“He didn’t want to marry you?” said Denis, very low.
“Oh no. I’ve never—” she hesitated, wondering how to express herself so as not to shock him too greatly. “I don’t belong to the sort of world where people marry one another just because they’ve fallen in love. If I’d stayed at home, in Wincanton, of course — but then I shouldn’t have met anyone like Ivan in Wincanton. Marriage didn’t enter into it at all.
“Of course I thought I shouldn’t ever care for anyone again — and in a way that was true. Nobody else will ever have what Ivan had from me, and nobody else has ever wanted it. He knew a part of me that died after he went away.”
“Do you still care for him?”
She shook her head.
“Not really. It’s there, in a way — part of myself. These things don’t finish, do they? — one somehow assimilates them. It’s all in my writing, I suppose — what I got from Ivan, and what I gave him. But actually, I could meet him now without a tremor. He’s probably grown fat by this time. I haven’t seen him for years. He’s a different person now and so am I. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I think I do. I can understand,” said Denis solemnly, “that an — an emotional experience of that kind might very well make a woman turn bitter and cynical.”
Startled, Chrissie nearly burst out laughing.
“My dear! You are sweet. I’m not like that a bit — not like a woman in a book. I’m still completely taken in, every time. I fall in love, and am quite ready to believe that it’s the real thing at last.”
“Then you’re not in earnest?”
“Yes I am. Only I’m honest — so far as one can be. I do try to see myself as I am — very susceptible and rather fickle and — I’m afraid — terribly affectionate.”
“I’m sure you’re affectionate. And warmhearted, and generous.”
The solemnity was still in his voice, tempered by relief, and Chrissie guessed that he had been deeply disturbed by the revelation of an outlook so widely divergent from any he had met before, and that he was fumbling mentally, on her behalf, amongst qualities that he could view as redeeming ones.
“It isn’t really dreadful, you know,” she said softly. “I’ve had lovers — but it’s been because I’ve cared for them. There have only been two men, besides Ivan, and I was in love with each of them. It didn’t hurt anybody, that we should be happy for a little while. And of course it’s been terribly good for my writing. I sometimes wonder if one’s really being driven all the time, without knowing it, by something that wants whatever is best for one’s work.”
“That can’t be right,” said Denis, with a positiveness that astonished her, accustomed as she was to a circle in which almost everything was experimental, every opinion held tentatively, swinging upon the pivot of individual point-of-view.
“Chrissie, don’t you believe in right and wrong?”
“Do you mean in some arbitrary overhead ruling? How can one? The moral standard changes with each generation in turn, surely?”
“Not really. People like to think so because it gives them an excuse,” said Denis confusedly. “But there’s such a thing as — as religion, isn’t there?”
“Oh! But I’m not religious. Are you?”
“I don’t necessarily go to church, or feel obliged to — to accept everything, but I do believe in — in the teaching of Christ, and try to follow it out.”
Chrissie felt more discouraged at this than at anything that had yet passed between them.
She was, as she had truly said, susceptible, and something in Denis had appealed to her at first sight. The surface cleverness of the semi-intellectuals amongst whom she had spent the past ten years of her life had begun to weary her, and she was tired of the artificial emphasis laid by them on the physical values of love. Her approach to Denis had been spontaneous and sincere. She felt in him a certain tenuous charm, a pathetic weakness and loneliness that roused a protective affection in herself. She wanted to make him fall in love with her, and to fall in love with him in return. Chrissie was both too widely experienced in men and too intelligent to expect from Denis any real understanding. Her confidences — which indeed were no confidences at all, since she disliked, and seldom practised, any form of reserve towards anyone — had been made almost experimentally, in order to test his reactions to them and to evoke his own confidences in return.
His mention of religion — by which he evidently meant a series of dogmatic assertions put before him in childhood, uncritically accepted and adhered to by him ever since — gave Chrissie the measure of the distance that mentally separated them.
For an instant she felt: It’s no use going on with this.
Then Denis spoke, haltingly and yet with eagerness.
“Chrissie — I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you should have talked to me like this. I think it’s wonderful of you. It’s the greatest honour I’ve ever received. Don’t think me a prig for saying what I did just now.”
The anxiety in his voice touched her.
“I rather like you for being a prig,” she murmured.
At the moment, it was true.
(3)
“I think,” Denis said wistfully and earnestly, “that perhaps I can help you.”
He had said, and felt, the same thing before in regard to other girls. Sometimes he worded it slightly otherwise: I think I may have been sent to help you.
Always they had agreed with him. But none of them had been like Chrissie, older, cleverer, and far more sophisticated than himself. Much of Chrissie’s charm for Denis sprang from his profound and uncomprehending admiration for her creative gift. For the rest, he had been deeply moved and flattered by her advances, and quick to reflect her conviction of a mutual attraction between them. Now, he was most desperately anxious that she should not find him disappointing or inadequate.
“You said yesterday that you’d been lonely — too. Could I make that any better, do you think? I’d like to, more than anything in the world, if it were possible.”
“I think you could, Denis.”
“It seems so incredible that you should want me for a friend. After all, you’re clever — much cleverer than I am — and you know a great many people. You must have a lot of friends already.”
“I’ve never found the friend I’ve always wanted,” said Chrissie.
He could see her big, mournful eyes fixed upon him, and delicious tremors invaded him.
He wanted to take her hand, but dared not. A shuffling step sounded beside them, and the waiter appeared.
“Consommations, m’sieu et dame ...?”
Denis began to fumble in the breast-pocket of his dinner jacket, but with a quick gesture Chrissie handed him a little silver-coloured bag.
“There’s some money in there ... take it, please.”
“But mayn’t I —— ?”
“Really,” she said, speaking decisively.
Denis paid their modest bill.
He saw that there were three or four hundred-franc notes in the bag besides a number of small coins and some five-franc notes, and he remembered that Chrissie Challoner was probably, by comparison with himself, rich.
Without further protest he closed the bag and returned it to her. Their fingers touched. Denis closed his hand over hers. It was a very soft, small hand, and gave him an unwonted sensation of being himself strong and masculine — a potential protector.
“Tell me about you, Denis.”
“It’s not interesting, Chrissie dear. I’m a terribly ordinary sort of person, I’m afraid.”
Her fingers squeezed his lightly and withdrew themselves, and even before she spoke he knew that he had struck a false note.
“We won’t pretend with one another, will we? If you don’t want to tell me anything, I’d rather you said so.”
“Chrissie, it’s not ... it isn’t that.... I’d tell you anything in the world — —”
“You see,” she said in a reasonable voice, “I believe I should un
derstand anything about you. Just because you’re you, and I’m I. Do you feel that too, a little bit?”
“Yes.”
“I know it’s difficult for you, because you’ve never talked to anybody much. But wouldn’t it be a relief if you did?”
“Yes,” he said, thinking how little she knew the strength of the inhibitions that precluded him, he supposed for ever, from that relief. “I know already that when you were a little boy you had no mother — like me — and your stepmother wasn’t kind, and you were miserable, and had no one. And you weren’t happy at school. What happened after that?”
“I had to earn my own living. I’d never expected to have to, of course,” said Denis hastily. “My father came of a very old family and he ought to have inherited a big estate, as a matter of fact. He was really treated very unjustly by an old cousin from whom he was led to expect a lot of money.”
Denis had both heard and repeated this not very original legend so often that he had quite come to believe in it himself.
“If my father had had enough money he would have gone to law about the will, and everyone said he’d have won his case, but he couldn’t afford it. So he simply went on in harness until he died, five years ago. He worked in — in a Bank.”
“Did you live at home?”
“No. There was a second family and not really room for me, and anyway my stepmother didn’t want me.”
“Poor Denis. What did you do?”
“I learnt shorthand-typing, and took a job with an Insurance Company in the City. Oh, Chrissie, I hated it so! The people I had to associate with were common, and I was in horrible lodgings and it was all so beastly.”
Denis shuddered — without affectation, for it was true that he had suffered. He was not capable of dominating his surroundings.
“I couldn’t stay on. It was mad to throw up a perfectly sound job, and I knew it — but I couldn’t have gone on living like that. I thought I’d rather starve. I didn’t know how near I was to come to it. There have been times, Chrissie, when I quite literally haven’t known how I was going to get my next meal.”
Denis paused, but she made no sign. He had failed to realise that complete penury, and approximate starvation, were far less uncommon occurrences in her world than in his.
“I tried being a travelling salesman — and once I did stop-gap at a boys’ school — I rather liked that — and I’ve even had odd jobs in a newspaper office. And then I suddenly got what I’d always wanted — a post as private secretary.”
“How did you get it?”
“Partly through answering an advertisement,” Denis said evasively. “And a friend of mine gave me a letter that helped. I held the job nearly two years, and I think I should be in it still, but the man I was working for went to South America.” He paused, and then added quickly: “He had to take someone with him who could speak Spanish.”
“Denis, where were you living all that time? With the man you were working for?”
Denis hesitated again.
“What makes you ask? No — as a matter of fact, I wasn’t. I lived in a — a small private hotel in the North of London. It was much better for me to have a complete change of atmosphere when my work was over.”
“What happened next?”
“I took various secretarial posts — mostly temporary ones — but I wasn’t very lucky. Twice I had to give up through illness. Last winter I had pneumonia and nearly died. That was really one reason why I accepted this post with Mr. Bolham, because I felt that a climate like this was exactly what I needed — real sun, and warmth.”
“It was a piece of good luck getting it,” said Chrissie.
“Oh yes, I know that,” Denis agreed hastily — though there had been many times in the course of the past fortnight when he had viewed his association with the distinguished Mr. Bolham as being anything rather than a piece of good luck.
“Do you know,” said Chrissie gently, “that you’ve only told me facts? Nothing whatever about your own inner life, or the people who’ve mattered to you — the women you’ve fallen in love with — —”
“I haven’t had much time for falling in love, have I? And besides, what would be the use?”
“Does one usually wait to have time, or for it to be of any use?”
They both laughed a little.
“I’ll tell you — other things — some day, if you’d like me to, Chrissie. If I don’t talk about other people much, it’s partly because I owe a certain loyalty — I can’t explain exactly — There are many things I might like to tell you about, but in loyalty to other people — I can’t.”
Denis had made use of this formula before, and it had always been received without question. He felt the palms of his hands grow wet before Chrissie answered. Even when at last she did so, he was unable to feel certain that she had wholly accepted his suggestion of mysterious, unspecified obligations.
“You shan’t tell me anything you’d rather not, Denis, and I won’t ask. Only you’ll be honest with me, won’t you?”
“Always, Chrissie. Will you promise me the same thing?”
“Yes, I will. It’s a bargain. And you know — you really needn’t be afraid of telling me the truth about yourself. It couldn’t make any difference.”
“I think you’re wonderful,” said Denis.
He did indeed think that she was wonderful. But he knew that he could never be open with her, never willingly let her know the whole truth about himself, or those circumstances of his life that he viewed as derogatory to himself.
Together with Denis’s increasing infatuation, a growing fear took possession of him, lest Chrissie’s natural powers of penetration should sooner or later lead her to conclusions that were only too likely to be accurate ones.
The unquestioning bliss of the day before had vanished: bliss was still there, but it was shot with anxiety.
(4)
It was eleven o’clock when Chrissie rose, saying that she must go back to the Villa.
“Will they wonder where you’ve been?” asked Denis, rather fearfully.
“Oh, sure to. Gushie’s easily the most inquisitive person on earth, I should think.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
“That I went out for a walk and met you,” said Chrissie promptly. “They’re bound to know about us in a day or two, anyway, if we’re to see anything of one another at all. And I’m not in the least ashamed of being friends with you, Denis.”
He did not quite know what to answer, and walked beside her in silence.
“When shall I see you again?” he asked at last, humbly. “To-morrow?”
“Gushie and I are coming down to the rocks to bathe, with the Romaynes. About four o’clock. Could you manage that?”
“I’m not sure. I will if I possibly can.”
“If you’re not there, I shall come on to the Hotel. You’d better introduce your Mr. Bolham to me — it’ll make things easier. For us to meet often, I mean.”
“I can’t imagine why you should care about me in the very least!” Denis exclaimed impulsively.
They had reached the gate of the Villa Mimosa, and stood facing one another in the moonlight.
“I don’t quite know myself,” Chrissie disconcertingly replied. “But — somehow I can’t help it.”
The sudden tenderness in her voice moved Denis almost to ecstasy.
“Oh, Chrissie!” he stammered, gazing helplessly down at her uplifted face.
“Good-night, dear,” said Chrissie.
“Must you go in at once?”
“Yes, I must.”
Raising herself on tiptoe, she put her arm round his neck, and kissed him on the cheek.
“That’s just to show you,” she murmured, and ran quickly through the little open gate and down the pathway.
Denis, dazed and incredulous, remained in the road staring after her.
CHAPTER VII
(1)
In Cannes, Hilary Moon became the owner of a motor-boat. He and A
ngie walked along the principal streets slowly, staring into the shop-windows, but looking, also, at the people they met.
“Bloody lot they are,” said Hilary.
“Yeah,” said Angie.
Men in bérets, sitting outside cafés, stared at her, and she stared indifferently back at them. Her beautiful eyes only lighted up occasionally, when she passed some sleek-haired youth reclining at the wheel of a large motor-car, and met his gaze fixed full upon her. Then the swaying motion of her hips would become very slightly accentuated, her eyelids droop a little, and her mouth appear to take on fuller curves. If she had been alone, she would have been followed and accosted.
“It’s too hot to go on walking,” she said suddenly. “Besides, I’m going to try on hats. This is a good shop.”
“Meet you at the English tea-rooms at five o’clock,” said Hilary.
She nodded indifferently.
Hilary walked on, wishing that the back of his neck didn’t hurt so confoundedly where it had been caught by the sun.
“Hallo!”
“Hallo!”
Hilary and his acquaintance looked at one another without great enthusiasm.
Where on earth, thought Hilary, had they met before? Some hotel, somewhere abroad. He could remember the face — fat and rather sinister, with a tiny smudge of moustache, — and the flat, uninflected voice. But not the name.
“You alone?”
“Practically,” said Hilary languidly. He felt no need to explain about Angie.
“What about a drink?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“There’s a place quite near.”
They went and drank.
Hilary explained that he wanted a car. He was not surprised when his companion, in his turn, explained that he had, as it happened, got a car to sell. Hilary himself had always got a car to sell the moment that he heard of anyone who wanted to buy one. So had everyone else, in his experience. That was part of the way in which one lived.
An appointment was made for the next morning — it appeared that the car was just being thoroughly overhauled at the garage, otherwise Hilary could have had a trial trip in her then and there — at the Hôtel d’Azur.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 392