Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  In three days more she would be home again. She would wake up in the morning without the thrill of knowing that the day was to bring a meeting with Ayland.

  But she felt that never again would her first waking thought be of the servants, the stores, the ordering of a pudding. Her horizon could never again, surely, be bounded by such considerations day after day.

  Her mood of exaltation dropping abruptly, Laura wondered whether perhaps instead she would open her eyes to problems less material, indeed, but also infinitely more painful. Would it be possible to see Alfred beside her and not to ask herself what justification she had for deceiving him?

  “But then,” reflected Laura, “if it comes to that, what justification have I for enlightening him? As Duke says, it would only make him unhappy or angry, or both.”

  She could not imagine how Alfred would receive the information that his wife loved another man. She had never seen Alfred confronted with any emotional situation. Emotional situations were things that Alfred did not attract. They died still-born in his very presence.

  It was inconceivable that Alfred should, like a husband in an old-fashioned novel, wish to shoot Duke Ayland, or even to horsewhip him. It was equally inconceivable that he should, like a husband in a modern play, agree to discuss the whole problem dispassionately with his wife and the man who was in love with her.

  What, Laura wondered, were the remaining alternatives?

  She could find only two.

  Either she must continue to see Duke Ayland and tacitly deceive her husband, or she must give up seeing Duke Ayland altogether.

  Confronted by these two courses, each one of which appeared to her to be entirely incompatible with her own self-respect or peace of mind, Laura instinctively floundered her way into a morass of compromise.

  She represented to herself that it might be possible for her to see Duke as often as they could arrange to meet, but that he should not make love to her.

  Friendship.

  Laura, like Mr. Twemlow, might be represented as saying to herself all that evening: “Hold on to friendship”

  She was obliged to say it during the night as well, for she slept badly.

  It is impossible to ignore the fact that Laura, at this juncture, was profoundly agitated by the unescapable consideration so deftly implied in a more reticent age, by the euphemistic reference: “The Woman Who Did.”

  Never, since she had outgrown the sentimental and supremely ignorant eroticism of early adolescence, had Laura identified herself with the type of Woman who Did. Marriage, indeed, had served to inculcate in her the chastity — than which there is none more rigid — of a romantic woman, married to a man with whom she had never been in love.

  Duke Ayland had revolutionised many things.

  Laura, refusing absolutely to be anything but truly modern, had the greatest difficulty in persuading herself that any decision she might come to on the subject, must be based upon the individual merits of the case alone.

  Tradition, and the force of early upbringing — so much more powerful, always, at night than in the day-time — thronged in upon her. Quotations, every one of them in favour of renunciation, continued to distress her.

  “The only thing,” said Laura to herself, sternly, “the only thing is, what is least likely to hurt the children, and Alfred, and Duke. And myself.”

  But it still continued impossible to find any formula that should combine an absence of hurt for the children, Alfred, Duke and Laura.

  “And in any case,” said Laura wildly, “‘thou shalt not commit—’”

  She had been trying not to remember it, to think that it had no power over her.

  But it had.

  She got up, washed her face in cold water, fetched pen and paper, and wrote an immensely long and exhaustive letter to Duke Ayland, in which, like the compiler of the Athanasian Creed, she sought to define the indefinable.

  The performance left her far from satisfied.

  She put the letter into an envelope, sealed it, and placed it underneath her pillow — as a measure of precaution.

  More wholly wakeful than ever in her life before, Laura told herself excitedly that she must get some sleep.

  Lying down in the not very profound obscurity of the early summer morning, she closed her eyes.

  Instantly, the letter, assuming gigantic proportions, began to torment her, suggesting to her mind terrible possibilities.

  Letters read aloud in the divorce court — indiscreet letters in blackmail cases — letters, even, figuring sensationally in certain well known murder trials.

  Laura’s imagination, leaping every intermediate stage, placed her momentarily upon the scaffold. She jerked herself miserably back into the realms of comparative common sense.

  Her letter, after all, was a work of supererogation.

  She was going to see Duke, and she could urge her point of view upon him — especially if she were only able to formulate it clearly in her own mind first. She would not be unfaithful to Alfred.

  She put her children before every other consideration in the world. She could never leave them.

  But she could not relinquish Duke.

  A more than distasteful analogy rushed unbidden to Laura’s memory.

  “Hunt with the hounds and run with the hare,” she muttered distractedly.

  And, after that, she slept.

  In the light of morning things — as is their custom — looked less desperate.

  She was able to consider the value of her letter dispassionately and to apply a lighted match to it without compunction.

  “And I shall see him to-day,” thought Laura, and felt that little else mattered.

  She was to see Duke in the evening at a small literary and artistic soirée, for which he had given her and Christine tickets.

  “A totally insignificant kind of club,” he had apologetically explained to her, “to which I’ve belonged ever since it started, over a mews near Southampton Row. It’s quite prosperous, nowadays, and meets at quite expensive restaurants. Consequently I go there very seldom. Sometimes they get A. B. Onslow there.”

  Christine, on the morning following Laura’s nuit blanche, reminded her of this festivity.

  “Are you going to do anything special to-day? You’ll be going home, worse luck, in such a short time,” Christine superfluously added.

  “I know. This afternoon I’m afraid there’s nothing for it but to go and see old cousin Louisa Temple at Queen’s Park. I’ve been meaning to do it ever since I got here, and putting it off — and if I don’t do it now, I never shall.”

  “And must you?”

  “Yes.”

  A pilgrimage to Queen’s Park was indeed something that no member of the Temple family, even though only a member of it by marriage, could omit. Almost all families are subjected to similar oppressions.

  Cousin Louisa, strangely, lived at Queen’s Park from choice, with a niece who would have been an old lady herself, if cousin Louisa had not been so much older. The extravagant senility of Cousin Louisa consigned her niece to a dim, perpetual middle-age. She was called by almost everybody Poor Selina, and sometimes, by those who knew her less well, Poor Miss Thingamy.

  Laura had been aware ever since she married, that an expedition to see Cousin Louisa at Queen’s Park was a moral obligation attached to every stay in London. It might be — and almost always was — inconvenient, but it could not be shirked. A tradition had been established, and only death could break it. She must, of her own free will, deliberately immerse herself in the atmosphere of pills, and Halma, and little grey shawls, diffused by cousin Louisa and Poor Selina.

  Before she started, Duke Ayland rang her up on the telephone.

  He wanted to take her out to lunch.

  “But we shall meet this evening. You’re coming to fetch us, aren’t you?” said Laura, entirely for the sake of hearing his reply. When he had protested, she suggested going out to tea with him instead, for she knew from experience that a visit to old Co
usin Louisa could not possibly take place within the confines of a morning.

  “I ought to see a man about some songs, this afternoon,” she heard Ayland’s voice.

  “Oh, then, please—”

  “But that’ll be all right. I’ll settle him somehow. Can I call for you anywhere?”

  “But, Duke, the man sounds important. You’d better see him.”

  “He’s not half as important as having you to myself for a little while. Of course I shall chuck him. What time, Laura?”

  It thrilled her exquisitely, that he should think it worth while to cancel his appointment for the sake of being with her. Amongst her friends and acquaintances, she knew of none who would not resign cheerfully, and as a matter of course, any personal engagement that should clash with a business one.

  After arranging a rendezvous with Duke, it was easy to undertake the Queen’s Park expedition, although Laura disliked the atmosphere of the Underground and almost always lost herself in the Tube at Oxford Circus.

  She had made up her mind to tell Duke Ayland that he must not make love to her, that they would remain friends, and that she would see him whenever she possibly could, and write to him very often. This course would combine loyalty to Alfred with fairness to themselves, and to the claims of creative art, that surely demanded some emotional outlet for its depositaries.

  Only too well aware that if she thought any more about this resolution, she would gradually be overwhelmed by its disadvantages and general impracticality, Laura in the train read the Daily Mirror from end to end, and did its cross-word puzzle.

  Her visit to Queen’s Park was exactly like all her visits to Queen’s Park. Cousin Louisa was as old, as wonderful — from the point of view of what are called faculties — and as inquisitive as Laura had always known her, and Poor Selina as effusive, inconsequent, and tiresomely unselfish. Lunch, as usual, was an affair of pale boiled mutton and glutinous white sauce, unsuited to a hot summer’s day, pink corn-flour mould, and tapioca pudding, followed by cups of strong tea. Laura, also as usual, inwardly criticised Poor Selina’s housekeeping, and felt ashamed of herself for doing so.

  The conversation concerned itself with relations whom Laura never saw, and whom Cousin Louisa and Poor Selina seldom saw, but in whose doings they nevertheless kept up a pathetic interest.

  “I had a post-card from Annie last month.”

  “We hear that Bob Temple’s second boy — the one who had rickets — is being put on to this new food — this milk extract.”

  “Barbara — (I don’t think you know her, Laura, she’s Alfred’s third cousin, lives in Yorkshire) — she has such trouble with her servants. I hear she’s going to try having all men.”

  Laura replied with suitable ejaculations, and as many comments as she could think of, and produced innocuous pieces of information about life at Applecourt in order that they, in their turn, might be retailed to subsequent uninterested visitors. Remorse at her own boredom, and relief at having accomplished her pious excursion, lent a spurious fervour to her farewells, and Laura plunged gladly back into the Tube, that seemed airy, light and gay by comparison with old Cousin Louisa’s stuffy and congested atmosphere.

  “And if Alfred hadn’t married me,” Laura, according to her wont, relentlessly informed herself, “Aunt Isabel and I might have come to that.” But she did not say it with quite the old amount of conviction.

  Since Duke Ayland had found her beautiful and desirable, Laura no longer really doubted that she could be both of these things, at least in flashes. She went and had her hair waved, in preparation for the literary soirée, and permitted herself to arrive with absolute punctuality at the tea-shop indicated by Ayland. (Another one of her mother’s maxims had been to the effect that a Man should always be Kept Waiting a Little, but Laura was belatedly reaching the conclusion — long since urged upon her by Christine — that the maxims of parents are usually quite inapplicable to the adult existence of their children.)

  Duke had so many things to say to Laura, and she so much liked hearing them, that it was only with difficulty that she was able to issue her ultimatum.

  Ayland did not appear to take it very seriously.

  “How different things look in the daytime,” thought Laura, unable to recapture any of the earnest frenzy that had possessed her thoughts throughout the night. She also, like Duke, felt that nothing mattered very much beyond the present.

  In this dazed and happy frame of mind, that in itself had a mysteriously becoming effect upon her personal appearance, Laura went with Christine to the party that evening.

  A. B. Onslow was there, as guest of honour, and almost as she recognised him, Laura heard Christine’s disgusted comment:

  “Will you look at Bay-bay! He isn’t allowed to move an inch away from her. I’ve a good mind to tell her that a girl of her age must be hard up for an admirer, if she can’t annex anybody but a man who already belongs to another woman.”

  “He’s the most celebrated person here. That’s why.” Mrs. Temple curtly and elliptically explained her young neighbour’s indecent display of her preferences. She was herself gratified, later on, when Onslow came up and talked to her, and as far as possible she ignored Miss Kingsley-Browne, still hovering at the elbow of the distinguished object of her favours.

  With a self-confidence that was in gratifying contrast to her habitual attitude towards society, Laura was able to exchange literary opinions with Onslow.

  “Mummie is here, somewhere about,” said the insufferable Bébée, interrupting them. “She’s been looking for you, Mrs. Temple.”

  “How nice of her! I must — but do tell me about the new Published Letters. I’ve always thought—”

  “There she is!”

  Laura continued to look at A. B. Onslow and A. B. Onslow to look at her, as though exchanging a mutual hope that by strenuously ignoring Bébée’s officiousness, they might render it innocuous.

  “There are only two letters, but they throw a wonderful light on the whole question. You’re interested in it on the psychological, as well as the literary side, I take it?”

  “Yes, I am. In fact, principally on the psychological side, I think.”

  Laura, without looking round, was aware that Bébée had successfully hypnotized her parent to her side.

  “Mummie, here’s Mrs. Temple. I know you and she are dying to talk gardening.”

  Lady Kingsley-Browne’s quiescent rejoinder was such as to leave Onslow little alternative. He bestowed a valedictory smile upon Laura, and moved away beside his insolently self-satisfied disciple.

  “Even the cleverest men seem to go down like ninepins before Bébée,” murmured Lady Kingsley-Browne, with for once more anxiety than pride in her expression.

  Laura thought of several excellent rejoinders, but was unable to make any of them.

  “Well,” said her neighbour, “it’s very delightful to meet you here. Somehow I never expected to. This” — she waved a be-diamonded hand vaguely— “is all so unlike Applecourt, and so on, isn’t it? I never somehow quite realised this side of you before. You know, dear, I always associate you — we all do, in fact — with the country and those darling children, and all the dear things one enjoys in the garden so much.”

  CHAPTER XII

  “Lady Kingsley-Browne wants to come and see me,” announced Laura in a high key of astonishment two days after the soirée.

  “Can’t she wait until you’re home again? Her back-door is next to yours.”

  “Apparently she can’t. Look at this!”

  Laura handed a pale coffee-coloured sheet with a heading in white lettering to her sister.

  The Chesterfield Club,

  W.I.

  My Dear Laura,

  Should I find you at home, if I called at your sister’s flat this afternoon? I hope you and she will both forgive me for suggesting such a thing, but there is no quiet here, and I feel I must speak to you. If you would be kind enough to telephone a message, saying what time you are free, I
can make any time convenient.

  Yours,

  Gertrude Kingsley-Browne.

  A telephone number followed.

  “After her iniquitous behaviour at that party, too! Perhaps she wants to apologise,” said Christine. “What time shall you say?”

  “Five o’clock — or six, then we needn’t bother about tea. Six.”

  “All right. I shall be here, but if it sounds in the least private, I’ll go out.”

  “It can’t be private,” Laura declared. “We aren’t on those terms at all.”

  But the first sight of their visitor, at six o’clock, caused Christine and Laura to exchange a swift glance of horrified incredulity.

  Lady Kingsley-Browne’s habitual air of prosperity had given way to one of flushed agitation, her hat was onesided, and her manner distracted.

  “Forgive me for this — for coming like this. I’ve been so upset — and possibly you might help me — we’ve always been such good friends.”

  “I’ll go,” said Christine.

  “Don’t go, please don’t go. I don’t in the least mind your hearing — or, rather, I mind most dreadfully, but nothing can make any difference, and you yourself are a modern girl.”

  “Bay-bay!” Christine mouthed silently at her sister, who nodded in agreement.

  Lady Kingsley-Browne sat in Christine’s largest armchair and began to cry.

  “Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. What is it?” Laura asked.

  “You will find it perfectly impossible to believe.”

  “Yes?”

  “I do myself,” said Lady Kingsley-Browne.

  “What has happened?”

  “I hardly know how to tell you. I can hardly imagine what you’ll say.”

  Laura gazed at her afflicted neighbour in a respectful silence.

  Christine said firmly:

  “You must tell us what it is. We can’t say anything till we know, can we? But we’ll do anything we can to help, whatever it is.”

  “You can’t! Nobody, I am afraid, can do anything. If you had told me, a year ago, that I should find myself in the state I’m in to-day, I simply shouldn’t have believed you. I simply should not have believed you.”