Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  Edith moaned, shook her head, and rolled her eyes.

  “Fetch me a drink, like a good girl,” begged Mr. Newberry.

  When she came back he told her the rest.

  “He’s been conscious, poor chap, and, spoken. He gave our name too, and wants us to go to him.”

  Mr. Newberry hesitated for a moment. Then he said:

  “Did Mrs. Newberry happen to say where she was going, this afternoon?”

  “Yes, sir. She went to Lady March, for Bridge, sir. She said she might be a little late, but I was to ask you not to wait dinner, sir.”

  “I think I’d better get her on the telephone.

  The poor ch — Poor Major Kelly seems to have asked for her — for us. We’re very old friends, of course.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Edith sympathetically. “Do they think, sir, he — he’s going to get over it?”

  Mr. Newberry unconsciously screwed up his face and moved his head doubtfully from side to side.

  “The doctors thought it was too soon to say.

  It didn’t sound too hopeful, I’m afraid, but of course—”

  “While there’s life, there’s hope, sir,” suggested Edith.

  “That’s it, that’s right. Mustn’t despair. But of course we must go and see what we can do for him. Now the question is—”

  Mr. Newberry sank into so long a silence that Edith ventured to help him out of it.

  “It’ll be a shock for madam, too, sir.”

  “That’s just what I’m thinking. They’re very old friends — very old friends indeed.”

  “Could I — would you wish me to get Madam on the telephone, sir? Or shall you tell her when she gets in?”

  “I’m afraid I oughtn’t to let it wait, Edith. They haven’t been able to do very much for him, but they’re going to examine him as soon as they can, and one would wish to see him before that, if possible — while he can still say anything he wants to, you know. I should think I’d better — Look here, Edith, get her Ladyship on the telephone. Don’t ask for Mrs. Newberry, and don’t give my name. Just say it’s important.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Edith sped excitedly from the room.

  Mr. Newberry hoped he’d hit upon a good plan for breaking the shock to Geraldine, who was bound to feel it.

  “I’m glad now,” thought Mr. Newberry sadly, “that I never made any fuss, like some fellows might have done, about their being friends.”

  Then he told himself rebukefully that after all, he’d been able to afford to be generous. It was he whom Geraldine had married. The other poor chap — so he always thought of Tom Kelly — had been in love with Geraldine too, and many had been the time when Mr. Newberry had known jealousy, for he was under no illusion as to his rival’s superior attractions. Tom Kelly had just that touch of dashing Irish charm, that hint of the bounder, that women almost always fell for.

  But Geraldine, after nearly two years of apparent indecision, had finally refused Tom Kelly. And she had accepted, and married, her other suitor.

  And Mr. Newberry, dazed with happiness, had felt a warm, genuine compassion towards Kelly that only increased as the years slipped by, and he himself loved, and was loved by, Geraldine, while Kelly went out to India with his Regiment, came home again — still unmarried — and gradually slipped into the position of intimate friend to the Newberry establishment.

  And now, thought Mr. Newberry, it looked as though the poor chap’s luck was still dead out, and he was going west in a particularly futile and rotten manner, without anybody much to stand by him at the last. If it was Geraldine he wanted, that didn’t surprise Mr. Newberry in the least. In his heart, he’d always felt that Kelly had never really got over his feeling for Geraldine. One couldn’t wonder, or blame him in the very least. He was “the other poor chap” who hadn’t got what he wanted most.

  “It might just as well have been me,” thought Mr. Newberry. He felt, not for the first time, that he hadn’t deserved his marvellous luck, and that Kelly hadn’t deserved the raw deal he’d got.

  But there you were — these things happened, and there was no accounting for them, unless you believed in a God who arranged things on some elaborate plan of His own — which Mr. Newberry, personally, didn’t.

  Edith came back.

  “Her ladyship is on the line, sir,” she said breathlessly, and Mr. Newberry hurried off.

  “That you, Myrtle?”

  “Yes. Is it Harry Newberry? D’you want Geraldine? They said—”

  “I know. I told the girl not to give my name. I say Myrtle it’s a bad show, I’m afraid. Poor old Tom Kelly’s had an awful motor smash. They’ve got him in the Cottage Hospital at Cambling — they rang me up just now.”

  “He’s not—”

  “He’s alive. In fact, he’s conscious, and he asked for — well, as a matter of fact, he asked for Geraldine. I’m not broadcasting that, but you’re her friend—”

  “Of course, I understand. Oh, Harry, how awful! Do they think he’ll die?”

  “They can’t tell yet. It sounds pretty bad, I’m afraid. But don’t tell Geraldine that — she’ll be upset as it is, and it may be better than we think. Look here, Myrtle, how are we to tell her? I thought perhaps you could get her away from the Bridge, and I’ll beetle along as fast as ever I can and fetch her in the car and take her along to the hospital.”

  “Oh, Harry, wait. Let me think for a minute.”

  Myrtle March was a very clever, sensible woman. She’d know what was the best way of telling Geraldine the news without upsetting her more than was unavoidable.

  “Harry, listen. It’ll only delay you, if you come here. It’s right out of your way. Let me tell Geraldine, and send her straight over to Cambling in the Daimler. It’ll save a lot of time, and you can go there direct — which will be much quicker — and meet her there, and take her home.”

  “Bless you, Myrtle. You’re a pal. The only thing is, hadn’t I better speak to her myself?”

  “Of course, if you want to. But, honestly, I think it’ll be less of a shock to let me do it. That sort of thing — over the telephone—”

  “Yes, yes. I expect you’re right. Then I’ll get out the car and be off, and you tell her I’ll meet her at the hospital. I expect she’ll get there first — it’s bound to take me the better part of an hour.”

  “I’ll do everything I can, Harry. I’m so awfully sorry for you both — and for poor Major Kelly.”

  “It’s a rotten show. Well, thanks a lot, Myrtle. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye.”

  Mr. Newberry sighed, and thought what a good sort Myrtle was, and then rang the bell once more and ordered his car round.

  “Tell Sherman I shan’t want him,” he added, for he had decided to drive himself. He had a confused idea that Geraldine might want to cry a little, on the way back, and she would be able to do so more comfortably without the presence of the chauffeur.

  At all times a careful driver, Mr. Newberry, with the thought of poor Kelly’s smash in his mind, drove even more carefully than usual.

  It took him nearly an hour to get to the Cottage Hospital. When he turned in at the gate, and drove round the little circular plot of green in front of the house, he saw two cars parked there ahead of him.

  One was the Marchs’ Daimler, and the other one he supposed belonged to the doctor.

  He rang, and was admitted by a very young servant.

  “How’s Major Kelly?” he asked at once.

  “Will you step in, please,” was all she answered.

  Mr. Newberry followed her into an unpleasant little sitting-room that was very cold and smelt of down-draught, and there she left him and shut the door.

  He supposed that Geraldine must be upstairs.

  Well, it was Geraldine whom the poor chap wanted, and Heaven knew Mr. Newberry didn’t grudge him his last good-bye if that was what it was to be.

  Supposing Geraldine had married poor Kelly, and it had been himself, Harry Newberry, who�
�d had to do without her — to see her belonging to somebody else, loving somebody else, with only liking and friendliness and perhaps a little pity, for him — what about that, eh?

  Mr. Newberry shook his head solemnly.

  He had everything, and that other poor chap....

  The door opened and a woman in nurse’s uniform, with a large, smooth, inexpressive face, came in.

  “Mr. Newberry? I’m the Sister-in-charge. I’m afraid it’s bad news.”

  “He’s not gone?”

  “No, but he won’t last very long, Doctor says. The pelvis is fractured, and there are other injuries as well. He won’t suffer. They’ll keep him under morphia.”

  “Can I go up? My wife—”

  “He knew her, but he’s gone off again now. I doubt if he’ll come round again. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “Poor old chap, what a bad show,” muttered Mr. Newberry, feeling sick and dismayed. “One of our oldest friends.... I wish I’d been in time, but I couldn’t get here sooner.”

  “He just knew your wife,” repeated the Sister-in-charge. “Will you come up, now — and I’m afraid you’d better take her away. She can’t do anything, you know.”

  “No, of course. All right.”

  Mr. Newberry followed her upstairs to the first floor, through the horrible antiseptic odours that hung about the place, and paused behind her for a moment outside a closed door of highly varnished pitch-pine.

  He was glad Geraldine had been in time, and that the poor chap had recognized her, and perhaps heard her say something friendly and kind, before he went out all by himself into the darkness and the unknown.

  And he was glad, too, in a different way, that he himself was there, to take Geraldine home and comfort her if she should be a bit upset — as of course she was bound to be — and show her that he understood what she must be feeling, about poor Tom Kelly, who’d loved her, and had had to give her up.

  The Sister-in-charge opened the door noiselessly.

  The thing that had been Tom Kelly lay swathed and motionless on the bed.

  But Mr. Newberry never saw it.

  He only saw, at first with incredulity, and then with a white-hot, searing understanding, the look on the lost, white, agonized face of his wife, Geraldine.

  I BELIEVE IN LOVE

  1

  “I BELIEVE in Love.”

  This was the sentiment — ingenuous, idealistic, and honoured by the good and the great throughout the ages — that wrecked poor little Ivy Vernon’s high-school days.

  For toute verite nest pas bonne a dire. One might believe in love — though not with Ivy’s capital L, needless to say — but one did not proclaim the belief aloud. After all, there were decencies to be observed.

  In any case — as a sixth-form girl remarked — dwelling on the academic rather than the ethical aspect of the lapse — what a loosely worded and altogether meaningless observation!

  Define love.

  Define belief.

  When you say you believe in something, do you mean that you acknowledge its existence to be a proven fact?

  How, then, do you “believe in” an emotion?

  These questions were rhetorical. They were not put to Ivy Vernon directly.

  Indeed, her remarkable pronouncement was received in a sudden silence compounded of shame, amusement, and contempt. It had been made — quite softly — in the course of a discussion on Life, and fell horridly into the midst of many gallant sentiments relating to creative work, freedom, self-expression, and experience. All these things seemed very splendid and desirable to the young people who were so earnestly advocating them, and discussing them, and analysing them into tiny little pieces.

  Most of them, beyond a doubt, had love in the back of their minds. The word was even spoken aloud — for they feared nothing, except perhaps one another — in suitably cold and impersonal accents.

  But to say “I believe in Love.” — No, no, no. That was a very different thing. From that day, little Ivy Vernon was branded.

  The literary set — temporarily forgetting the austerity of literary language — called her a sloppy little fool, and the athletic set, more simply, supposed that she was batty. The kinder and wiser amongst her contemporaries said that she was a thoroughly morbid and unwholesome little thing. What the less kind and wise said, is unprintable.

  Ivy wandered through the remaining two years of her school life, slightly bewildered and lonely, but still believing in love. She did not fully understand the reason why she made no friends, because nobody liked to refer to anything so shame-making and altogether so extraordinary as her terrible proclamation of faith.

  Such things were better forgotten.

  After leaving school, Ivy, who was an orphan, found a job as assistant junior mistress at a big girls’ school in the North Riding. She worked there for five years, and was moderately contented. Sometimes it crossed her mind that to live entirely among women might tend to limit one’s outlook, and very often she dreamed romantic dreams of the lover whom she would one day meet.

  The nearest approach to reality that the dream-lover ever achieved was in the summer holidays, when Ivy usually stayed with her aunt, who competently ran a large boarding-house called a Private and Residential Hotel, on the South Coast.

  There, young men cast approving glances at Ivy, who was slender and blonde and pretty, and took her out to dance, and frequently kissed her and swore that they would never forget her.

  Forget her they did, however, usually within a week of leaving the Private and Residential Hotel. Ivy, sighing a little, continued to remember them —— but without bitterness.

  She still believed in love, although it had not come to her.

  When Ivy was twenty-eight she was invited by the aunt to come and live with her altogether.

  “You can be very useful to me,” said the aunt with great truth, “and it’ll be more of a life for you than spending your time amongst a lot of old maids.”

  Ivy did not reply to this, as she might well have done, that Aunt May was herself an old maid. To live with one thoroughly active and practical unmarried woman running a boarding house by the sea is better than to live with eight or nine educated and learned unmarried women running a school for girls in the wilds of Yorkshire.

  “And,” said the aunt impressively, “if you and me hit it off, as I think we shall, you’ll find you’ve no reason to regret it later on. I’ve no one belonging to me but you, Ivy, and I don’t suppose I’m going to live for ever.”

  The supposition — an eminently reasonable one — was justified, but not for some years.

  Ivy was thirty-eight when the aunt died of pneumonia.

  She left Ivy the house, half an acre of land, and investments that brought in nearly three hundred pounds a year.

  “But what shall I do with it all?” said Ivy, with large, tearful eyes fixed upon the senior partner of her aunt’s firm of solicitors.

  He advised her to put the house up for sale, and to leave the investments alone.

  “You might even go abroad, for a little while, later on,” he suggested benevolently. “I think you told me that you had a little money of your own? In the circumstances, I think I may say that you would be justified in taking a well-earned holiday, now that your future is comfortably provided for. A little later on, no doubt you will decide upon your future plans.”

  In his own mind, he was rather dubiously wondering whether his client would be fool enough to let herself be married for her money. On the whole, he thought it improbable that anyone would try. She was such a faded, quiet little creature.

  Eventually Ivy took his advice. She put the house into the agents’ hands, withdrew the sum of one hundred and five pounds from the Post Office Savings Bank and went to London, to buy clothes and to visit a travel agency.

  The travel agency, as soon as it understood that she wanted sunshine, blue sea, and cheerful society, sent her on a Mediterranean cruise.

  2

  She was ma
king friends.

  The people on the cruise seemed, as was inevitable, to fall naturally into groups. There was the very noisy set, mostly quite young, who drank a great deal, and were supposed to engage in promiscuous affairs with one another — there was a smaller, quieter, and rather less-young set, eager and ready for amusement, but always decorous and deriving a good deal of superior gratification from watching and discussing the strange behaviour of the noisy ones — and there were those people, husbands with possessive wives, mothers with elderly daughters, and isolated maiden ladies, concerning whom the chief wonder was why they had elected to travel at all, since they did nothing except sit about in deck chairs, write picture post cards, and eat their way silently through gigantic meals.

  Ivy belonged naturally to the second group.

  She thought that she had never met so many pleasant people in her life before.

  Take the Maitlands.

  Mr. Maitland was a very well-to-do solicitor from Manchester. His wife, still under fifty, was handsome, cheerful, and a great talker. She took a fancy to Ivy, and told her all about her children, at school, and what a good husband Don was, and what beautiful things he had given her — a fine car of her own, and a squirrel coat, and several pieces of really good jewellery.

  Don Maitland, in his silent way, also made it plain that he liked Ivy Vernon, and liked her to go about with them when they left the ship to go sightseeing.

  Sometimes they were joined by an intelligent school-mistress, travelling by herself, called Vera Lord. They all liked her, but were a little bit afraid of her because she read up so diligently, and knew so much about each place they visited.

  Then came the evening on which Ivy, to her astonishment, was asked to dance by the tall, dark young man who had been regarded as belonging exclusively to “the other set.”

  She accepted at once. Even if she had not wished to do so, she lacked savoir-faire to refuse — but she was secretly pleased and flattered at being asked.

  He was such a very dashing-looking young man. She had often noticed him, because he was so tall, so dark, and had such an air of self-confidence. It had also seemed to her that he was less noisy and rowdy than some of his associates.