The car glided on. Cliffe Montgomery felt as though he were being kidnapped. Why, he wondered, dazed. He had known Clarissa for years — ever since, in fact, her father’s wealth, then so recently, though so amply, derived from cocoa — had come to the rescue of his impoverished friend, Ralph Marley. Never, through various encounters in country-houses or at London functions, had she accorded him more than a passing recognition and a formal card for her large Berkeley Square entertainments.
He looked at her in bewilderment.
“You don’t mind?”
“But why — ?”
“I’ve got to talk to you.”
How often had he heard the phrase before, and how infinitely wearisome that Clarissa Marley, of all people, should now repeat it! Besides, he felt creeping over him a horrible conviction as to the nature of the subject on which she felt so imperative a need to talk to him.
“Listen,” said Mrs. Marley, in her little, clear, assertive voice that always annoyed him. It was one of the most characteristic things about her, that voice — very low, very clear, and with a most distinct enunciation. A good copy of the real thing — but unmistakably a copy. In a way, one had to give her credit for knowing that it was an asset, and acquiring it. Cliffe Montgomery was always anxious to be quite just, even to Clarissa Marley.
“Listen, Cliffe! I’m going to call you that, because Reggie does, and everyone. I’m going to be very, very straight with you. It’s terribly difficult for me, as you’ll see, but I always believe in being absolutely straight.”
An even deeper dismay possessed Cliffe as he listened to her, but there was no escape for him.
“I know you’re so devoted to the Princesse, and of course to the Fitzmaurices. And perhaps you’re a tiny bit fond of me, too, for the sake of old times and my poor Ralph?”
Montgomery was not, even a tiny bit, fond of Clarissa Marley. He never had been, and even this negative condition was now rapidly giving place to a very active dislike of her methods, and of her appeal to the memory of her husband in such a connection.
He maintained a most resolute silence.
“Of course, I’ve known the Princesse de Candi-Laquerriere for years, more or less, but she’s so much older than I am that I think it would be difficult to insist upon an interview — which is what I should like.”
So there was something she’d stop at, thought Montgomery, grimly.
“That’s why I’ve so wanted to get hold of you. It would be so much easier for you to talk to her than for me.”
“She must be talked to, then?”
“Isn’t that the simplest way? I imagine that the Aldegonde person is completely dominated by her mother. One’s always heard so. As a matter of fact, I’d a great deal rather talk to Reggie’s wife direct, but then I’m a very, very unconventional woman.”
“What is it you want to say to Aldegonde?” Montgomery asked, knowing the answer to his question only too well.
Clarissa Marley turned round and looked at him. Her eyes were light hazel, very large and rather prominent. They showed now an expression of softness and emotion, but the rest of her face remained hard, shrewd and full of an essential coarseness.
“I’m terribly devoted to Reggie,” she said slowly, “and he adores me. You see, I’m quite, quite honest with you. We did fight against it, at first, but some things are too strong to be fought against. I’ve had a very hard time in some ways, Cliffe. I ought never to have married Ralph, I ought to have married a man stronger than myself. Instead of that he was weak, poor darling, and simply worshipped me, and, of course, I had all the money — he’d have had to sell Mardale, if it hadn’t been for me. I don’t say I was perfect, of course. But I gave him a son and heir, and my money was keeping the whole thing going, and of course I was young... I’m not saying I didn’t amuse myself. Naturally, when a girl’s husband isn’t strong enough to keep her in order, and other men run after her — what can you expect? Well, of course, the war put an end to all that. I simply said: Ralph, we’ve got to forget everything now except that the country needs us. I sent him out to France and I think everyone knows that I did my bit at home. Everyone was terrified that I was going to have a breakdown. People used to say that every organization in the county would break down if I had to give up. Of course, that was rather exaggerated, but still.... Well, poor Ralph was killed, as you know, just before the Armistice, and I never gave way for one instant. I just wouldn’t, because of the boy. I’ve run Mardale, and seen about school for Lucien, and turned down every man who’s wanted to marry me, and never got myself talked about in a nasty way, for the boy’s sake. And now, you see, well, I’ve fallen in love.”
Cliffe Montgomery’s horror increased with every word to which he was obliged to listen. How insensitive she was, to remain so utterly unaware of his intense disapproval, his acute annoyance at her lack of reticence.
“I wonder if you know what I mean by falling in love?” said Mrs. Marley.
It wasn’t going to be her fault if he didn’t know before she’d done with him. Cliffe felt sure of it.
“I mean just — simply — moving heaven and earth to get the man — and getting him. I’m going to get Reggie Fitzmaurice.”
“But why — how?”
“Why? Because I know I can make him happier than he’s ever been in his life before — and because he’s the only man I’ve ever really cared for. And as for how — you’ve got to help, Cliffe. You’ve got to make the Princesse hear reason. Everybody knows that she’ll listen to you. And either you, or she, or I, must tackle Reggie’s wife.”
“Aldegonde,” muttered Cliffe Montgomery.
“Yes. She doesn’t care for Reggie, any more than he cares for her. Everyone knows he could divorce her, and now he’s going to do it. He’d have done it long ago, if it hadn’t been for the cost. Mind, I’ll make it worth her while,” said Clarissa Marley, coldly and insolently. “You’re a man of the world, Cliffe — I’m not going to mince matters with you. I’ve never yet found the difficulty that couldn’t be got over with money, provided there’s enough of it. On the day that the decree nisi is made absolute, Reggie shall settle five thousand pounds on his wife.”
Cliffe Montgomery, to his own astonishment, emitted a sound that was something between a gasp of amazement and a groan of dismay.
“You can’t—”
“Of course I can. And she’ll be very, very stupid if she doesn’t see the force of it. What does she want with Reggie, after all? She’s got her Roumanian.”
“But,” said Cliffe — and he stopped, for how could he, unhappy little gentleman, tell Clarissa Marley point-blank that Fitzmaurice, for whom she was ready to pay five thousand pounds, was not even sure that he wanted to be married by her?
The blue car stopped. The striped sun-blinds, plants in green tubs, and pillared portico of the hotel had been reached.
“Come and see me to-morrow. I’ll be here till twelve. Good-bye,” Clarissa said, in that little, low, clear voice that he knew to be an imitation. “I want you to see them to-day, and bring me the answer to-morrow. Charles, take Mr. Montgomery wherever he wants to go, and be back here at four o’clock.”
She sprang out of the car, and Montgomery, bare-headed on the pavement beside her, stammered his thanks.
“My dear, it’s I who am grateful — too grateful,” said Clarissa. She waved to him, and he watched her slim, upright figure disappear into the dim coolness of the vestibule.
There seemed nothing for it but to get into the car again, and give, almost without realizing it, the humble address of the Princesse to the waiting Charles.
With silent speed, this time, the blue monster slid over the cobbles that sprawled incongruously beneath its powerful wheels, and drew up at the shabby porte-cochere of an ancient building that had once housed a Belgian family and was now turned into flats.
Little Montgomery watched the chauffeur back the car down the street again. He was not interested in the skill of Charles, nor in the mechanism of
the marvellous machine. He was merely gaining time for himself, in an unconscious kind of way, for he realized that he did not know how, or even if at all, he was going to deliver himself of Mrs. Marley’s astounding commission. But he could not stand on the hot pavement for ever. At last he went up the stone stairs, and to the door of the top flat, where he knocked.
“Entrez, entrez, monsieur Cliffe, on vous attend.”
Catiche greeted him with her melancholy, longtoothed smile. He owed the smile, that she vouchsafed to so few people, to the memory of their long association, the vicissitudes through which both had passed, incongruous companions, in the wake of the Princesse. Catiche, however, dated from much farther back than did Cliffe Montgomery. She belonged, in a fashion that was almost legendary, it seemed so long ago, to the St. Petersburg days and the grandeurs of the Embassy in which her pupil had been a child, and had grown up. Probably Catiche was French by parentage. She spoke French almost always, English, Italian or German when necessary.
As usual, in spite of the warmth of the day, a knitted black shawl was drawn over her greying head and round her thin shoulders. Still speaking in French, she closed the door behind Cliffe and faced him in the narrow wedge of lobby that opened into the sitting-room.
“What is it?” she said anxiously.
“Nothing very new,” he answered kindly. “Fitzmaurice, as usual, is a nuisance.”
Between himself and Catiche there were no pretences.
“She would be far better rid of him,” said the old woman decidedly.
“That’s what we must find out. There is a — a change in the air.”
She nodded, as though the information did not surprise her.
“So long as it isn’t a change for the worse — and it could scarcely be that, poor Aldegonde! Now if it had been Alberta—”
“Alberta would never have married Fitzmaurice.”
“Never have married him,” agreed Catiche— “never have allowed him to avoid the war as he did, and never have insisted upon continuing to live with her mother as though she were not married at all.”
“Cliffy!” shrieked the voice of the Princesse imperiously. “What are you saying to Catiche out there? I hear you perfectly well.”
Cliffe Montgomery hastened into the tiny living-room — it took but a step to get him there. Catiche vanished into some incredible recess that served her as bedroom.
“Come in,” said the Princesse de Candi-La-querriere, sitting on her little sofa by the window.
The rest of the room was entirely filled by a round table, three straight-backed chairs, and an enormous ormolu-and-alabaster clock that stood on the narrow marble mantelpiece. It was surmounted by a Napoleonic gilt eagle, and little gilt Cupids alternately tapped a gilt anvil, or sharpened their gilt arrows, when the clock struck. Moreover, if a hidden spring was pressed, the clock played a tune — a tremulous, gavotte-like tune — of faded gaiety. The clock was gradually acquiring the status of a relic of the past, for it was one of those almost unpurchasable treasures that are wholly unsaleable as well.
The room had another door that opened into a bedroom, and the bedroom, in its turn, opened into a closet into which a bed had been crammed.
Such was the flat.
All the doors stood open, in an endeavour to create air where no air seemed to be, and the green Venetian blind of the sitting-room hung down crookedly over the open window.
“It’s always so nice to see you,” said the Princesse, and the beauty of her soft, flexible voice caused little Montgomery to shudder afresh at the horrid recollection of Clarissa’s.
“What was all that about, you and Catiche muttering behind the door like conspirators? Is anything the matter?”
Catiche had asked the same question almost as he stepped over the threshold. In all four of them — the Princesse, Catiche, Aldegonde Fitzmaurice and the absent Alberta — the intuitive faculty had been sharpened to a pitch that was almost unbearable. Everything in them had become concentrated upon the personal aspect of life: they allowed one no respite, no lapse into a decent impersonality. Little Montgomery knew that no evasions would serve his turn. Besides, it was better to get it over.
“I’ve been with Mrs. Marley. She overtook me in the street, and picked me up in the car. She said she wanted to speak to me.”
“About Fitzmaurice?”
“And about Aldegonde. Where is she, by the by?”
“Gone out. But you can tell it all over again when she opines back — she won’t be long. Go on.”
“She said — she told me — that Reggie’s the only man she’s ever really cared for.”
“What an unoriginal way of expressing herself!” ejaculated the Princesse.
“And she had the audacity to say that she hopes Aldegonde will be willing to — to agree to a divorce.”
“Why not?” said the Princesse. Her attention had suddenly wandered, as it so frequently did. “Why not, poor child? Look, there’s Carruthers. Have you spoken to him yet?”
Carruthers had stalked noiselessly in through the open door, his black tail waving gently, his sinuous body curving into a half-moon round the leg of the table. He purred as Montgomery patted him on the head — for Montgomery could only like Carruthers by dint of pretending that he was some kind of dog.
“Come along,” said the Princesse, as Carruthers jumped up into her lap. Her pretty hands fondled his broad, triangular head gently.
“I think Aldegonde will agree, especially as her sister is not here to influence her against it. Really, it seems an excellent solution,” said the Princesse, quite joyously. “I wonder we haven’t done it long ago. Cliffy, I believe we could afford a tiny house in Italy — or what about Somersetshire? I should like Somersetshire. When I was five years old I used to stay there, and I remember the primroses so well.”
“Anyway, we could leave Brussels.”
“The only thing that annoys me,” said the Princesse, laughing heartily, “is to think how disgustingly rich that pig Fitzmaurice will be. However, one comfort is they’ll make one another perfectly wretched in next to no time. Life with either of them would be too expensive, at twenty thousand a year.”
“About money...,” said Cliffe unhappily, disliking this part of his embassy beyond all measure.
“The only thing that matters in the world, I sometimes think,” declared the Princesse vehemently.
“Well, there’d be the question of — of expense. Clarissa Marley — she measures everything in terms of money, of course — she — she seemed to think that could be arranged.”
“Arranged?” inquired the Princesse, her slender black eyebrows almost disappearing into the soft wings of hair that swept away on either side of her small, strangely youthful-looking head.
“She prides herself on being outspoken, and I don’t think she realizes that one somehow senses the fact that none of it is in the least spontaneous. In fact, my dear, she told me in so many words that she would guarantee that Fitzmaurice should make a settlement of five thousand pounds on Aldegonde as soon as the decree was made absolute.”
He dared not look at the Princesse — but, after all, she was not angry.
Her hand patted him gently, much as she had just now patted the big black cat.
“Poor Cliffy! How abominable of her to give you her absurd and vulgar messages. Though no wonder she didn’t dare face me herself. To begin with, she knows that I should think it absurdly extravagant. Good heavens! Five thousand for Fitzmaurice...!”
“I’m to take her the answer to-morrow — to tell her if Aldegonde will agree to the divorce.”
“She will, certainly she will. Advise Clarissa from me to keep her five thousand,” said the Princesse light-heartedly. “She may need it in a year or two to pay someone to take Fitzmaurice away.”
“Of course, I knew...” murmured Montgomery, disregarding her flippancy, as he was so frequently compelled to do. “But ought you to tell Aldegonde...?”
“What does it matter? Clarissa must
be mad to suppose that we should ever take such an offer seriously. No, no, let her have Fitzmaurice if she wants him. He’s never been anything but a nuisance, and we shall all get on much better without him.”
“His income — I know it’s very small, but it does make a difference...” hinted Cliffe.
“The only thing he pays for is the child’s education,” said the Princesse.
“Good heavens!” Cliffe Montgomery exclaimed, “I’d forgotten all about the child.”
It was not really surprising that Montgomery should have forgotten all about the child, Sophie Fitzmaurice.
Ten years earlier, at the time of her birth, her parents had been in London, still in the early stages of their disastrous experiment in matrimony, and with Aldegonde’s futile and undignified return to her mother still unaccomplished.
The Princesse and Catiche, at that date, had been trailing up and down the steps of the Piazza di Spagna — or so, at least, Montgomery invariably pictured to himself that sojourn in Rome — whilst Aldegonde’s sister, Alberta de Candi-Laquerriére, proved to herself (since by nobody else had any such proof been required) that she had no vocation to the life of a contemplative religious. The vagaries of Alberta, then, as ever, had been of far greater importance to the Princesse than the shipwrecking of Aldegonde’s youth, or the birth of Aldegonde’s child. They had, indeed, none of them — except perhaps Catiche, doing point d’epine on successive layers of flannel and cambric — realized the existence of an infant Fitzmaurice, until after the final interview had taken place between Alberta on one side of a conventual iron grille and the distracted Montgomery on the other. For it was he, needless to say, who had been charged to tell the Princesse that Alberta — firmly sent back to the world by her Superior — did not intend to return to her mother.
It was the only reasonable solution of that problem of temperaments that had rendered tempestuous the whole of Alberta’s childhood and nearly half of her mother’s life — but even now, ten years later, Cliffe Montgomery remembered, less willingly than any other, that time of stress. Alberta had remained in Rome, prowling from convent to convent in gloomy independence, and the Princesse, distraught, had alternately threatened a return to St. Petersburg or a bungalow on the Cornish coast.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 320