Elsie had lost her nerve. She began to cry hysterically. Instead of answering Morrison’s appeal, she turned to her husband.
“Why can’t you let us just be pals, Leslie and me?” she sobbed. “You bring your horrid, mean jealousy into everything. I s’pose you don’t grudge me having a friend of my own age, do you?”
Leslie Morrison instantly and loyally followed her lead. “If Elsie is kind enough to let me be her friend, and — and take her out every now and then, and that sort of thing, I’m willing to forget what’s just passed, and simply ask you as man to man if you’ve any objection to us being, as she says, just pals,” he said steadily enough.
“I have every objection. You young fool, Elsie has just said in so many words that she’s in love with you. Did you mean that, Elsie, or did you not?”
Elsie sobbed more and more violently, and her voice rose to an incoherent screech. “How do I know what I mean or don’t mean, when you make a row like this? But I’ll tell you this much, anyway, it’s true what he said; I’m wretched with you, and if you were half a man, you’d set me free.”
“There, that’s enough,” said Williams. “ Going round and round in a circle won’t help any of us, and you ought to know by this time, Elsie, that I always mean what I say. You’ll please to remember what you were when I married you — a little fool of a typist, without a penny, whose mother kept a boarding-house and was only too glad of the money I gave her. It doesn’t take a genius to say what would have happened to you if you hadn’t found a man fool enough to marry you, either.”
“Stop that!” Morrison shouted.
The solicitor blinked at him quietly. “ I’ve twice told you to get out of my house,” he observed. “ Don’t make me say it a third time. It’ll be the worse, if you do — for Elsie.”
“Are you threatening her, you — you brute, you?”
“I object to your friendship with my wife. That’s all — and enough too. Now go.”
“Oh yes, go I—” said Elsie suddenly, breaking into renewed sobs and tears. “I can’t stand this. You’d better go, Leslie boy, really you had. I shall do myself in, that’s all.”
“Don’t talk like that—” the youth began frantically, but Williams opened the door, and stood silently pointing to it.
There was something strangely inexorable in his little, trivial figure and sinister, passionless expression.
“Elsie,” said Morrison brokenly, “if ever you want me, send for me. I’ll come!”
He went out of the room, and they heard him go down the stairs and let himself out at the front door.
“That’s the end of that,” said Williams in a quiet, satisfied voice. “Stop that howling, Elsie. You didn’t really suppose that I didn’t know what was going on?” She sobbed and would not answer.
There was a long silence, and at last Elsie, face downwards on the sofa, began to feel frightened and curious. She bore it as long as she could, and then looked up.
Her husband was gazing out of the window, in which a potted aspidistra stood upon a wicker stand between soiled white curtains.
At the slight movement that she made he turned his head. “ Elsie, tell me. Did you really mean what you said, that you’re in love with that boy?”
To her incredulous surprise, his voice had become hoarse and almost maudlin.
“You only said it to make me angry, didn’t you?”
In a flash Elsie saw the wisdom of allowing him at least to pretend to such a belief. “Perhaps I did,” she said slowly. “Anyway, it’s true enough that we aren’t particularly happy together, and never have been. And I meant what I said about a separation, right enough, Horace.”
“You won’t get one,” said Williams, and his voice had become vicious-sounding once more. “And remember what I’ve said — that fellow is never to set foot in here again, and you and he are not to meet in future.”
The following morning Elsie went to the High Street post-office and found there the letter that she had expected.
“My Own Darling Girlie,
“What is to be done? I can’t tell you, darling, what a hound I felt to leave you all alone with that jealous brute yesterday and yet the awful thing is that he has the right to you and I have none. Oh, Elsie life is hard isn’t it darling? I wish I could take you away but that cannot be and it is you that have to bear the brunt of it all except that I am in hell knowing what you are going through all the time. Perhaps that is not an expression I ought to use to you but you must excuse it for I hardly know what I am writing.
“One of our chaps has gone sick, and they are sending me to the North instead of him which means we can’t meet again as I go off to-morrow. But write to me darling and tell me what it is best to do now. Would it simplify things if we were to be just friends and no more?
“Cheer up, Elsie perhaps some day things may come right for us — who knows? He may die; doesn’t he always say there is something wrong with him?
“A thousand kisses for you, dearie. I have your sweet photo with me and love to look at it and re-read your wonderful letters. Write and tell me everything, and what you think we had better do. Shall we be able to meet when I come back at the end of the month? .
“No more at present, from
“Your own true lover, Leslie,
“Boy.”
To Elsie, Leslie Morrison’s love-letters were wonderful.
She read and re-read this one, but when she had answered it, she burnt it.
Certain words of the clairvoyante, whom she had once visited with Irene Tidmarsh, she had never been able to forget, and of late they had haunted her anew.
“Beware of the written word....”
Elsie burnt all Morrison’s letters to her, and asked him to burn all those that she wrote him.
Gradually these letters that passed between them grew to be the most important factor in her life.
Elsie, who had detested writing, now desired nothing so much as to pour out her soul on paper, and the limitations that she found imposed upon her through lack of education and the power to express herself made her angry.
Again and again she asked Morrison in her letters to take her away, and after a time his steadfast refusals bred in her mind the first unbearable suspicion that her passion was the greater of the two. Her letters became wilder and wilder.
Sometimes she threatened suicide, or gave hysterical and entirely imaginary descriptions of scenes with her husband; sometimes she expressed a reckless desire for Horace’s death, or asked if she could “give him something” unspecified. These phrases, to a large extent, were meaningless, but Elsie frantically hoped by them to impress upon Morrison the extent of her love for him.
When he got back from the North of England they met surreptitiously.
A certain café in a small street not far from Elsie’s home became their rendezvous. Sometimes Morrison was able to get there in the middle of the day, but generally he came at about five o’clock, and they had tea together. Very occasionally they met early in the afternoon and went out together.
Each meeting was entirely inconclusive, save in exciting Elsie almost ‘to frenzy and reducing young Morrison to further depths of despondency.
The months dragged on. Morrison was often away, and then he and Elsie wrote to one another daily. She was entirely obsessed with the thought of her lover, and hardly ever saw Irene Tidmarsh, or went to Hillbourne Terrace. And all the while, Horace Williams said nothing.
He and his wife did not quarrel; indeed, they hardly spoke to one another, but the atmosphere between them, day by day, was becoming more heavily charged with mutual hatred and apprehension.
VI
The tension under which Elsie now lived began at last to affect her health. She slept badly, and was nervous as she had never been before.
Williams watched her without comment — a sinister little figure. Sometimes, utterly overwrought, Elsie tried to force a scene with him, but she only once succeeded in making him evince anger.
Strangely reckless, she suddenly suggested that Leslie Morrison should be invited to lodge in their house, with no slightest expectation that her husband would entertain such a scheme, but with a wild desire to provoke him to a scene that should release some of her own pent-up emotion.
“He’s looking for rooms, Geraldine says,” she declared, “and we’ve a bedroom to spare, and might as well use it.” Williams gazed at her incredulously. “Are you aware that I’ve shown Morrison the door once already?” he asked at last.
“Yes, I’m quite aware of that,” said Elsie, with insolence in her voice. “I thought you might have got more sense now, that’s all.”
“Listen to me, Elsie. I forbade you to speak to that fellow again — and by God, if you’ve done so, I’ll see you never forget it!” His face was livid and he spoke through his clenched teeth.
“I’ll speak to whom I please.”
“Have you been meeting Morrison?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
Elsie felt a curious pleasure and relief in thus mocking at the furious jealousy that was evident in her husband’s face and manner.
“Answer my question.”
She remained silent.
“Are you and that fellow in love?”
“I’ve answered that before. I told you months ago, when you first started to insult me, that he was nothing tome.” “ That wasn’t true then — and it isn’t now. Morrison’s in love with you, damn him, and you’re in love with him!”
“Am I?”
Elsie laughed derisively in the new and uncomprehended realisation that she was no longer afraid of Horace.
“You little bitch! ...”
He caught her by the shoulders and suddenly flung her against the wall.
Elsie screamed, but it was reflex action from the physical shock alone that made her do so. She was neither frightened nor very much startled. There was even an odd exhilaration for her in the sudden release of those pent-up forces that had for so long vibrated tensely between herself and her husband.
However, her arm and shoulder were bruised, and her whole body violently jarred. “You’re a coward!” she panted. “Hitting a woman!”
“You drove me to it... Elsie, get up! ... I’m sorry I did that, but you’re driving me mad. God, if I had that fellow here I’d wring the life out of him!”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Elsie taunted him. “He’s a great deal stronger than you are — he’s a man, he is — you’d never dare to touch him. All you can do is to knock a woman about.”
“That’s a lie I I’ve never touched you before, though there’s many a man in my place would have beaten you within an inch of your life. I didn’t know what I was doing just now.”
He took a step towards her, but Elsie pulled herself up from the floor without appearing to notice the movement. She felt slightly giddy, and her head ached.
“Aren’t you going to — to forgive me? I oughtn’t to have hit you, I acknowledge, but you’ve done everything to drive me to it. Elsie, swear to me that there’s nothing now between you and Morrison.”
“Oh, all right,” she said wearily. “I swear it.” She felt that she no longer cared what happened in a sudden overwhelming fatigue.
“I don’t believe you,” said Williams bitterly.
Elsie shrugged her shoulders, and turned, moving stiffly, to leave the room.
“Are you — are you hurt?”
“Yes, of course I am. My shoulder will be black and blue to-morrow, I should think.”
“Shall I get you anything?” Williams muttered, shamefaced.
She made no answer.
That afternoon Elsie rang up Leslie Morrison on the telephone after her husband had gone out. “Is that you, Les?”
“Yes. How’s yourself?”
He had told her never to be prodigal of verbal endearments in their telephone communications, and she knew that he was probably not alone, but it struck her painfully that his tone was a purely casual one, such as he might have used to anyone.
“We’ve had an awful scene, boy.”
“What — who?”
“Him — Horace — and me. The same old thing, of course — jealousy. I stood up to him, and told him I didn’t intend to put up with that sort of treatment any longer, and I’d never give up anyone I — I liked.”
“I say, Elsie, you were careful, weren’t you?” asked Morrison, his voice grown anxious.
“Yes, yes, darling, of course I was, for your sake. But Leslie — this is what happened — he knocked me down.” There was a smothered exclamation that made her heart leap with sudden exultation. Of course Leslie cared... “Elsie — girlie — he didn’t! Are you hurt?”
She could have laughed in pure joy at his sharply- anxious question.
“Nothing bad. Shaken, of course, and I expect there’ll be a bad bruise, but I can put up with worse than that, you know.”
“You oughtn’t to have to! The hound! I’d like to ... Look here, can’t we meet?”
“Yes, yes I” she said eagerly. “What about tea? I’ll come to—’’
“The same place,” he interrupted quickly, and she understood that he did not want her to mention the name of the tea-shop that had so often served them as rendezvous.
“What time?”
“About half-past five. I shan’t get away any earlier.”
“All right, darling. I’ll be there.”
“Sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, quite all right now,” Elsie declared, laughing happily.
“I must go. See you later, then?”
“Yes. Good-bye, boy.”
The answering good-bye came to her faintly over the wires as the final click warned her that he had hung up the receiver.
Elsie looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Only three o’clock — two hours and a quarter before she could think of starting out.
The telephone rang again, and Elsie, with a joyful hope that Morrison had been unable to resist a further word, snatched at the instrument.
“Hallo, hallo! Who’s there?”
“I am — Horace,” said her husband’s flat, nasal voice. “Look here. How would you like to go to the play tonight, Elsie?”
“What! “ said Elsie, disappointed at not hearing Leslie Morrison’s voice again, and still dazed from the scene of the morning.
“I said, how would you like to do a theatre to-night? I’ve got tickets for ‘The Girl on the Pier’ — good places — for to-night.”
She understood at last that he was seeking to propitiate her, and to make up for his violence. “I don’t mind. What time does it start?”
“Half-past eight, but we’d better meet in town somewhere for some food. I shan’t have time to come home first. What about the Corner House, at about seven o’clock? That’ll give us plenty of time to go on to Shaftesbury Avenue afterwards.”
“All right. How many tickets have you got, Horace?” “Just the two. I thought you and I would go by ourselves and have a jolly evening,” said the far-away voice rather tremulously.
Elsie laughed drearily as she rang off.
It seemed to her that the time dragged interminably until she could go upstairs and dress herself for the evening’s outing. She meant to meet Morrison first and then go on to the Corner House and wait there for her husband.
Elsie put on a dark blue coat and skirt, with a new pale blue jumper of artificial silk, and a big black hat with a blue feather. Round her neck she wore a small black fur.
After her variable wont, she had suddenly recovered her looks, after the sodden, stupefied ugliness that the morning’s unhappiness had produced in her. Her eyes seemed more widely opened than usual, her hair fell into thick curls and rings, and a soft, bright colour lay under her oddly prominent cheek-bones. She rubbed lip-stick on to her full, sulkily-cut mouth, and lavishly powdered her straight, beautiful neck. The glow of excitement and gladness transformed her as she went out to meet Morrison, slamming the door of the villa behind her.
“Darling I—”
“My own dear little girl!” said Leslie, and held both her gloved hands for a moment in his. “I haven’t been able to think of anything but what you ,told me this afternoon. Are we going for a walk, or will you come in?”
“I’d like to come in and sit down,” said Elsie languidly. “Have you had tea?”
“No. I’ll order some.”
“Not for me, boy. I’m meeting Horace for a meal in about an hour and a half. We’re going to the theatre.”
“Have you made it up, then?”
“Oh, I suppose so! He telephoned and said he had these tickets. I suppose he thought it’d make up, in a way.” They chose a corner table at the further end of the tea- shop, and Elsie took off her coat and leant against it as it lay folded over the back of her chair.
“Where did he hurt you this morning?” said Morrison intently.
She pulled up the loose sleeve of her silk jumper. “Look!”
Her smooth, soft arm was already discoloured all-round the elbow and up to the shoulder.
“It’s worse higher up, only I can’t get at it now to show you.”
“Damn him!” Leslie Morrison muttered between his teeth.
His boyish face was black with an intensity of feeling that Elsie had seldom seen there of late. It sent a rush of joyful reassurance all through her.
“Darling, I don’t care about anything while we’ve got each other.”
“But it can’t go on, Elsie. He’s making your life miserable. Isn’t there any hope of a divorce, or even a separation?”
“He says he never will.”
Elsie spoke slowly. She was revolving a possibility, that she had often viewed before in her own mind.
“Les, can’t we go away together? I don’t care what happens, or what people think of me. I’d face anything, with you.”
Even as she spoke, she knew — and one side of her was relieved to know — that Morrison would negative the suggestion, as he had often done before.
“Out of the question, darling girl. Think what I’m getting — two twenty-five a year and no particular prospect of a rise for years to come. And look at what you’ve been used to!”
“Not before I married.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 270