The concierge, however, looked through him as usual.
Denis went up to his room on the third floor, taking the lift. He seldom exerted himself to climb the stairs, for the heat, although he pretended to enjoy it, very often tired him out.
The moment that he opened the door he saw the small white oblong shape of a closed envelope lying on the table. He snatched it up, instantly forgetting the mortification of the afternoon. The handwriting was small and very legible. Trembling with excitement, he took out the letter. It consisted only of a few lines on a half-sheet of notepaper.
“Denis dear,
I shall walk down towards the Hôtel d’Azur after dinner to-night. Will you meet me at the little wayside café on the sea side of the road, as near nine o’clock as you can. I’ll wait there till ten.
Love,
Chrissie.”
Immediately Denis’s spirits soared wildly. He could hardly believe in his own incredible good fortune. She wanted to see him again, perhaps as much as he wanted to see her!
He read the note over and over again, especially the last words: “Love, Chrissie.”
He wished that he could have sent an answer, for the sake of writing “Love, Denis” at the end of it. But he knew that he would never dare suggest to the haughty and alarming concierge that any note of his should be taken by hand to the Villa Mimosa. Besides, he was going to see her in less than five hours’ time. They would be together again.
Like most romantics, Denis was stimulated by happiness to the highest pitch of which his faculties were capable. He accomplished such work as he had to do for Mr. Bolham quickly and easily, and felt a glow of joy in his own efficiency.
Dinner was less of a strain than usual. Mr. Muller had been invited by Mr. Bolham to dine at their table, and in a slow meditative way he talked of international finance. Denis, looking from one to the other of the two elder men with what he felt to be an expression of attentive and critical understanding, said little.
He had once, in very early days, given Mr. Bolham his views about the Five-Year Plan in Russia — which were to the effect that even the Russians themselves didn’t really believe in it, that such an experiment would never be tolerated in England, that the misery of the peasants was far greater now than it had been in the old days of the Czar, and that a pair of boots, in Leningrad, cost several hundreds of roubles. A man whom Denis knew well had a friend who had done a six weeks’ tour in Russia and seen everything.
The dead silence — followed by a polite request for the mustard — with which this had been received had effectually discouraged Denis from any further contributions to the elucidation of world-problems.
To-night, he cared not at all that nobody invited his views. He had views, derived mainly from an extremely conservative daily paper and from a smattering of such conversations as he heard in third-class railway carriages or at suburban tea-tables. But public questions did not, in reality, exist for Denis at all. He held his little conventional theories only because he found them useful conversationally. Such calamities as threats of war, increasing unemployment, and mounting taxation, only became important to him when their results made themselves felt in the private concerns of Denis Hannaford Waller.
Nevertheless he listened to Mr. Muller, almost unconsciously memorising phrases from the expert, here and there. Eventually he would make use of these, as if they were his own, amongst people who would probably be impressed by them.
It was nearly half-past eight before they left the dining-room, and Muller suggested that they should join the Morgans for coffee.
Denis asked that he might be excused. It would be much more difficult to get away without explanations, if he was in a group of people. As for the coffee, he had already reflected that if he and Chrissie Challoner were to sit in a roadside restaurant together, they would have to order something to drink.
Mr. Bolham did not press his secretary to remain.
He said: “Good-night, Waller,” in tones plainly indicating that, so far as he was concerned, they need not meet one another again until the next morning.
Passing through the hall Denis met Patrick Romayne, and a faint tremor of discomfort went through him at the recollection of the afternoon’s failure. Patrick, however, smiled, as if wishing to conciliate him, and said shyly:
“Won’t you come up to the Villa Mimosa, Mr. Waller? We’re going to run up there in the car now. Mummie says Mrs. Wolverton-Gush told her to bring anyone she liked.”
“No, thanks, Patrick,” Denis answered gratefully, touched by the boy’s evident desire to appear friendly. “It’s awfully nice of you to ask me, but I think I won’t, to-night.”
“Won’t you? There’ll only be mother and me, then. I shall get her to let me drive.”
Denis remembered that he had seen Buckland with the Moons, just before dinner. Probably he was going out somewhere with them.
“I hope you’ll have a good evening,” he said, really meaning it.
“Thanks awfully, I expect so. Sorry you can’t come.”
The boy looked more nearly happy than he had looked for days. Denis felt glad, but forgot Patrick’s very existence at once, in his own overwhelming preoccupation.
Much too early, he set off down the road to keep his rendezvous. Already he could feel his heart beating almost to suffocation point with excitement.
But as he turned out of the Hotel grounds and into the highroad an unendurable suspense took possession of him. Chrissie couldn’t be all that he’d thought her at their first meeting. And even if by some miracle she was, it was impossible that she should go on wanting to be friends with him. Sooner or later she would find him out.
Denis, driven by perpetually unsatisfied vanity into the strangest struttings and posturings, was deficient not only in the normal amount of self-assurance, but also in fundamental self-respect. He believed, in his inmost heart, that no one knowing all about him, and the circumstances of his life, could continue to experience the slightest regard for him. Yet he longed to show himself as he really was, to one human being at least.
Only he couldn’t let it be Chrissie.
He wanted her friendship too much. She was the most wonderful person that he had ever met.
He trudged along the road, smooth after the untarred surface of the Hotel drive, keeping well to the side as cars flashed by in either direction, blinding him with huge, dazzling headlights.
Once or twice he passed a small shop, displaying piles of white or coloured espadrilles festooning an open doorway, and with a miscellany of rubber balls, picture-postcards, bathing-suits, and jars of sunburn-cream exposed in each tiny window. Large, oily men sat, panting and smoking, outside these establishments, and usually a collection of ragged children, and a verminous dog or two, played about shrilly in the dust.
Presently Denis crossed the road. He was now on the plage side.
Below the tangle of undergrowth, cactus-bushes, palm trees, and sandy slope, could be seen a white edge of sea-foam. Far along the coast, the lights of Cannes shone in clusters.
It was possible to forget the motor-cars, and the rich visitors, and the noise they made.
The raft, moored a hundred yards or so from the plage, with its slender flight of diving steps raised upwards like a two-dimensional tower, took on a quiet beauty as it lay deserted in the moonlight.
The café of which Denis was in search was the only one on that side of the road. The bar itself, in fact, with two rooms above it and another one behind, presumably constituting the dwelling of the proprietor and his family, stood on the far side. But opposite was a small arbour, very low and dark, open to the road, with a couple of trestle tables and two or three benches inside, and it was here that Denis thought Chrissie meant him to meet her.
He knew that it could not be nine o’clock yet, and began to wonder nervously whether, if he went in and sat down, he would be expected to order something to drink at once.
There was nobody to be seen in the arbour, but on the other si
de of the road, outside the bar, were a number of swarthy chattering men, drinking and playing cards, whilst others stood looking on. From inside the open doorway sounded the high voices and laughter of women, and presently an unseen mechanical instrument of an old-fashioned and noisy type blared forth, with jerky violence, a long out-of-date music-hall tune.
Denis walked irresolutely into the arbour, feeling sure that all the people on the far side of the road were looking at him and wondering what he wanted, and then decided to walk out again as though he had only looked inside from passing curiosity.
As he turned he saw Chrissie Challoner, slight and tiny in her white evening frock, coming towards him. Without any hesitation she gave him her hand, saying as she did so:
“Oh, Denis! I am glad!”
He had been afraid of feeling embarrassed with her, but she seemed so natural and at ease that he momentarily forgot his fears and clasped her hand warmly.
“Thank you for coming,” he murmured.
“Let’s go inside and sit down. Wasn’t this a good idea? I knew we should be quiet here and have it all to ourselves.”
“Have you been here before?” Denis asked, not because he wanted to know, but from an imperative need to avoid the significance of silence until the first turmoil of feeling at meeting her again should have subsided.
“Last year, once or twice. Gushie doesn’t know about it — she wasn’t with me then. I left her up at the Villa, with her horrible friend.”
“I know. Mrs. Romayne.”
The proprietor of the café, a big burly fellow with a short black moustache, came over to them, smiling.
“Bonsoir, m’sieu et dame. Vous désirez —— ?”
“What would you like?” Denis enquired of Chrissie.
He was surprised, almost shocked, when she asked for a small brandy. He wondered if she would expect him to have one too, and hesitated.
“Don’t feel obliged to have one too,” said Chrissie calmly. “I always do, but there’s no reason why you should. Have coffee if you’d rather.”
“I think perhaps I will.” He gave the order in halting French and added, gratuitously, a characteristic small falsity.
“As a matter of fact, I had a liqueur brandy after dinner, so I don’t think I’ll indulge in another one now.”
She made no reply, and they sat in silence until an elderly waiter shambled up and placed their drinks in front of them.
Then Denis said:
“I was dreadfully disappointed about this afternoon, Chrissie. I simply couldn’t help it. I’m not altogether master of my own time, you know.”
“I knew you couldn’t help it. You went to the Réserve, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Mr. Bolham seemed to want me to go.”
“Was it fun?”
“Beastly.”
She laughed a little.
“Poor Denis, what a shame!”
After a severe struggle with an overpowering feeling of shyness, Denis murmured, without looking at her: “You can’t think how glad I was when I found your note. It was such a wonderful surprise, when I got in.”
“I felt I had to see you somehow,” she replied, her voice as low as his own. “This was the best plan I could think of. Coming here, I mean.”
He made an inarticulate sound of assent.
He felt almost sick with excitement, suspense, and a growing terror lest the evening should be a failure after all. He was miserable, because so far they had not recaptured the spontaneous atmosphere of their first hour together in the dark garden of the Villa Mimosa.
He began to talk nervously and almost at random.
“Mr. Moon had a letter of introduction to you, hadn’t he? Does he know friends of yours?”
“Yes — people in Hampstead — they’re journalists — rather good.”
“I suppose you know all kinds of writing people?”
“Some.”
“Does Mr. Moon write too? I thought he looked as if he might,” said Denis seriously.
“I shouldn’t think so. If he does, I don’t suppose he gets published. He’s no good,” said Chrissie confidently.
“Mrs. Moon is pretty, isn’t she?”
“Very. Is she a friend of yours?”
“Oh no. I’ve hardly spoken to them. And I don’t make friends very easily, I’m afraid.”
Almost without knowing it, he had reverted to personal topics, timidly attempting to re-establish intimacy between them.
“I know you don’t,” Chrissie answered.
She finished her drink, and leant back against the wall behind her. He could distinguish the warmer tints of her bare neck and arms against her white dress, and the pale oval of her small face, and her dark, enormous eyes, looking straight up at him.
“I know quite a lot of things about you already,” she was saying softly. “But there are lots more that I want to hear about. D’you think you’ll be able to tell me, Denis?”
He thrilled at the new note in her voice, and at the sense that they were slipping back into the enchantment of the night before.
“I don’t know — I want to. But I’ve never talked to anybody before — not really.”
“Haven’t you ever been in love?”
The question startled him. He did not know how to answer it.
“I’ve had — infatuations,” he said at last.
“I suppose so. How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Haven’t you really ever been in love?”
His confusion increased. In order to gain time, he said: “It depends what you mean by being in love.”
He was hoping that she would give him a lead in her reply, so that he might return whatever kind of answer she wanted.
“Why are you so much afraid of committing yourself, Denis?” she said gently. “I don’t think anything you told me could make any difference. And I don’t want you to tell me anything at all, unless you’d like to yourself.”
“Do you really mean that, Chrissie?”
“Yes, really. Look — I’ll tell you about my life first. Shall I?”
“I wish you would,” Denis said eagerly.
He wanted very much to hear and he wanted, also, to postpone the moment when he must decide how far he could afford to be honest with Chrissie Challoner.
(2)
“I ran away from home when I was seventeen,” she began abruptly. “My mother was dead — she died before I can remember — and my father sent us both, my sister and myself, to a cheap school where we didn’t get enough to eat and had no education at all. Ida — my sister — ran away when she was eighteen, with a man she met staying with a school friend. She left him afterwards and went on the stage, but I don’t think she did very well. I see her sometimes — not often.
“Well, father was furious about Ida, and said I’d better come home and live with him, in Wincanton. He was a solicitor there. I tried it for three months and I knew I couldn’t stand it. I thought perhaps I could write — I’d always wanted to — and I asked father to make me an allowance and let me go to London. Of course he wouldn’t. But there was a girl who’d been at the school I’d been at — before my time, but she used to come down on visits sometimes, and we’d made friends. She was painting, on her own, in London. I wrote to her, and she told me to come. It was terribly generous of her, really, because she hadn’t any money either, and it meant letting me sleep on a sofa-bed in the studio and have meals with her and everything. It was supposed to be till I could find a job of sorts. She was an angel to me. I shall never forget it. And I hadn’t been there a month when father suddenly died.
“Denis, it was awful. Going home, and finding my aunts and uncles there, and all of them saying that I’d probably killed him, and how heartless it was of me not to mind more. But how could I mind? I’d always hated him, and so had Ida. Ida came for the funeral, and then we heard about the will. We’d always thought he was poor — he never spent anything, and grumbled frightfully about expense — but he wasn�
��t at all. And all his money came to me and Ida. He’d made a will, after my mother died, dividing everything between us.
“The relations were perfectly furious, of course, but they didn’t say so to us. On the contrary. They became pleasanter and more civil than they’d ever been in their lives before. It was enough to make one sick.
“We sold up everything, and divided the money, and I went back to Alison and the studio. The best part of it all, then, was being able to make things better for her. We moved to a flat in Fitzroy Square, and had a housekeeper to do the work, and went abroad for holidays. I wrote my first novel then. Things were nearly perfect, for about two years. I thought Alison, and friendship, was all I wanted out of life — and my writing. Naturally, I thought about being in love, but it was in a babyish, romantic, idealistic kind of way. I think I was very young even for nineteen.”
She stopped.
“Am I making you feel it at all? Can you see the kind of child I was then — a mixture of precocious imagination and complete unawakenedness? I knew all about love with my mind, of course — one couldn’t live in that set and not know everything there was to know — but nothing at all with my body. And I wasn’t specially curious, either. I wanted to get sex-experience some time or other — but I think it was really mostly because I thought it would be good for my work.
“I needn’t tell you that when I did fall in love, I had it terribly badly. He was a Russian, a friend of Alison’s. Not her lover. Though I don’t suppose it would have made any difference if he had been.”
Denis made a sudden movement beside her.
“Do you mind this?” she asked gently. “I won’t go on if you do. But I’d much rather you knew about me.”
“Yes. Tell me, please.”
“I gave him everything he wanted, of course — almost immediately. He was perfectly marvellous — the most wonderful lover an inexperienced girl ever had, I should think. He taught me everything. In the end, he left me. Looking back, I know I ought to have expected it. How could a child of nineteen possibly hope to keep him? I suppose everyone has to go through hell sooner or later. That was mine. Whatever happens, nothing will ever hurt like that again.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 391