Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  It seemed a very long while ago.

  Visitors had come and gone, since then. Oliver and Catherine had begun to tell one another that they would very soon be the veterans of the salle a manger, when the telegram had arrived.

  As she walked back, her head bent, her hands thrust into the pockets of the beach-frock, Catherine was unable to help remembering the arrival of the telegram.

  It had been in their pigeon-hole, innocently waiting their return from the beach, amongst the letters.

  It was always Oliver who collected their mail.

  That was tacitly understood between them, although Catherine always knew, whether she saw it or not — and she tried hard not to see — whenever there was a letter for Oliver from his wife. He always handed hers to her — they were not many, for she had only given her address to her mother, who so trustingly thought she had gone away with another girl — and his own he shuffled up together in his hand, and opened later.

  When they weren’t together.

  Valerie wrote pretty often. Catherine knew that.

  And Oliver wrote to her.

  Catherine didn’t want to know, but she couldn’t help it.

  Oliver had told her at the very beginning, that he and Valerie were fond of one another, although they weren’t in love any more. Yet he didn’t seem to mind deceiving her.

  It was he who’d suggested the holiday in Brittany together. Something much longer, and better, than the occasional week-ends they had been able to snatch since their first meeting, six months ago. Week-ends that had begun on Friday evening and ended early on Monday morning.

  Catherine had been dazed with the prospect of such bliss.

  How, she’d murmured, how could he manage it?

  “Oh, my family is off to Wales for a month in September,” he’d answered, sounding very casual.

  Oliver always said “my family” like that, although he and Valerie had no children. Avoiding the mention of his wife’s name.

  After the one time when they’d talked about marriage, and Oliver had said, holding her tightly in his arms, “If only we’d met five years ago! But I couldn’t ever let Valerie down now” — he had never referred to his wife by name.

  Catherine had lived on the implication that if they’d met five years ago, it was she whom Oliver would have married, although he’d already met Valerie then — she’d taken pains to find that out.

  She wanted desperately to know that he loved her best. If only he loved her best, she wouldn’t mind having no secure place in his life — not sharing the everyday things with him — having no right to any place beside him at all, whatever his need or hers.

  At least, she wouldn’t mind so much.

  But Oliver, although he loved her and told her he loved her, never said that he loved her best.

  “How are you going to get away?” she had asked, hesitating, anxious not to sound as though she thought Valerie kept him on a string.

  “It’ll be all right. I often go off on a sailing or fishing jaunt by myself. Anyway, I don’t care much about Wales, and the old people like having her to themselves.”

  She hadn’t asked any more. What did anything matter, except the lovely, lovely prospect of a golden month together — just herself and Oliver?

  Catherine remembered how terrified she’d been, right up to the last minute, that something would happen, because it was so much too good to be true.

  She hadn’t really believed herself awake until they’d actually reached Vieuxport, and taken possession of the double room with the balcony, overlooking the sea, and the little smiling chambermaid had enquired at what time monsieur et madame would like to be called in the morning.

  And since then everything had been wonderful, although she’d had to endure the sharp, short yet deep, pangs of pain at the inevitable elisions in their talk — their mutual avoidance of any reference to his life with Valerie — the unavoidable, intuitive certainties that told her whenever he wrote to Valerie or received her letters — even sometimes, when he was thinking of her.

  Those things, she knew, were part of the price that she must pay for having taken something to which she had no right.

  Well, it was worth it. Over and over again. The holiday had been even more wonderful than they’d expected.

  Oliver had been distraught when he came to find her, with the little blue telegram that looked so unlike a telegram, and told her that his chief had got to see him immediately in London. It was something that could probably be settled quite quickly — but it was of the utmost importance.

  “I knew it might happen,” Oliver explained. “I didn’t for a moment think it would, but I did leave my address, in case I had to go.”

  “Of course you must go,” Catherine had murmured, anxious to be generous, and reasonable, and a good comrade. “But oh, darling—”

  “I know!” Oliver had groaned. “I’ll fly from Paris to London, and then back again — it won’t be long, my sweet. Or shall I simply take no notice at all?”

  “No, no. You must go.”

  It hadn’t been so terribly difficult to say, then, with her head against Oliver’s hard shoulder, and his arms round her, and his lips touching her hair.

  Now, walking along by herself in the sunlight that she no longer noticed, Catherine thought she’d been a fool to say that he must go.

  If she’d begged him to stay he would have stayed.

  She reached the Hotel de la Mer. On the terrace people were sitting at their little tables. There were fewer of them than there had been at first, for it was late in the season, and parties were leaving every day.

  The two unattractive Englishwomen whom Oliver had christened Miss Lump and Miss Dump were sitting on their usual bench, in their usual silence.

  Miss Lump had on her unsuitable tweed skirt and a shirt with a collar and tie. She was knitting.

  Miss Dump was doing nothing. She stared out at the sea, through dark glasses, on either side of which her pale, lustreless hair stood out in a thick clump. Her striped washing-silk frock was crumpled and looked too large for her.

  The two, so far as one knew, were never apart for one instant, whether in the hotel, on the beach, down by the quay, or on an expedition. Yet they seldom spoke to one another, and never laughed. Oliver and Catherine had exchanged many ribald jests, commenting upon Miss Lump and Miss Dump.

  Now, they had ceased to be in the least amusing or interesting.

  The Irish family were coming in from their bathe.

  They were talking, and one of the children smiled at Catherine.

  “The water’s marvellous to-day!” she called out joyously.

  The mother looked round.

  When she saw Catherine, walking by herself, she glanced behind, as though expecting to see somebody else. And she said something to the children’s father.

  Catherine knew what it was.

  “Where’s the husband, I wonder?”

  They’d all accepted Oliver and Catherine as husband and wife, even the Belgian diplomat’s wife who looked down her nose at everybody in the hotel. But she always bowed as she passed their table in the dining-room.

  Catherine went straight into the dining-room now. She couldn’t bear to face their room, where they’d known ecstasy together.

  The dining-room was bad enough.

  Why hadn’t she thought of bringing a book? It was hard, sitting there all alone, with the Irish family chattering gaily at the next table, and the large, dark lady they’d christened “The Brassiere” because of the complicated arrangements plainly to be seen through her lace blouses, reading her thin, mauve-ink letters, just as they’d so often seen her doing; and all the others.

  Genevieve, “The Brassiere’s” little girl, came in late.

  She hurried, winding her way in and out of the long room, crowded with tables, but paused long enough to smile at Catherine.

  Oliver and Catherine had felt sorry for Genevieve, who always wore expensive, rather old-fashioned frocks, and never got them
dirty because she was never allowed to play with other children.

  She was so obviously the child of rich, elderly parents.

  To-day she said amiably to Catherine:

  “Vous etes toute seule, madame?”

  “Pour deux ou trois jours,” Catherine returned quickly.

  “C’est malheureux!” said Genevieve politely.

  Catherine’s lunch was quickly over.

  She passed close by the table where sat Miss Lump and Miss Dump on her way to the door, and heard one of them say to the other:

  “Remind me about those films, dear,” and at once she found herself, in imagination, telling Oliver triumphantly that Miss Dump had actually spoken.

  The little sharp pang that followed became very familiar in the next twenty-four hours.

  The only comfort was in writing to Oliver.

  Catherine sat on the sands and wrote and wrote, tearing one sheet after another off the pad that she had bought in Morlaix, not expecting to use it much, since she and Oliver would be together.

  Later on she walked very slowly down to the post office and put her letter in the box.

  The evening, that had always been so short, dragged itself out interminably, and at half-past nine she went to bed with a book. To-morrow Oliver’s letter from Paris would reach her.

  To-morrow would bring the time of his return nearer.

  2

  The letter from Paris came.

  It made everything quite different.

  She was able to smile at things again, and save them up in her mind to tell Oliver.

  The season was practically over in Vieuxport. They had arrived late in the summer, and now it was almost autumn. Departures from the hotel were daily, and there were no more new arrivals.

  Two days after Oliver left, the weather had changed. It was still fine, but the air suddenly became crisp and chill and little white crests appeared on the water.

  Catherine no longer wore the blue beach-frock, but her blue woollen trousers and warmest wool jumper, with long sleeves.

  She took long walks, partly in order to keep warm and partly because she had so little else to do.

  They had brought no books with them except two or three novels: she remembered how, in London, Oliver had made the foolish, jesting enquiry of a lover:

  “Do you think we shall get bored with one another? Oughtn’t we to take plenty of books in case we run short of conversation?”

  On the fourth day, she got a telegram from Oliver in London. It said in their private code that he loved her and was thinking of her and had written. Nothing about when he would get back. But he’d tell her that in the letter that was now on its way, Catherine assured herself frantically.

  She didn’t want to be frantic.

  She knew that she couldn’t afford to be. To be frantic over a delay, over the non-arrival of a letter, the breaking of an appointment, is the privilege of the secure, for whom the unutterable bliss of reassurance is waiting on the morrow.

  But to be frantic with no underlying expectation of relief is to court madness.

  Catherine knew that well.

  She had had all the months of her association with Oliver in which to learn it.

  So she waited for the letter written from London, and on the sixth day it came.

  (He could have written every day, as she had done — but he hadn’t. One stifled the thought at birth, trying to dodge the pain, and even partly succeeding.)

  It was a short letter — very loving — one or two references to their old jokes, and a few phrases about the crisis that had called him back to the office — a line about her letters, showing that he’d had them but not really answering anything she’d said, and a promise that he’d be able to tell her “next time” when he could get back.

  But if he didn’t come almost at once, it would surely be too late. He had paid for their room until the end of the month, and after September the hotel would close.

  They might have one more week there together. Or perhaps he’d ask her to go to Paris, and meet him there.

  Catherine suggested that in her next letter, and then tore up the letter. She wouldn’t make suggestions.

  She told herself it was because she wanted him to feel free, and knew all the time it was because his refusal or — worse still — ignoring of the suggestion, would hurt too much.

  She asked him once, in her answer to his letter, to come back the very first minute that he could. And when it was written and posted, there was nothing else to do except walk, and walking was misery, because she couldn’t help thinking, and remembering, and wondering.

  Wondering whether Valerie had left Wales and was with him in London. If she was it would be more difficult for him to come back.

  Perhaps — one must face it — altogether impossible?

  Catherine set her teeth, and knew that she’d really been afraid of that all the time. Somehow, abruptly broken-off things didn’t ever begin again, however much one might hope and resolve that they should.

  Well — it had been perfect while it lasted. They’d have it to remember. And it wasn’t as though she and Oliver were not to see one another again. Even if he couldn’t get back to Brittany, Catherine would go to England — to London — and they’d meet, as they’d met before.

  Her thoughts went round and round — not able to linger anywhere, for fear of pain waiting everywhere, touching on each familiar point: the hope of Oliver’s return first, then the determination to make the best of such alternatives as might be if there was no return — the passionate assurance to herself that it would be easier once she knew he couldn’t get back — the tremulous assertion that he would if he could; he wanted it as much as she did — and at last the admission that always thrust itself, unbidden, into her consciousness, that it would be easier one day, when the terrible vitality of her love had weakened, and her capacity for suffering with it.

  With that thought, it always seemed that full cycle had been reached, and her mind raced back to the beginning again; the hope of Oliver’s return.

  3

  It really was the end of the season now.

  From behind the green volets of the bedroom, no longer needed to keep the heat of the sun out of the room, Catherine watched the little girl, Genevieve, and her elderly parents, who looked so much more like grandparents, leave Vieuxport in their large, expensive-looking car.

  Oliver had had all kinds of theories about the old couple, and had declared his conviction that Genevieve’s father was a rich banker. Whether he was or not, they would now never know, and it had ceased to be interesting.

  The Irish family had gone, days earlier — Catherine had found out their name, and all about them, but that too had ceased to be interesting.

  She suddenly realized that of all the people whom she and Oliver had seen and conjectured about, none remained except the two women whom they had called Miss Lump and Miss Dump.

  The visitors with whom Catherine, in her solitude, had exchanged small civilities, were people who had arrived after Oliver’s departure.

  It was nearly a week since she had heard from him, but she felt certain that a letter would come this morning.

  The post never arrived before ten, and then it had to be sorted and distributed. If only one could sleep till then! But Catherine couldn’t sleep any more, however late she went to bed, after six o’clock.

  People were bathing, in spite of the tang in the air, but she didn’t want to bathe by herself.

  She walked instead.

  Miss Lump and Miss Dump were on the terrace as she set out. They looked at her, and she had the impression that they had spoken about her.

  “Wondering what on earth I’m doing here, all alone, and whether my husband has deserted me,” Catherine reflected grimly.

  That would make Oliver laugh, when she told him about it. Except that he’d probably forgotten all about Miss Lump and Miss Dump by this time.

  She walked down to the quay.

  All the roads were t
oo familiar, but the sight of the fishing boats with the rust-red and powder-blue sails still gave her pleasure.

  Here was the corner where Oliver had taken a snapshot of her wearing her slacks and the three-cornered handkerchief he’d given her.

  There was the rickety little building in which films were shown three times a week. They’d seen an unexpectedly good French one there, in their first week. A scrap of the poster that advertised it was still visible, a corner of yellow paper fluttering against the wall underneath more recent notices.

  Catherine could just see part of the huge presentation of a soldier of the Foreign Legion in his uniform. It brought back with extraordinary-vividness the very feeling of that breathlessly hot night when she and Oliver had walked slowly away from the cinema, her hand clasped in his, silent because the picture had so oddly and unexpectedly moved them both.

  She’d forgotten it until that moment.

  Here was the quay. They’d seen the fishermen unloading their nets here and furling the lovely, colour-washed sails of the boats.

  At that little shop near the cafe they’d bought peaches — quantities of them for a few pence.

  It seemed absurd that a whole tradition should have been established in a few days.

  She looked all round and saw the large tower of the disproportionately enormous church. They’d always wanted to go inside and have a look at it, but they’d never been able to, because Catherine never had a hat with her and couldn’t remember to bring one.

  Perhaps she could tie her scarf about her head now and go in. It would be something new, something that she’d never done with Oliver.

  But walking back to the hotel, Catherine forgot about the church because she was trying so hard not to think about Oliver’s letter that must surely tell her either when he was coming back or when she was to meet him.

  There was no letter.

  She knew then that what she wanted most was to be told why he couldn’t come.

  Not that he was coming — one mustn’t hope for miraculous, lovely things — the things that only happened in books — but just why he wasn’t coming.

  So that — she faced it at last — she wouldn’t have to fight the thought that he wasn’t coming back because he’d stopped wanting to, very much.