,’ he started, as if nothing had happened, ‘it’s too late to put the whole thing off now. If you’d said something earlier, naturally I’d have done so. I won’t be long, I promise. I’ll be back soon after lunch.’
Surely this was a compromise. He was going out of his way to be nice to her. He waited to see how she would take it.
‘Don’t forget your coat, there’s a bitter east wind,’ she told him, and went on writing.
He hesitated a moment, wondering what to do. Did that mean everything was all right? No, he knew her too well. She would suffer the tortures of the damned until he returned. She would imagine every sort of accident. She would bottle up this scene in her mind, making more out of it than there had been. Why didn’t he chuck away this footling lunch and stop with her? He didn’t want to go now at all. He never had, really, all the time.
Another tear fell on to the blotting paper.
‘Shall I not go after all? he suggested weakly, pretending not to notice the tear.
She made a movement of impatience. Did he think she was to be won as easily as this? He was trying to save himself. He was anxious to make up to her, to kiss and be friends like a child, and then forget all about it until the same thing happened again. Did he really want to stay with her? She gave him one more chance.
‘Do just as you think best. Don’t attempt to stay unless you feel like it.’ Her voice was cool, impersonal.
Damn it all, she might show some sort of emotion. He had offered to stop, and this was how she took it. No, he didn’t see why he should be always giving in to her. What a bore everything was. Why couldn’t they live in peace? It was all her fault.
‘Perhaps I’d better go, it looks rather rude,’ he said carelessly, and strolled from the room, banging the door on purpose. He wouldn’t bother to put on his coat, it would serve her right if he caught pneumonia. He had a vision of himself, stretched on a bed, coughing and gasping for breath. She bending over him with an agony of fear in her eyes. She would fight for his life, but she would lose. It would be too late. He could see her planting violets on his grave, a solitary figure in a grey cloak. What a ghastly tragedy. A lump came into his throat. He became quite emotional thinking of his own death. He would have to write a poem about this.
From behind the curtains she watched him walk to the end of the street. She was sure he had forgotten her already. She felt she did not care what he did any more. It was all over. She rang the bell and began to scold the maid for no reason.
He hated the lunch, the man was a bore – he couldn’t even listen to what he was saying. He felt ill, too. His wish was probably coming true, and he was catching pneumonia. What a God-forsaken fool he was to have come. There was no point in it at all. He had probably been and mucked up his life just for this. And all the while the fellow was rambling on about a whole lot of damned silly people he never wanted to see again. He’d cut everyone out of his life in future, nobody mattered but her. They’d leave this beastly country and go and live abroad. Perhaps when he went home he would find she had left him for good. There would be a note pinned on the desk. What would he do? He couldn’t live without her. He’d commit suicide, he’d chuck himself into the river. Surely she loved him too much to do this. He could imagine the house blank and silent, the wardrobes empty of her dresses, the desk bare. Gone, leaving no address behind her. No, she would not do it, it was impossible. It was cruel, it would kill him. What on earth was this idiot jabbering about?
‘I told her frankly I wasn’t going to stand for it. I haven’t the money for one thing, and, besides, I’ve got to consider my reputation. Don’t you think I was right?’
‘Oh! perfectly – absolutely.’ He hadn’t listened to a word. As if he cared about this fellow’s hellish reputation.
‘You know I must push off, I’ve got an appointment with my publisher,’ he lied.
Somehow he managed to get away. What did it matter if he was rude? The man had ruined his life anyway. He leapt into a taxi. ‘Drive like the devil!’ he shouted. Stop, though, he suddenly had a longing to buy her something. The most priceless jewel – the most marvellous furs – anything. He would like to shower gifts at her feet. Perhaps there wasn’t time for all this. It would have to be flowers after all. It was months since he had bought her flowers. How foul of him. He chose an azalea, an enormous one with pink waving buds. ‘This will last a month or more if it’s watered frequently,’ said the woman.
‘Will it really?’ He became quite excited, he walked out of the shop clutching the pot in his arms. She would be pleased with this. A month! Pretty good value considering. The buds were small now, but they would open a little every day, they would get bigger, the plant would grow into a small bush. ‘The symbol of my love,’ he thought sentimentally.
Supposing she had gone, though, supposing she had killed herself? He would go mad, he would scatter the petals of the azalea over her body with a wild, despairing cry. Rather an effective scene for the last act, he must remember this. No, by God, he would never write another line again, he would dedicate the whole of his life to her, to her alone. Oh! how he was suffering. If she only knew what he was going through. His heart was bursting, it had never happened to anyone in the world before. What had he done that he shoul
d suffer so? He was certain there would be an ambulance outside the door, they would be carrying her limp form on a stretcher. He imagined himself leaping from the taxi, and covering her pale dead hand with kisses. ‘My beloved – my beloved.’ No, the street was empty. The house seemed unchanged. He paid the taxi and opened the front door – silently, like a thief. He crept upstairs, and listened outside her room. He heard her move. Thank God! Nothing had happened then. He wanted to shout for joy. He burst open the door, a fatuous smile on his face.
Poor darling, had she been writing letters all day? Her face was white and strained. Why on earth was she looking so unhappy? Wasn’t she pleased to see him back?
‘Look,’ he stammered foolishly, ‘I’ve bought you an azalea.’
She did not smile, she scarcely noticed the flower. ‘Thank you,’ she said in a dull voice. How inevitable of him. How unfeeling and unintelligent. Would he never understand her? Did he think he could just go off and enjoy himself after having broken her heart, and then bring back this plant as a peace offering? She could picture him saying to himself. ‘Oh! I’ve only got to buy her a flower, and then kiss her, she’ll forget all about this morning.’
If only it was as easy as that. His attitude wounded her, distressed her beyond measure. He had no heart, no delicacy of thought.
‘Don’t you like it?’ he asked her, like a spoilt child.
Why had he bought the beastly thing? His agony at lunch, his terrible impatience in the taxi, meant nothing to her. Everything was a failure. The azalea looked foolish and conceited in its big pot. It seemed quite different in the shop. Now it mocked him, the colour was vulgar, much too pink. It was a hideous type of flower altogether. It didn’t even smell. He wanted to crash it to the ground.
‘Are you going to make a habit of this in future – a reminder for each time you hurt me?’ she asked him.
She loathed herself, she hated her words, she longed to say something entirely different. The atmosphere was terrible. Why couldn’t they be themselves again? He had only to make the first move. But her speech stung him, she insisted on ignoring every word he said.
‘My God,’ he shouted, ‘there’ll never be another time. I’m finished with the whole damned business, finished. Do you understand?’
He left the room, and went out of the house. The door slammed behind him.
‘But that’s not what I meant,’ he thought, ‘that’s not what I meant at all.’
Frustration
After he had been engaged to her for seven years he felt that it was impossible to wait for her any longer. Human endurance had been tested to the limit. For seven years he had held her hand by the stile in the field, and it was beginning to pall at last.
It seemed to him that there must be more in life than these things.
He admitted that time had been when the simple fact of looking at her from a distance had ensured him weeks of fever and excitement, when the mere process of brushing against her on a tennis court had caused a state of nervous prostration.
Such follies belonged to the distant past. He was twenty-four now instead of eighteen. In the irony of his soul he wondered what Napoleon would have done if someone had offered him a box of tin soldiers; it occurred to him that Suzanne Lenglen in her day would have protested had she been compelled to play battledore and shuttlecock.
He was earnest, he was desperate, he was very much in love.
Saying good-night to her at half-past nine in the evening was a modern equivalent to the appalling tortures of the Spanish Inquisition. At these moments his legs twisted themselves inside out, his fingers clutched at the air, and his tongue got caught up in his uvula.
A low moaning noise rose in his throat, and he wanted to creep up a wall. Marriage seemed to be the one solution . . . Scarlet in the face, his hands clenched and his jaw set, he made his declaration to her father.
‘Sir,’ he began, ‘I can’t stand this any longer; I must get married.’
The father looked him up and down.
‘I can well believe it,’ he said; ‘but it has got nothing to do with me. Personally, for a boy of your type, I put my faith in long engagements. You’ve been engaged for seven years. Why not draw up a contract for another seven?’
‘Sir – we can’t wait any longer. When we look at each other, we feel—’
The older man interrupted him brutally.
‘I’m not at all interested in what you feel. Can you support a wife?’
‘No – yes – at least. I will find a job.’
‘Is there anything you can do?’
‘I can tinker about with cars.’
‘I see. Is that enough to make her happy?’
‘I sort of . . .’
‘You expect to make a girl happy when you’ve no money, no job, no qualifications, and the only thing you know how to handle is a spanner.’
‘Sir, I—’
‘Splendid. I’ll say no more. My daughter is twenty-four; she can do as she likes. I’ll pay for your wedding; but neither of you get a penny from me afterwards. You can work. I have a feeling your marriage will be a success.’
‘Sir, may I – can I – I . . .’
‘Yes, you can clear out.’
The wedding was good, as weddings go. There were church bells, white dresses, veils, orange blossom, and the ‘Voice that Breathed o’er Eden’.
The bridegroom tripped over his feet, fumbled with the ring, forgot his lines, and looked at his bride as though she were a lump of chocolate and he were a Pekinese.
There were champagne, speeches and tears; the afternoon ended up with a cloud of confetti and somebody’s old shoe. The bride and bridegroom left with nothing but five pounds, a couple of suitcases and a borrowed Austin Seven.
Their one stick of furniture was a tent.
‘My darling,’ he told her, ‘I cannot afford to take you to a seaside hotel, not even for a weekend. We must sleep under the stars.’
His bride was more practical than he.
‘We will motor to London in a borrowed car,’ she said, ‘and there we will find rooms and a job. But I must have a honeymoon first. Let’s spend it in the tent I used as a Girl Guide.’
It seemed to him that this was the most romantic idea that had ever penetrated the human mind.
He gurgled strangely and waved his hands.
‘A pig-sty with you would be Paradise,’ he said, ‘but to think of you in a tent . . .’
‘There will be a moon,’ she sighed, ‘and trees murmuring, and a brook rippling.’
‘I will slay some animal for your breakfast,’ he cried, his voice breaking, ‘and we’ll roast it over a roaring fire. You can wear the skin to protect you from the bitter cold.’
‘Don’t forget it’s June,’ she said quickly, ‘and we shall only be on Berkhamstead Common.’
‘How wonderful you are, darling!’
‘Am I?’
The Austin Seven bumped along the country roads.
In the evening they came to a wild stretch of heath that could be no other than their destination.
‘We must not pitch our tent too close to the road,’ he said. ‘I want to feel that I’m alone with you, miles from civilisation, with nothing around us but the tangled gorse.’
‘How shall we ever get the car over the rough ground?’ she asked.
‘We will leave it near the road, and we’ll strike inland towards those trees. I’ll carry the tent on my back.’
‘You look like a prehistoric man, passionate and savage,’ she told him.
‘I feel it, my darling.’
It was dark before they had found a suitable camping-ground, and the tent was hoisted with difficulty. It had a queer list to starboard, and looked like the relic of a past age.
‘We are like nomads,’ she said vaguely, her mouth full of potted meat. It was cold, and she wished she had a warmer coat.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ he said, trying to break the neck of a ginger-beer bottle. He had forgotten the opener.
After supper they sat outside the flapping tent, waiting for the moon that never came. Large clouds scurried across the sky.
‘Darling,’ he whispered, ‘to think we have waited seven years for this. At last we are alone together, really alone. I couldn’t have waited any longer.’
‘No, nor could I. Isn’t this the most romantic thing that’s ever happened?’
They sat for a few minutes more.
‘I think I’ll go in the tent,’ she said.
She disappeared, and he stood outside, smoking a cigarette.
His legs shook and his hands trembled. ‘This is the most beautiful moment in my life,’ he thought.
A sudden gust of wind blew at his hair. There was a patter in the trees, and a large cloud, hovering overhead, seemed to burst swiftly and silently.
‘Darling,’ she called softly.
He tiptoed inside. Another gust of wind blew across the heath, followed by the sheeting rain.
Two minutes later the tent fell in.
The grey dawn crept into the sky. The battered remains of white canvas fluttered hideously in the wind, like the torn rags of some long-dead explorer. A young man hammered at the pegs with the undaunted perseverance of the very great.
His clothes were sodden, his shoes were pulp. His bride, crouched in the fork of a tree, watched him with dull eyes. At last he admitted defeat, and kneeling in the comparative shelter of a gorse bush, he kept up a monologue that sounded like a chapter from James Joyce.
And the rain fell and the wind blew. Once a still small voice spoke from the fork of a tree.
‘Darling,’ it said, ‘I believe we’d have been happier at Bournemouth, after all.’
Two figures stood side by side on the edge of the London road.
‘I tell you it was here we left the car,’ he repeated for the twelfth time. ‘I remember this patch of stones.’
‘I’m sure it was further back,’ she said; ‘there was a broken tree stump.’
‘Well – wherever it was, it’s not there now. It’s been stolen; that’s all.’
There was a sharp note of irritation in his voice. It is not every man who spends his wedding night in a gorse bush. And now the car was gone, and in it their two suitcases – nothing remained to them but the clothes they wore.