“But, Monica,” cried Cecily, “surely you wouldn’t hesitate for a minute? There are so awfully few men to go round, any husband would be better than none — and he sounds so splendid.” And she added piteously: “We can’t all three be failures.”
“Don’t,” said Frederica, frowning. “You talk as if marriage was the only thing that can make women happy. But there are lots of unhappy married women.”
“They aren’t unhappy in the same way. And people don’t despise them, anyway,” said Cecily simply.
The three looked at one another.
“If even one of us could get a husband, it wouldn’t be so bad,” said Cecily suddenly. “I mean, Fricky and I. You’ll get married, I expect, Monica, one of these days.”
“I don’t want a husband. I hate men,” Frederica observed sullenly.
Neither of the other two made any pretence at believing her.
“Why can’t one have a career, or even work, like a man?” Monica asked helplessly. “I know everybody would say that it was because we hadn’t been able to get married — but they’ll say that anyway.”
“There isn’t any work for girls of our kind,” Frederica asserted. “Not any that we should be allowed to do. The only way is to become religious, and go and do some kind of good works, with a whole crowd of old maids and people who don’t belong to one’s own class.”
“There are causes and things,” said Cecily timidly.
Frederica laughed disagreeably.
“Yes, the militant suffragettes, I suppose you’re thinking of. Women who bite policemen, and kick and fight in the streets.”
“Besides,” said Monica, “it’s such nonsense about the vote. What does it matter whether women have it or not? They don’t really care themselves, I don’t suppose. It’s just hysteria, and wanting to be conspicuous, that makes them go on like that.”
She was repeating in all good faith, without either reflection or knowledge behind it, exactly what she had heard said by Vernon and Imogen Ingram, and the majority of their contemporaries. Frederica, who could not bear to admit that anything from which she was herself debarred had value, supported her vehemently.
Cecily said nothing. Of the three, she was the most nearly capable of thinking for herself independently and without personal bias, and only her secret terror of Frederica’s overbearing protectiveness, that would gladly have pinned her down into an eternal babyhood, kept her silent.
“It would be different, I suppose, if one had some special talent. Being able to write or draw or something like that. Plenty of girls go to the Slade School of Art.”
“Their people don’t like it though, as a rule,” said Frederica. “They always hope the girl’ll marry in the end — and of course she usually does. I wouldn’t mind, if only there was something to do.”
“Wouldn’t Lady Marlowe let you do anything?”
“I dare say she might, but what is there?” asked Frederica helplessly. “There isn’t anything I could do.”
It was, as Monica knew, perfectly true. There was nothing whatever that she, or Frederica, or Cecily, could do with any particular efficiency.
They had been brought up with no end in view except that of marriage: and they had not married.
There was a certain relief, Monica felt, in talking more frankly than they had done yet — for she knew instinctively that neither Cecily nor Frederica had entirely accepted the view presented to them of Carol Anderson as a potential husband for herself.
They parted with a promise to meet again in a few days.
On the following afternoon Frederica telephoned to Monica.
Her voice sounded sharp and frightened.
“Mamma is much worse, Monica. Will you ask your mother who is a good doctor? Ours is out of London, and I think someone ought to see her at once.”
“Oh Fricky — I’m so sorry. What is it? Influenza? Yes, of course, I’ll give you our own doctor’s telephone number at once. Is there anything we can do?”
Monica searched through the little morocco book that held the exchange numbers most often in use, and found what she wanted.
“Thank you,” said Frederica’s breathless voice.
“Can I do anything, Fricky?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps — perhaps you could come and take Cecily away if mamma isn’t better to-morrow. You know how delicate she is, and I’m so afraid of her catching anything.”
Monica felt a spasm of impatience. Frederica’s obsession was as strong as ever, and every year made it more ridiculous.
“But Fricky — —” However, what was the use of saying anything? She turned it into: “Do you know what the matter is with Lady Marlowe? Is it influenza? Has she got a temperature?”
“She’s a hundred and one, Rouse says. Rouse thinks it’s influenza. Good-bye, Monica. I’ll ring up again this evening.”
“Good-bye,” repeated Monica.
It was evident that Rouse, Lady Marlowe’s elderly maid, was in charge of the invalid. Monica admitted to herself that it was impossible to imagine being nursed by either Frederica or Cecily.
At seven o’clock the telephone-bell rang again.
“This is Frederica speaking. Your doctor sent his partner —— he says mamma has a sharp attack of influenza, and he’s sending in a hospital nurse to-night.”
“I’m so sorry. Is she very bad?”
Monica, like Frederica, was completely ignorant of most of the laws governing health and sickness.
“Dr. Corderey says we’re not to worry. He’s coming again to-morrow morning of course.”
“I wish you could have had our old Dr. Bruce. He’s so nice.”
“This one’s nice, too. He’s quite young, but I should think he’s a very good doctor. Mamma liked him.”
“Are you looking after her, Fricky?”
“Part of the time, with Rouse — till the nurse comes.”
“Don’t catch influenza. May I come round to-morrow morning?”
“Yes, please do.”
“Mother sent you her love, and was so sorry to hear about your mother, and you’re to be sure and let me know if there’s anything we can do to help.”
“Thanks so much, Monica. Please thank your mother from me. I must go now. Good-bye.”
Frederica’s voice had sounded slightly important, as though she felt herself to be busy, and in request. Monica thought that she could understand it, if the feeling brought relief, and a certain measure of pleasant excitement. She wondered whether Cecily was permitted to have any share in it.
The next day she walked round to Belgrave Square, with her mother, to make enquiries and to leave a sheaf of roses.
They found Cecily in the big drawing-room, looking wan and exhausted, almost as though she might be ill herself.
“Mamma is rather better, thank you,” she said politely, after thanking Mrs. Ingram for the roses. “Her temperature was down this morning and she had quite a comfortable night. The doctor is with her now.”
“Where is Frederica? She’s not caught influenza, I hope?” enquired Mrs. Ingram.
Cecily’s pale face grew scarlet. She had a child’s tendency towards violent changes of colour.
“She’s with the doctor, upstairs in mamma’s room. She’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Monica guessed that Frederica had succeeded in obtaining from her mother or the doctor a prohibition to Cecily against entering the sick-room, and that Cecily deeply and passionately resented it, but had not the courage either to disobey or to complain to anyone else of Frederica’s tyranny.
“You don’t look very well yourself, dear,” said Mrs. Ingram good-naturedly. “Why not come round to us for a day or two, till mamma is better again? We should be delighted to have you.”
Cecily flushed again, and hesitated.
“Thank you very much,” she said at last. “It’s very kind of you. But I’m not sure if I ought to. You see, influenza is very catching, isn’t it, and supposing Fricky gets it from mamma. …”
/> Good heavens, thought Monica impatiently, what a vicious circle it was! Had Cecily begun to develop her sister’s insane obsession of anxiety?
She glanced at her mother. She knew, without thinking about it, that Mrs. Ingram would not take Cecily’s protest at all seriously, partly because, in a quite kind and impersonal way, she despised Cecily completely, and partly because it was perfectly well known, to all three of them, that the real decision would not lie in Cecily’s hands at all.
“Perhaps we’d better see what your mother thinks — —”
Mrs. Ingram was beginning, when Frederica came into the room with Dr. Corderey.
At the sight of the visitors she looked disconcerted, as she always did when taken unawares, and began a nervous and incoherent attempt at introduction.
“Dr. Corderey and I have met before,” said Mrs. Ingram briskly. “Monica, this is Dr. Bruce’s partner, Dr. Corderey. I hope your patient is better?”
“Yes, on the whole, thank you. But influenza is a treacherous thing, and Lady Marlowe has had a very sharp turn. She’ll have to be very careful for a few days.”
“So many people try and get up too soon, after influenza, I always think,” said Mrs. Ingram.
They were all standing, and there was a certain constraint in the atmosphere.
Mrs. Ingram, whose social code was entirely inelastic, had a special manner for members of the professional classes, some degrees less cordial than that reserved by her for the working classes proper.
She had known the elderly Dr. Bruce for many years, and with him was often quite natural and friendly, although it would not have seemed to her possible to invite him to dine at her house — but Dr. Corderey was much younger than Dr. Bruce — probably not yet forty — she had only met him once before, and it was impossible to be certain that he might not “take advantage” of the opportunity.
Thus Monica, guided by intimate and prolonged experience of her mother’s mental processes, interpreted Mrs. Ingram’s politely patronizing tones, and evident determination to remain standing and thereby oblige Dr. Corderey to do the same.
Monica looked at him.
He was a dark, square, youngish-looking man, short and stocky, with a serious, clean-shaven face, and a pair of very intelligent, brilliant dark eyes.
He had given Monica a very comprehensive look on being introduced, and now he was turning exactly the same attentive, alert gaze on Cecily Marlowe, without speaking.
“I’ve been suggesting that Cecily should pay us a visit for a few days, Frederica, if she’s to be kept away from your mother’s room. It will be less lonely for her,” said Mrs. Ingram.
“Oh, thank you. I think that’s a very good idea,” Frederica said eagerly.
Monica looked at her rather indignantly. Really, Cecily was a little fool to stand this sort of thing from a sister barely three years her senior. Why didn’t she answer for herself?
Surprisingly, Cecily did so.
“It’s very kind of Mrs. Ingram, but I’d rather not go just now,” she said in a voice that betrayed her labouring breath. “I think that while mamma is ill, I ought to be here just as much as Frederica.”
In an instant, the atmosphere had become tense. The point at issue might be trivial: the morbid emotional values surrounding it were exaggerated out of all proportion.
Even Mrs. Ingram seemed momentarily perplexed.
“But my dear child — —” she began, and stopped.
“Cecily!” said Frederica. Her look at her sister was one of mingled command, entreaty, and bitter reproachfulness.
Cecily had turned white. The familiar dents came and went, at the corners of her nostrils.
The masculine voice of the strange doctor cut across the secret, subtle entanglements of the moment.
“For the present,” he said briskly, “I don’t want anybody from this house to go and stay anywhere else. There’s always a faint risk of carrying the germ to another household, and that would be a pity.”
“But my sister hasn’t been near infection,” said Frederica quickly.
“You can’t tell that,” he returned. “In any case, it’s wiser to take no chances.”
Turning to Cecily he smiled for the first time, showing beautiful teeth.
“As your medical man, I desire you to remain where you are for the present,” he said decisively.
“Yes, thank you,” faltered Cecily absurdly.
She was grasping the back of a chair, and her eyes looked scared and enormous in her white face.
Mrs. Ingram was not pleased. Her raised eyebrows and closely compressed lips told Monica so plainly.
“We can talk about it another time,” she said, with an assumed lightness that was not intended to deceive anybody. “I dare say mamma will be packing you both back to the country again in a few days, if there’s much of this influenza about.”
“There is,” said the doctor. “A great deal of it. Now I’ll just write out that prescription, if I may.”
He moved without embarrassment across to the writing table, and sat down.
“Have you got a good nurse?” Mrs. Ingram made conversation to Frederica.
“Yes, very, I think.”
“They can be thoroughly tiresome, and give a lot of trouble.”
“This one seems quite nice.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. If she gets on with the servants all right it’ll be a great mercy. They don’t as a rule. But I suppose Rouse can manage that all right.”
It was evident that Mrs. Ingram did not think that Frederica could manage that, or anything else.
Nor did she.
Going home with Monica, a few minutes later, she impatiently said as much.
“Really, those two girls aren’t normal. I sometimes think they’re neither of them quite all there. The simplest thing upsets them — and nobody knows why. I don’t suppose they know themselves.”
“They’ve always been like that,” said Monica helplessly.
“No, they haven’t,” her mother contradicted her sharply. “Morbid and silly, I agree, they’ve always been — more or less — but not to this extent. If they’d married, either or both of them, they’d probably be all right. It’s having nothing to do, and nothing to think about, except themselves and their own feelings, that makes them react on one another to such an extent. Cecily looks to me as if she might go off her head at any minute.”
“Mother, you don’t mean really?”
“Well — not literally, I suppose,” said Mrs. Ingram rather doubtfully. “No, of course not. But women who want to get married, and can’t, often turn very queer as they grow older.”
Monica felt little beads of cold sweat pricking at the roots of her hair.
“Frederica says she doesn’t like men.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Ingram replied impatiently. “They always say that. She’d sing a very different tune if any man ever looked her way.”
Monica knew how true it was.
“It seems a pity they can’t do something — take up a hobby, or anything.”
“Neither of them is much good at anything, I shouldn’t think,” said Mrs. Ingram mercilessly. “Besides, darling, when all’s said and done, there’s only one job for any woman, whether she’s stupid or clever, and that is to be a good wife to some man and the mother of his children.”
“And there aren’t enough men to go round!” exclaimed Monica bitterly.
“Don’t — —” broke involuntarily from her mother.
They went into the house, avoiding one another’s eyes. It was very seldom indeed that they came as near as they had come then to a direct mention of the subject that was always present in the minds of both.
That afternoon, Carol Anderson called to see Monica. With an air of charming concern he told her that she looked tired.
“You aren’t going to be ill, are you? There’s such a lot of influenza about.”
“I know. We went to ask after Lady Marlowe this morning. But I don’t see why I sho
uld get it at all. I haven’t been anywhere near it.”
“I don’t know what I should do,” said Carol Anderson very seriously, “if anything was the matter with you, and I couldn’t see you. It makes such a tremendous difference to me, having you to talk to. Writing could never be the same thing.”
“I like to think I’m a help to you,” said Monica, quite truly.
“If ever you disappointed me in any way, Monica, you’d be doing something worse than you probably have any idea of. I take things much, much more seriously than the average man does. I think you know that. Very probably I shouldn’t reproach you at all. I might say nothing to you whatever. But the effect would be there — beyond your control or mine.”
For the first time, she felt a little impatient with Carol’s solemnities.
“I hope neither of us will disappoint the other,” she returned tritely.
No one could be quicker than Carol Anderson to detect the finest shade of difference in a meaning, in an intonation even. He looked at her quickly.
“Do you say that because you are disappointed in me? If so, I’d much rather you told me so. Don’t be afraid of hurting me. I can stand being hurt. I’ve borne a great deal already — and without letting anyone know it — and I can bear more, if necessary.”
He squared his shoulders in his favourite gesture.
“But it isn’t necessary, Carol. Truly. Don’t be silly,” said Monica rather timidly. “Of course I’m not disappointed in you.”
It did not even occur to her for a moment that she was, actually, speaking an untruth. Her only preoccupation was the ingrained one: not to run any risk of losing her hold, however tenuous, on the interest of an unmarried male.
“I’m glad,” said Carol, apparently accepting her reassurance. And he added, smiling a little:
“I didn’t exactly see how you could be disappointed in me, I must say, because I’ve never given my confidence to anybody as I have to you.”
He continued to give her his confidence.
Monica’s frail self-respect continued to derive sustenance from his continual demands upon her. She wanted the Marlowes to see Carol, with his evident liking for her, and dependence on her, but it was not easy to arrange.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 357