“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Humphrey quite as bad as this before. Of course, it doesn’t mean anything — he’s devoted to me, in his own way — but you know what men are like, my dear.”
Miss Glanfield, at any rate, knew what Sara Montague was like. The knowledge seemed to hold her silent.
But that night, she remonstrated with Sara. “Really, you know, it’s too bad of you. She must be at least ten years older than you are.”
“Don’t you think wore?” Sara said earnestly. “No, I don’t think more. But anyway, it’s upsetting her. You can see it is.”
“Well,” Sara said thoughtfully, “Humphrey has certainly got it very badly. You know he wants to follow us to Siam, when we go?”
“How can he?”
“I suppose he’d say he had business there. Men can always do that. But I’m not sure if I ought to let him.”
“It’s all very well for you, Sara — you’re free. At least,” added Miss Glanfield, who had Anglo-Catholic tendencies, “at least, you consider yourself free. But he isn’t.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t like to marry Humphrey,” said Mrs. Montague, slightingly.
It was impossible to argue with her.
The following morning, Humphrey said that she ought to see something of the country, and took her out in the car.
At five o’clock, they telephoned to say that the car had broken down, and that dinner must not be kept waiting for them.
Miss Glanfield and Mrs. Hamilton spent a day of strain. They talked about the East, and about England, and about natives, and rubber, and servants, and Mrs. Hamilton told her guest the whole life history of various people unknown, and they compared notes about sick nurses they had had, and operations, and even books that they had read. But they never mentioned Sara Montague.
Just before ten o’clock, they heard the car drive up.
Miss Glanfield, in a spasm of cowardice, remained inside the drawing-room, whilst her hostess went out on the verandah.
“Hullo, little woman!” There was a sort of fausse bonhomie in the voice of Mr. Hamilton that was really rather dreadful to hear.
“I just want to have a look at one of the ponies — the syce is afraid he’s got colic. Don’t wait up — I expect Sara’s tired to death.”
Sara!
She heard him go out again, and drive off to the stables.
In the verandah, a most peculiar silence prevailed.
It went on prevailing, until Miss Glanfield’s imagination became altogether too much for her, and she began to wonder if she could possibly have missed the sound of a revolver shot.
Just then, she heard Sara Montague’s light, high voice.
“Look here, hadn’t we better have this out? I can see you’re upset.”
Miss Glanfield gripped the arms of her bamboo chair in order to prevent herself from absolutely screaming aloud with horror and excitement.
“Do you mind your husband going on like this? If so, it’s up to you to say so.”
Mrs. Hamilton replied, and her tones sounded pinched and acid.
“Don’t apologize. I’ve got used to it in fifteen years. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, by a very long way — and it won’t be the last. Humphrey doesn’t drink, and he isn’t mean, and he gets on with everybody — but he’s got that one weakness. I must just put up with it.”
“We can leave to-morrow morning if you like,” Mrs. Montague said, with what Miss Glanfield could not help feeling to be a total disregard of the possible wishes of her travelling companion.
“I suppose he’d only go after you,” said Mrs. Hamilton.
“Couldn’t you prevent that? Or would you like me to tell him that it’s simply no use?”
Surely, thought Miss Glanfield, this was a most singular conversation. In any case, she had no business to be listening to it. With a really heroic effort, she joined the other two women on the verandah.
Sara Montague was looking very much as usual — tall and dashing, and very well dressed, although she always, in Miss Glanfield’s opinion, put on a good deal too much lipstick and a good deal too little of everything else — and Mrs. Hamilton, pallid with the pallor of many years spent in the tropics, and dressed in the kind of clothes copied by a native tailor from things bought at home two years earlier — Mrs. Hamilton leant against a bookcase, with her mouth set in a hard, fierce line.
At the sight of Miss Glanfield she rallied, and made offer of the usual bedtime drinks. The topic of Humphrey was entirely abandoned.
But Mrs. Montague, in the room that she shared with her friend, remarked to her in a lighthearted whisper, just before putting out the light:
“I rather like that poor devil of a woman, you know. I expect Humphrey leads her a dog’s life — and she’s stuck to him for fifteen years. Of course, she must have known what it would be like when she married him — he really is attractive, don’t you think? I’ll take my oath she’s older than he is.”
“I think he’s treating her abominably,” said Miss Glanfield, but lacked the courage to add: “And so are you!”
“So do I,” Sara replied, with what sounded like whole-hearted assent.
And the very next day, she and Mrs. Hamilton had talked, for hours — interminably — sitting on the verandah, about Humphrey.
In the course of this conversation their voices were raised to screaming pitch, and each of them burst into tears at least once — but by evening they were calling one another Ruby and Sara. The friendship had begun.
It had, Miss Glanfield observed, its ups and downs. Humphrey’s infatuation gave rise to moments that were at least difficult. But Sara and Miss Glanfield went on to Siam, and Humphrey did not follow them, although he did come down to Singapore to meet them on their return journey. He and Sara went to dinner at the Europe Hotel, and danced there afterwards, and then drove out to the coast and had a bathe by moonlight.
Sara returned to the boat at five o’clock in the morning.
Miss Glanfield pretended to be asleep, but she took a look at her watch in the electric glare recklessly switched on by Mrs. Montague. Next morning she said coldly:
“You were back very late, weren’t you?”
“I meant to be,” said Mrs. Montague with equal coldness. And she added with sudden enthusiasm: “Humphrey really is rather a dear. Look what he gave me!”
What Humphrey had given her was a long string of carved jade beads.
“I suppose he’s gone back to the estate again?”
“Oh yes, Ruby isn’t well, poor dear! He didn’t want to leave her for more than one night,” said Mrs. Montague.
She added a few minutes later:
“I think he’s going to try and send her home this year, she’s really so awfully run down. But they’re not well off, of course. I’m going to ask her to stay, and give her a complete rest. I’m sorry for the poor wretch. Besides, I rather like her.”
Miss Glanfield supposed that this was true. She had known Sara all her life, and Sara did not go out of her way to be nice to people unless she liked them. On the other hand, she was good-natured and liked quite a large number of people. Nevertheless it seemed difficult to believe that Mrs. Hamilton would actually come and stay, in Mrs. Montague’s untidy, disreputable-looking suburban house, as her friend. She did come, however, and she stayed — a paying guest — for two and a half months.
Miss Glanfield met her very often. Presently she found that she really knew her quite well. They played Bridge together, and occasionally went for walks together, and once Mrs. Hamilton took Miss Glanfield to see her only child, Marjorie, who was at school at Bexhill. Sara Montague, although she was fairly sympathetic about Marjorie, and often said that she must come over and spend a week-end, did not really like children, and the invitation never assumed more solid proportions.
Mrs. Hamilton — who was candidly described behind her back by her hostess as being “more guest than paying” — quite frequently did errands for Mrs. Montague, and so came to Miss Glanf
ield’s tiny “Mon Abri” with notes, or requests for the loan of a pound of coffee or a packet of Lux, and on more than one of these occasions, they spoke of Sara.
“I’ve known her all her life, practically — ever since she was a small child running wild all over my father’s parish where her father’s practice was — and I’m really fond of her. At the same time,” said Miss Glanfield, “I’m not going to deny that Sara has faults. I should say the same thing to her face. She made a most foolish mess of her youth, and as for her marriage—”
“Of course,” Mrs. Hamilton said, “she’s indiscreet. Anybody can see that. Sara’s an attractive woman, in many ways — I quite see that men admire her. I’m not saying for a moment that there’s anything really wrong — I’m a woman of the world and I haven’t lived fifteen years in the East for nothing — but all I do say is, that a woman in her unfortunate position ought to be more careful. Why, as far as I can see, she hasn’t got a woman friend in the world, excepting ourselves.”
“I’m afraid she hasn’t,” said Miss Glanfield. “Sara is not at all what I should call a woman’s woman. Look at her Bridge parties.”
Mrs. Hamilton had more opportunities than had Miss Glanfield for looking at Sara’s Bridge parties, for she was a very much better Bridge player, but occasionally the spinster was invited, to make up a table. It was thus that she assisted at a crisis, once more The party was over — the guests, all men, had departed. The cerise and silver drawing-room of Mrs. Montague smelt of spirits and cigarette smoke, the cards still littered the tables, and Sara herself stood near the fire, eating chocolates out of a dirty little silver dish.
“I’m sorry you held such rotten cards, Ruby, old thing,” she said.
Mrs. Hamilton emitted a laugh, at the sound of which Miss Glanfield’s mind sprang to instant attention. She saw that Sara, though also unpleasantly struck by the character of the laugh, was not altogether startled by it. She had, perhaps, seen reason to expect a manifestation of some kind.
“What’s up, ducky?” she asked coldly and brightly.
“Oh, nothing at all. Why should you think there’s anything up?”
“I can see you’re upset. But really, my dear, if you feel you can’t afford to lose, you oughtn’t to play.”
“I don’t lose, in that way, when I play Bridge, as a rule. I’m usually considered quite a lucky player, as well as a sound one. But, of course, some things no player can stand up against,” declared Mrs. Hamilton.
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
Sara’s voice had risen, and so had her colour. She was — Miss Glanfield knew all the signs of it — preparing to fly into a violent rage. And not without cause.
Her guest, also in a rage, although it was an ice-cold one, accused her, in everything except plain words, of having cheated at cards. The encounter that followed almost deafened Miss Glanfield.
They appealed to her, they shrieked at her, they referred one another to her judgment — although without giving her a chance of formulating any views at all — and at one dreadful moment she thought that she would be obliged to rush between them and separate them.
At the end of an hour, Sara Montague burst into tears of pure wrath and nervous vexation, and Mrs. Hamilton dashed upstairs to her bedroom and slammed the door violently behind her.
Sara, between sobs, said words that caused Miss Glanfield, pale and shaking, to walk towards the door.
“Don’t go — don’t! — You can’t leave me alone with that creature — in the state I’m in. Have a heart, Glannie!”
“Sara, I shall not stay if you use disgusting language. You know how I feel about it.”
“Yes, yes, I know. But she is a — No, all right, Glannie, I won’t. Only stay with me till I get that hard-faced cow out of the house. To think of all I’ve done for her — had her here, and let her meet my friends, and charged her next to nothing for it, and now she rounds on me like this—”
Sara went on, it seemed to Miss Glanfield, for hours.
Over their heads, suitcases bounced and banged, drawers were dragged open and violently pushed in again, and hasty, heavy footsteps rushed ceaselessly backwards and forwards.
“This is the end,” thought Miss Glanfield. “It always was a strange, unsuitable affair — a friendship between those two. But this is the end of it.”
She was mistaken.
That was not the end of it.
She went home that evening, after seeing Sara retire to her bed, and receiving her assurance that she should not speak another word to Mrs. Hamilton as long as they both lived.
And the next morning, just as she was sitting down to her solitary lunch of poached egg and spinach, Sara rang her up on the telephone. Her voice sounded quite cheerful and ordinary.
“Do come round at tea-time,” she begged, “I’m certain it’s going to pour all day long, and we’ve got a simply roaring fire, and I’ve sent the wench out to get some muffins.”
We?
“Is — has she gone?”
“The girl? Yes, I’m afraid she has. Did you want anything?”
“I meant Ruby Hamilton.”
“Oh — Ruby. — No, my dear, she hasn’t gone.
She’s got a hide like a rhinoceros. Still, I’ve never been one to bear malice, as you know, and I’m sorry for the old thing.”
“Then,” said Miss Glanfield, dazed, “is it all right? Have you made it up again?”
“Oh, Lord, yes,” said Mrs. Montague. “I’m sorry you came in for the row, Glannie. But it’s all over now.”
After this, the friendship went on as before.
In due course, Mrs. Hamilton returned to the East, and Mrs. Montague resumed her usual erratic existence, the exact course of which Miss Glanfield preferred not to follow, lest she be obliged to condemn. When Sara was at home she saw her, and when Sara was away she received picture postcards from her, postmarked Brighton, or Torquay, or Monte Carlo. It was a year later that they once more spoke of Ruby Hamilton.
“I’ve done with her, I’m through,” said Sara vehemently. “After this, I shall simply cut her dead if ever I meet her again, which I’m not in the least likely to do, thank Heaven! Ruby is the limit!”
The limit? thought Miss Glanfield. What final outpost in the uncivilized regions of sheer insult could Mrs. Hamilton have reached, that had not already been attained by her? She could scarcely find words to inquire.
“Well, my dear, I’ll tell you,” said Sara. “You remember that horrid child of hers — a girl with red hair like a fox, Marjorie — Well, Ruby wrote about six months ago and said, would I go and see the kid, at school, because the headmistress said she was run down or something. So I went. Cursing, of course, but still I went. There isn’t another woman in the world I’d have done it for, but I’m a weak one, as you know, and I felt sorry for that pop-eyed fool of a Ruby. So I went to the beastly place, and saw this beastly child. Right as rain, of course, nothing whatever the matter with her except laziness. So I wrote to her mother, and just said, ‘Darling, don’t be a perfect owl. Marjorie is a lazy little devil, and too utterly slack for anything, and if she was my child, I’d have her flogged.’ So I would, too. Well, my dear” — Sara drew a long breath—” will you believe it, that ass of a woman goes completely off the deep end, and writes back six or seven pages abusing me like a pickpocket for daring to tell her the plain truth about her odious child. And after I’d actually taken the trouble to go to that place — and ask absolutely nothing but my bare expenses for doing it — and wasted an entire afternoon on the job! Did you ever in your life hear anything like it?”
“Never!” gasped Miss Glanfield, referring to she knew not what.
“Well, I’ve finished with Ruby, absolutely. If a woman of her age can’t stand a little plain speaking for her own good, from her most intimate friend, I haven’t got the least use for her. And that’s that.”
Yes, thought Miss Glanfield, surely that was that. For she felt certain that no mother in the world could
ever overlook such strictures as those that Sara had presumed to offer to Mrs. Hamilton upon her own child.
Once again, Miss Glanfield was wrong.
How the reconciliation came to pass, she never knew. She even sometimes wondered whether there was any reconciliation at all. The fact remained that in the following spring, the Hamiltons were home on leave, and Sara Montague was dashing gaily up to town to dine with them and go to a theatre.
Later on, they came to stay with her.
Then Humphrey went away, and his wife stayed on.
“They’re very badly off,” Sara explained, as once before. “And Humphrey’s old cat of a mother doesn’t mind having him and the child to stay, but she draws the line at Ruby. God knows I don’t blame her for that. Anyway, the poor wretch hasn’t anywhere much to go, for a week or two, and she’s quite useful to me — and, of course, she knows very well that she wouldn’t get what I give her for the money, anywhere else in this world. So here she is, and for goodness’ sake, come in and help amuse her this evening. We can play Mah Jongh or something. Cyril is coming.”
Cyril was Sara’s latest achievement. He was young and good-looking, and had a job that apparently brought him past Sara Montague’s front door three or four times weekly, in a very nice, claret-coloured motor-car. He drove her to London for her shopping, and took her out to dine and dance very often, and came to her house for a meal frequently.
Miss Glanfield had met him, and did not like him very much. However, he helped to pass the evening agreeably, and he and Mrs. Hamilton discovered that they had friends in common. At first, the innocent Miss Glanfield thought that this was an excellent thing, but very soon she began to see that Sara was not pleased. Ruby and Cyril were getting on together almost too well, and their hostess was being left out of the conversation.
It was Sara’s unfortunate custom to resent furiously being left out of any conversation and to show her resentment plainly.
The atmosphere became hostile.
“Shall we play a game of cards?” suggested Miss Glanfield.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 554