“Thank you, my dear.” He achieved a difficult smile. “Well, now you know my story. It’s not a very unusual one, I dare say. And yet” he seemed to recollect himself, “it is unusual, I suppose. Most men have something of the kind in their lives, I dare say — but they don’t take it as hard as I do. My capacity for suffering is an absolutely extraordinary one. I do know that for a fact.”
“Some day — —”
He shook his head.
“No. If you mean that some day I shall mind less about this, you’re wrong. It will always be exactly the same to me. I’m like that.”
Monica felt that he did not wish either to be reasoned with or contradicted on the point.
She said nothing.
“Of course, I’m going on with everyday life just as usual. My going to that wedding, as best man, proves that. I know that I have a tremendously strong will, and I’ve put every ounce of it into preventing anybody’s knowing what I feel — except you, Monica.”
His smile at her, and deep look straight into her eyes, moved her emotionally, in spite of the dead, cold weight of disappointment at her heart.
“Please always go on telling me things, Carol. I want you to, and I understand.”
“I know you do. And it’s been a relief to talk to you. If I don’t do it again for a long while — perhaps for years — you mustn’t mind, or think it’s because you’re less my friend. It’s only that I’m a person who is naturally very reserved — to whom speech doesn’t come at all easily.”
Carol Anderson passed his hand across his eyes, as though clearing from them the mists of some inner preoccupation. He looked down at the broken fragments of the branch lying all round him.
“Did I do that? How destructive!”
Smiling ruefully, he bent and picked up his own walking-stick once more.
“It’s grown chilly, hasn’t it?”
Monica had felt that it had for some while. The sun had gone behind a bank of cloud, and they had been sitting on the log a long time. She was cold and cramped when Carol gave her his hand and pulled her up from her low seat.
When they were both on their feet, he still retained her hand for a moment.
“This has been wonderful, Monica. I never thought that I should find anybody like you.”
Words that might, and should, have been used if he had been in love with her, she thought drearily.
It was something to have his friendship, perhaps. It would make life less lonely.
Quite involuntarily that thought was immediately followed by another one — the echo of Imogen Ingram’s voice:
“Never be silly enough to let a man talk to you about being friends with him. There’s no such thing as friendship between a man and a woman. That kind of thing leads to nothing. …”
The only thing that mattered was to get married, and now it seemed unlikely that Carol Anderson would ever ask her to marry him after all. He was all the time thinking about somebody else.
She was able to feel intensely sorry for him, partly because she was more attracted by him physically than she was willing to admit, and partly because of his own intense belief in the reality and immensity of his suffering. It carried conviction, whilst she was with him.
They walked some way further before turning back to the hotel, and Carol earned Monica’s fervent gratitude because, very gently and affectionately, he led her on to tell him the story of her youthful love-affair with Christopher Lane.
She had long ago evolved a formula that salved her hurt self-respect. By now she had come to believe in it herself. “There was somebody that I cared for, once. He cared for me too — but only for a little while, and not as much as — as I thought he did. It was marvellous while it lasted.”
Her eyes grew misty as she tried, vainly, to recapture something of the glamour and excitement that had surrounded her brief, youthful romance. It seemed, actually, to have happened to someone else, for she could no longer revive in herself any spark of the innocent, ignorant confidence in the right of youth to love and happiness that had been hers at the age of eighteen.
“So you’ve known what it is to care for someone too, Monica?”
“Yes. In a way, I shall always care for, him. It’s on that account, really, that I haven’t ever been able to care for anybody else.”
Monica believed, at least partially, in the truth of what she was saying. Her life would have been so utterly unendurable had she not been able to believe something of the kind, that this legend of her own fidelity had crystallized within her by imperceptible degrees, and had become part of the fabric of existence. She offered it to Carol Anderson without any sense of being other than wholly sincere.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I think that I shall never marry.”
Anxiously, she waited for his reassurance.
“Some people can accept the second-best. I don’t think you could, any more than I could. I know perfectly well, for instance, that I shall never marry, because I can never care for any other woman as I cared-care,” he corrected himself, “for Viola Lester.”
“Everyone isn’t like that.”
“No, though I think women are more often than men. I suppose I’m exceptional in that sort of way.”
“I think you are,” said Monica.
She knew that was what he wanted her to say, and it would have been impossible to Monica to risk losing his evident confidence in her sympathy. Far below the regions of conscious thought was the hope that from friendship and sympathy might spring sexual desire.
She was the more deeply unaware of this because of the weight of bitter disappointment that had descended upon her ever since Carol had said that he loved another woman. All through the drive home, she could feel that knowledge waiting to crush the newly born hope that had seemed so fair only that morning. Worst of all, she almost felt, would be the moment when she would have to let her mother know — casually, and as though it mattered not at all to either of them — that Carol Anderson was, after all, “no real use.”
They did not talk very much on the way home. As they neared Eaton Square Carol said to her:
“I know that what I’ve said is absolutely safe with you. I don’t mean to say that no one else knows about it, because, naturally, it was more or less inevitable that one or two people should have guessed. Not from me, as a matter of fact. I have the most extraordinary powers of self-command, curiously enough. A great many people have told me that, and I know it’s true. But I couldn’t bear anyone ever to know that I’d spoken about it. I never have, except to you.”
“You’re not sorry that you did, Carol?”
“No. You’ve been perfectly wonderful to me, and — it’s helped, telling you about it. I do want to see a lot of you, Monica, if I may.”
“Yes, I’d like it,” she said faintly.
The words were true enough, but she reflected bitterly how differently she would have felt them, twenty-four hours earlier.
At the door she asked Carol to come in, but was relieved when he thanked her and refused.
“I want to see you again though, very soon. May I come round to-morrow — about six o’clock?”
“Yes, do,” said Monica.
She was glad, after all, that he wanted to come.
He liked her so much — she felt certain of that — might he not come to find her indispensable?
It was a forlorn hope enough — but it was a hope.
As Monica went wearily up the family stairs she met her mother coming down.
Mrs. Ingram wore more than her usual aspect of brightness. There was a kind of expectancy in the smile and exclamation with which she greeted Monica.
“Have you had a nice day, darling?”
“Lovely, thank you.”
Monica had known that she could not altogether deceive her mother. They had lived together too long, and Monica had been forced into too close an intimacy, all through her early years, for reticences or evasions to avail her now.
The reflection of the disa
ppointment that she tried hard to keep out of her voice was instantly visible in Mrs. Ingram’s expression, although she continued to smile, and said: “I’m so glad, darling. I expect you’re tired.”
“I am, a little.”
“Why not lie down and rest a little before dressing? You haven’t forgotten that we’re dining out to-night?”
“No. I think I will rest a little, first.”
“I should. You didn’t bring Mr. Anderson in, then?”
“He asked if he might come,” rejoined Monica quickly, knowing that it would comfort her mother to hear that, in the mysterious chill that had descended upon their hopes.
“He brought me to the door of course, and asked if he could come in, but I thought it would make rather a rush, as we’re going out, and he’s coming to-morrow instead.”
She averted her eyes from the wave of relief that she knew was passing over her mother’s face.
“Quite right, darling. You’ve had a long day. And besides — —” Mrs. Ingram left the sentence unfinished, but Monica knew what she meant.
“Besides, it’s much wiser not to let a man think that be has only to ask. …”
She went into her own room.
Incredibly soon, the mechanism of Monica’s consciousness adjusted itself to her new awareness of Carol Anderson’s emotional pre-occupation with another woman. She found not only consolation but grounds for hope in his dependence upon the sympathy that she gave him without stint.
It was a relief to her when, a few days after the drive to Hindhead, her mother, with some hesitation, told her that she had heard, from a connection of the Lesters, that Carol Anderson was said to have been very much in love with an unhappily married woman.
“I know,” said Monica calmly.
“Is it absolutely all over, then?” her mother asked eagerly.
“In a way I think it is. I mean — the woman was Mrs. Felix Lester, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Hasn’t she gone abroad with her husband for two years?”
“Yes, I believe she has. Of course, darling, I don’t want you to betray any confidences.” Mrs. Ingram paused rather wistfully but Monica made no sign, afraid of betraying Carol who had said that he should not like anyone to know that he had spoken about his love for Viola.
“Naturally, one rather wondered…. But after all, many a man has been caught on the rebound.”
It was exactly what Monica had thought, at the back of her mind, but it shocked her disagreeably to hear the thought put into words, accustomed though she was to the enunciation of Mrs. Ingram’s creed.
“A young man’s infatuation for a married woman means very little, really. And, in a way, it’s much safer than — anything else. There’s no question of marrying, or anything like that. He’s absolutely free. And when a man is fresh from a disappointment of that kind, it very often means that he’s much readier to think of settling down than he might be at any other time.”
It was evident that Mrs. Ingram believed, and wanted Monica to believe, that there was still hope.
Monica very often, through the spring and summer, was able to persuade herself that there was still hope.
She saw Carol almost daily; he wrote to her sometimes and telephoned often.
He liked to be alone with her, and always he talked to her about himself, or about himself and Viola Lester. Monica pitied him, and believed his assurances that he had never bestowed his confidence upon anybody else. It was a long while before she even admitted to herself that his plaintive gratitude and affection could not wholly atone for his egotism, his endless dramatizations of himself, and his unwearying self-pity.
Their friendship was not constructive. Carol, she realized by degrees, was instinctively averse from anything that might tend to destroy his conception of himself. He had no real wish to be consoled, or to allow himself to recover from his unhappiness. Actually, he quietly fostered and nursed it, unwilling to relinquish that which made him interesting in his own eyes.
Monica did not closely analyse Carol Anderson, but she felt, by degrees, that she understood him. She was fond of him because he was affectionate and grateful and had a certain child-like charm of manner towards women, and because he was the person with whom she had most nearly, in her life, achieved intimacy.
Underneath everything persisted her dogged, desperate wish that he should some day ask her to marry him.
Chapter III
“The Marlowes are going to be in London next week,” exclaimed Monica, surprised.
“Fricky and Cecily — poor things! — are they really? I thought their mother had practically given up having them in town.”
“It’s more than two years since they were last in Belgrave Square,” Monica admitted. “They both say they like the country better.”
“Girls have to say something, darling, when they get to that age. Even Cecily must be getting on now. I can’t think why their mother doesn’t let them travel — send them round the world, or something like that. She could perfectly well afford it, and she might get one of them off her hands at last. Supposing Cecily married — I always think she’s the less impossible of the two — it would probably be someone living abroad, and then she could have Fricky to stay, and very likely find someone for her as well.”
“I can’t imagine what Frederica would do if Cecily married.”
“What does it matter what she’d do?” enquired Mrs. Ingram calmly. “The only thing that matters is that one of them should find a husband. Not that I suppose there’s much hope now, really.”
The familiar sense of misery welled up in Monica, as she heard the words, and it was evident that a similar train of thought had been roused in her mother.
She said:
“Ask them to lunch or something, poor things. Of course, all their contemporaries are married, I should imagine — they must be years older than you are.”
Monica made no reply.
“I’m sorry for poor Theodora Marlowe,” said Mrs. Ingram. “Not that I think she’s been a particularly good mother — I don’t — but it’s very hard on her that both those girls should be so completely unattractive. They’re not bad-looking, either of them, and there’s plenty of money — and yet look at them! Not a single serious chance, I don’t believe — not one!”
“I think it would be much better,” said Monica boldly, “if they went and did something. Work, of some kind.” Mrs. Ingram shook her head.
“I don’t see how it would be possible,” she said not unreasonably. “There’s only nursing, or teaching, for that sort of girl, and both are hard work. They’ve never been trained to do anything at all. I’m sure they’d break down in a week.”
Monica was sure of it too.
“Settlement work,” she suggested.
“Well, I suppose so. There’s always that kind of thing — good works, and so on. Everybody knows what it means — that a girl hasn’t been able to find a husband, and is bored with living at home and doing nothing.”
And looking at her daughter, Mrs. Ingram added quickly:
“It would break my heart, Monica, if you ever wanted to go in for anything of that kind.”
Monica knew too well that the words were, at least metaphorically, true.
Carol Anderson still came to see her often, and his liking for her, after nearly a year of friendship, seemed to have varied not at all. He still talked to her of his undiminished love for Viola Lester, and still sought to persuade himself and her that time could never, in his case, bring its customary alleviations. Monica did not feel him to be consciously insincere: it was rather as though he had succeeded in hypnotising himself into believing in the existence of a romantic figure, called by his own name. He would admit nothing that interfered with his creation.
Every time that Monica realized this, she realized, too, that Carol Anderson would never ask her to marry him. If he ever did marry, his wife must be a woman who could honestly subscribe to his visions of himself as a Great Romantic. Si
de by side with these inescapable certainties was Monica’s unrecognized intention of letting Frederica and Cecily Marlowe see Carol Anderson as a man devoted to herself, whom she could marry as soon as she desired so to do.
Two days after their arrival in London she went to see them.
They looked paler, more listless and dejected than ever. Frederica’s tyranny over her sister seemed to have gained in strength, but now even Cecily occasionally offered to it a faint resistance. It was almost the only sign of initiative shown by either.
“Are you staying long?” Monica enquired.
“We don’t know,” Cecily explained, like a child. “Mother hasn’t said yet. She’s in bed with a chill at the moment.”
“Cecily isn’t going near her for fear it should be influenza,” Frederica thrust in quickly.
“She doesn’t want either of us. I hope she’ll be all right by to-morrow. Tell us about you, Monica.”
“There isn’t anything much to tell.”
The other two stared at her in unspoken enquiry.
“I’m having quite a good time,” said Monica desperately. “I’ve got a new friend, by the way. I want you to meet him. A man called Carol Anderson — one of the Gloucestershire Andersons.”
“Oh, Monica! Is he going to be any use?” asked Cecily.
Monica pretended to hesitate.
“I don’t quite know. I can’t make up my mind.”
“Do say what he’s like. How old is he?”
“About the same age as I am.”
“That needn’t matter, really.”
“No. I know.”
“Is he tall?”
“Yes, very. Just over six foot,” said Monica triumphantly.
“My dear! Then he must be poor, or frightfully hideous or something.”
“He’s quite fairly well off, I believe. He’s in the City. And he’s very good-looking.”
“Monica! Has he asked you yet?”
Monica shook her head.
“Not exactly.”
She saw immediately from Frederica’s expression that the admission discredited everything that had gone before.
“One can always tell,” she said proudly. “And I don’t at all want him to say anything, till I’m sure.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 356