— 3 —
Malony’s father had been a cockney born and bred, his mother the daughter of an Italian owner of a delicatessen shop. He’d loved his mother. She’d been gay and charming. But she’d not lived long. Her husband had knocked her about too much, and she had felt things, both happy and sad, with too great an intensity. But she had not left her son undowered. She gave him the gift of song, the gift of gaiety, and a reverence for her sex unusual in Clerkenwell.
The pal who had let him down had been the starting point, the springboard, so to speak, from which he had leaped out of Clerkenwell. It had been an atrocious failure of friendship, and at the time friendship had been the basket into which Malony had flung all his eggs, after the flaming smoky skies over the roofs of Clerkenwell had brought no fulfillment of their promises; and he had drowned his sorrows in drink to such an extent that the plumber who employed him had given him the sack.
He’d had a little money, and loathing the wet pavements that reflected the traitor skies, shrinking from every figure beneath a lamppost lest it turn itself about and reveal the face of his friend, hating the very intonation of the voices about him that reminded him of his friend’s voice, he had taken the train and gone north, where the skies were nearly always clouded, where men used broader vowels in their speech, were less ready with their friendship but more steadfast in it once it was given.
He’d done well in the engineering shops. He was a clever workman, and his wit, his gift of repartee, his unfailing repertoire of catchy songs made him popular wherever he was. Yet he couldn’t seem to get on. Somebody or something was always letting him down and then he’d drink, and then the positions of trust that might have been his were withheld. And industry was too impersonal and rigid a thing to satisfy him. He felt starved and frustrated in its service, and perpetually disillusioned, he perpetually moved on somewhere else.
And so at last he found himself the electrician, scene shifter, and jack-of-all-trades of a little repertory company in Wales. And then his talent was discovered and he was promoted to the playing of small comedy parts. And then, at last, he was happy. The intimate friendliness of the little company, the appreciativeness of the small audiences that roared with laughter at him and took him to their heart with Celtic warmth, gave him at last nearly all of what he wanted. He could give all that he had of talent joyously and have it accepted joyously, and receive back again in full measure that affection without which he could not live. But neither this giving nor this affection went quite deep enough. Though happy he was not quite satisfied. And then Annie-Laurie joined the company.
He fell in love desperately and at once. Though his charming Italian mother had predisposed him for the idolization of women, he had never yet admitted any woman to more than the outskirts of his life; after his mother, none of those he had come across had satisfied him. But Annie-Laurie filled the bill. There was nothing in him that was not satisfied by the fact of her. What is given to only one man or woman in a thousand was given to him, a single-minded devotion to one human being of such power that it was beyond the possibility of change until the end of time.
Hilary had come across this love a few times in his life and he knew it for a terrifying thing, holding a possibility of pain as great as any a human being could be called upon to bear. In a lesser degree, consonant with the lesser intensity of his nature, poor old George had it for Nadine. . . . Sally, he rather feared, had it for the apparently ungrateful and unwitting David. . . . And this passion could at times be as merciless to the object of it as to the subject. Its impact had been too much for the young and inexperienced Annie-Laurie. It had swept her right off her feet and before she knew where she was she was engaged to Malony.
She did not know that she was cheating him, for her unconscious awareness of the enduring strength of his love gave her a sense of security that made her very happy. She did not know herself. Though she knew her mother had feared her father, she did not know yet that fear was woven into her nature, and that all her life long she would crave for safety as she craved for nothing else. She thought her happiness was love. She glowed with it, expanded like a flower, and in a very short time she was a fine actress and playing leading parts in the company’s plays. She loved her art, she thought she loved Malony, and she thought she had nothing further to wish for.
But she had the fire of her race, and it did not spare her. That spring a new and striking play was to be tried out by the company, with a part in it that suited her as no part had suited her yet, but there was no one in the company quite suitable to play the part of her lover. Their producer was ambitious for this play, and he summoned from London a friend of his, Luke Redmayne, a very fine actor and a startlingly attractive man. He and Annie-Laurie played together with a strange and touching perfection, every word and movement close-knit in burning sincerity, the love they portrayed so illumined by the reality behind it that it dazzled like colored glass with the sun beyond. The play went to London, they with it, Annie-Laurie’s engagement to Malony broken, and in a short while they were married.
Malony was just as well as passionate and he made no attempt to belittle the man who had taken Annie-Laurie away from him. He was a gentleman and well educated, with just that advantage in breeding and knowledge that made Annie-Laurie feel as honored by his choice as Malony had been by hers. But he was a man made without mercy, either to himself or others. It was, Malony admitted, a part of his charm. He was like a fine rapier, flashing, delicate, beautiful, but of the ice brook’s temper and with a keen edge to draw blood. And he had a lust for power that gave him no rest. It was the longing for power that had made him an actor, a passionate but cruel and most inconstant lover, and a fanatical Communist. His politics were his religion. He saw in communism a possibility of world domination by an idea that dazzled and intoxicated him. He was a born tyrant. Malony thought that he was not completely sane. Yet sincere as they are made. He flung a promising career to the winds, he left a charming wife—to fight for his faith in Spain.
Malony said little about the period of his life when Annie-Laurie left him for Luke. Hilary gathered that he had gone through hell, that he had taken to drink again, that he had been discharged from the company and had gone back to London. He had no intention of making himself a nuisance to Annie-Laurie; he made no attempt to see her, but at least he could be in the same town where she was and watch her now and then on the stage. That was something. But to do this he had to live, and he pulled himself together and set to work to find a job. He had discovered himself to be happier as a comedian than an engineer. He turned to music hall and pantomime, and after a hard but comparatively short struggle he succeeded with a brilliance that without Annie-Laurie meant nothing to him whatever.
Annie-Laurie’s career was only successful while Luke was with her. Though she was a fine artist she had had insufficient training for the London stage, and without her husband’s help she could not hold the place she had gained. Neither he nor she had saved any money. She had a difficult time until the report of Luke’s death brought Malony back into her life. She would take no money from him, but she consented to act with him and to let him pull her to success with him. But she would not marry him until two years had gone by since she heard that Luke was dead. She had loved Luke, and his cruelty and inconstancy had never quite killed her love. She did not love Malony, but she knew how desperate was his need of her and she was very fond of him; also, his unshakable faith in her and faithfulness to her still gave her that sense of safety that was her deepest need. Then they had a child, a girl, and she discovered herself to be one of those women to whom motherhood comes naturally and with joy. Malony was beside himself with delight in his child and for a little while they were completely happy.
Then Luke came back, a sick man. He had been seriously wounded in the head and back, and for a long time had been hidden in the Spanish mountains, cared for by peasants, and too ill for a long while to know who or where he was. He did
not demand that Annie-Laurie should go back to him; he offered to let her divorce him. But he wanted her, he was too ill to work for himself and had nothing to live on apart from her, and she felt his need of her was even greater than Malony’s. She went back to him.
“At that time I couldn’t see it,” said Malony to Hilary. “I thought she owed the greater duty to me, for I’d been a faithful husband to her and he hadn’t. . . . And we had the child. . . . It seemed damned hard to lose them both.”
“You could have kept the child,” said Hilary.
Malony shook his head. “No. She adored Midge.”
“So did you.”
“Yes, but I hadn’t born her. Annie-Laurie had a bad time when the little thing came. And Midge needed her. She was a delicate little thing. We called her Midge because she was so small. But always happy. She had that bunch of morris bells of Annie-Laurie’s tied to the cot, and she’d laugh at them by the hour together. And if you wanted to hear her crow you’d only to swing the bells and make them ring.” He broke off abruptly.
They had finished supper now and were smoking. Hilary puffed at his pipe and said nothing. “Midge died of bronchitis,” went on Malony. “I thought if Annie-Laurie had let me help a bit more it wouldn’t have happened. If they’d had a more comfortable home Midge might not have caught the cold that started it. But Annie-Laurie would take next to nothing from me after she went back to Luke—just a little for Midge and that was all. She had a hard struggle again, for she wouldn’t act with me any more, and she was too tired and discouraged to do well alone. I didn’t know till afterwards how hard the struggle was, for she didn’t tell me at the time. I scarcely ever saw her. I couldn’t go to the flat because Luke, poor chap, was damned jealous. Now and then we’d arrange to meet in the park or somewhere, when she was wheeling Midge out in the pram, so that I could see the kid. That was all. But she wouldn’t talk much—seemed to think it would be disloyal to Luke. It was a hell of a situation all round. Then Midge died, and after the funeral was over Annie-Laurie refused to see me again.
“Somewhere in the middle of all this the war had broken out. I tried to enlist but they wouldn’t have me. Flat feet or some such nonsense. I entertained the troops with my tomfoolery. It was all I was good for. Annie-Laurie never wrote to me. I could only guess at her misery over Midge and it was from other folk, not her, that I heard things weren’t going well between her and Luke. . . . She never even wrote.”
“She would have thought that too disloyal, I dare say,” said Hilary gently. “If I understand Annie-Laurie aright she’s best described by the old-fashioned word upright. It’s a good word, comprises a good many things—all the straight qualities, like loyalty, truthfulness, the right sort of pride.”
“She’s proud all right,” said poor Malony lugubriously. “Proud as Lucifer. And truthful. I believe that girl would die sooner than tell even the ghost of a harmless white lie even to save her life. Nearly scared out of her wits as she was at that damnable trial—and though you wouldn’t think it to look at her, fear has always been a thing Annie-Laurie has had to fight hard against—she never contradicted herself under cross-examination, never prevaricated, just made always the same simple, truthful, inadequate statements. Her counsel had the devil of a time getting her off. She wouldn’t confide in him. The few things she felt she could truthfully say, she said, but not one word more. It seemed she couldn’t tell the whole truth, and she wouldn’t fill up the gaps with lies, not even to save her life.”
“She told the whole truth to you, of course.”
“No. To this day she has never said more to me than she said at the trial.”
“How did she explain giving her husband the wrong sleeping draught?”
“She said it was just a mistake. Though the right box had been put there ready for her she didn’t see it. She thought the chemist had forgotten to put it ready and so she unlocked his cupboard and took what she thought was the right stuff.”
“It was said at the trial, wasn’t it, that the right box had been put where she was accustomed to find it, and where it would have been difficult for her not to see it?”
“Yes, but the siren had gone and an air raid had begun. She was terrified of raids, though she had such grit that she never let a soul see it, never, if you know what I mean, let herself see it. She never gave way at all, even alone. A bit dangerous, that is. Means you’re always taut, and then in a crisis the nerves are too weakened to register the usual sense impressions of touch and sight correctly. You’re bewildered, numbed. And then Annie-Laurie hates noise. The racket of an air raid always knocked her silly. Knowing her, I know that she could have had that box between her fingers and under her eyes and not known it. When she said she just didn’t see the box she spoke the simple truth.”
“And you think that’s all there is to it?”
“No. There’s a bit more that Annie-Laurie’s never told a soul. You can see for yourself that she’s a wretchedly unhappy and unbalanced woman. There are times when I think that if she can’t get it off her chest she’ll soon not be a sane woman.”
“You’ve asked her to tell you?”
“No. That would be the way to strike her dumb for the rest of her life. You don’t know Annie-Laurie. She’s darned obstinate. Hates being forced. Flies in the opposite direction if you try it on. She’ll tell me when she can. I just wait. She knows I don’t care what she’s done or not done. Whatever she did, she did in accordance with what she is, and it’s what she is that matters to me, so what’s the odds? She knows I believe in her—like the sun. No warmth or light, no life even, without her.”
“She wears no wedding ring, I notice.”
“Thinks she’s got no right to it. She’s got a bee in her bonnet about marriage. Wife to two men at once, she feels now that she was married to neither.”
“Why in the world didn’t you remarry after Luke’s death?” demanded Hilary.
“One night when he had a bad turn and thought he was dying he made her promise never to be my wife again.”
“The brute!” said Hilary violently.
“He was insanely jealous. A bit touched, poor chap.”
“In my opinion,” said Hilary, “a deathbed promise like that is not binding. It was a promise he had no right to ask and she no right to give.”
“To Annie-Laurie a promise is a promise.”
“What about the promise she made when she married you? Luke dead, that was once more something that must be fulfilled, surely.”
“Her first marriage vow was to Luke. The one to me was wiped out by his return, she felt.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. Poor girl, what a tangle! Yet I can’t understand her. Upright as she is, I should have thought that breaking her promise to Luke would have seemed to her less reprehensible than living with you without being married to you.”
“We don’t live together,” said Malony gloomily.
Hilary’s jaw dropped and his precious pipe slipped out of his fingers into the grate. “You mean to say—what?”
“What I say,” said Malony with increasing gloom. “Women—they don’t understand how hard it is on a man. I’ve never looked at another woman since I met Annie-Laurie. But I drink at times.”
“Now I’ve smashed my pipe,” said Hilary. “Well, I’m glad to know you. I’ve met a good many fine men in my time but there’s not one whom I should dare to say was your equal. Well, I’ve a feeling that you’re getting to the end of it. You’re waiting, you said. Wait just a bit longer. You’re getting to the end of it.”
“We never seem to get to the end of it,” said Malony wretchedly. “We ought to go back to the stage. That’s our job, what we’re both good at. What we both love. But they know all about us there, and Annie-Laurie can’t face up to it. She’s afraid, poor girl. She’s not selfish about it; she’s begged me to leave her and go back alone. I would leave her if I t
hought it would be the best thing for her, but it wouldn’t. She’s still a sick woman in body and mind, and she feels safe with me. That’s what she chiefly needs, to feel safe. And so we just carry on with one crazy stunt after another.
“That houseboat business, I thought that would be peaceful, keep her out in the air through the summer, rest her nerves. It did, too. And it was a bit of a joke. She laughed a lot on the houseboat. I enjoyed it, too. I could feel myself an actor again, playing the fool on that houseboat.” He smiled at a sudden memory. “Ben called me a troubadour that day we turned up at the Herb of Grace. I love him for it. Without knowing that he did it, he saw straight through to the actor in me.”
And to more than that, thought Hilary to himself. Malony probably did not know that some of the early troubadours were something much more than wandering minstrels. As they traveled from one land to another, from court to court and castle to castle, they linked together the adherents of a secret society of mystic teaching. The words of their songs were symbolical; the initiated understood. Discovery meant death, but these troubadours accepted that as all in the day’s work. Malony was that sort of troubadour, Hilary thought. He belonged to the secret brotherhood of the Herb of Grace.