Instead of the Thorn

by Georgette Heyer

  “Sometimes it is,” she sighed. “I was brought up in town you see. It’s rather a change.”

  “Yes, rather. Rotten for you. Any decent people living here?”

  “Oh—well, one or two. They’re quite nice, but not very great friends of mine.”

  Wendell nodded, just as though he quite understood. He didn’t ask her to be more explicit; that was so refreshing.

  “You ought to get Stephen to take a flat in town,” he said. “Be near your friends, and all that.”

  “I don’t think he would,” she said lightly. “He’s so fond of the Halt. He was brought up here, just as I was brought up in town.”

  “Very bad luck,” he nodded. “What d’you do with yourself all day?”

  That was just it. She didn’t do anything—at least, nothing specific. If only there was something that she could do it would be different. Easier, not so dull and boring.

  “Oh, I—exercise the dogs, and do the shopping—some of it—and people call—and that sort of thing.”

  “Sounds pretty deadly,” he remarked. “What I mean is, no variety. Any cheery people about?”

  “Not very. There’s the Church-set—they go to Mothers’ Meetings and Infant Welfare Societies. It’s not very exciting. Then there’s the Bridge-set—they ’re rather mixed up together, those two. I can’t play bridge. And there’s the literary set. We’re that,” she added, rather bitterly.

  “Can’t stand literary shop. I say, that’s a bad brick, but you know what I mean! I’m not clever enough, what? Don’t know what to say when people start talking ’bout ‘technique,’ an’ form, an’ ‘influence of the Russian school.’ You know the sort of stuff.”

  “Yes, I know.” She did know. You could not live a day Stephen and Cynthia and Nina and the Tyrells without knowing.

  “Daresay it’s awfully interesting if you’re in the trade yourself. It’s all Greek to me. I know when I like a book, but I can’t tell you what the style’s like, or what the publisher’s name is. Don’t see that it matters, personally. Can’t say that I often remember the blinking author’s name.”

  “I don’t see that it matters either,” Elizabeth sighed. “But the first thing Ste—any writer asks about a book is, Who published it?”

  “Awful strain of the what-you-may-call-it. Intellect. Good word, that. Expect you’ll start writing yourself soon. Force of example, what?”

  “Goodness, no! I can’t even write a decent letter, and my taste in literature is had.”

  “Lord! Is it? Daren’t speak about mine to Stephen. I like a good yarn—exciting, an’ not too long. Can’t stand these—what d’you call it?—psy—psychological novels, whatever that may be. Lot of rot, I call it.”

  “Introspection,” said Elizabeth. “I know. I like Dickens and Mrs. Humphry Ward, and—books like theirs. Not too deep. I tried to read Meredith a little while ago.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “He’s dreadful,” Elizabeth said. “I couldn’t make head or tail of him. And Hardy—well, I don’t approve of the sort of book he writes.”

  “Ah, quite!” Wendell answered profoundly.

  “And Bernard Shaw, and Chesterton and Galsworthy —I just can’t get on with them.”

  “Shouldn’t try.”

  “Oh, I’ve given it up! I’m too old to be re-educated. I don’t really appreciate Stephen’s books. Not in the proper way.”

  “I tackled one of ’em the other day. Bit beyond me. Awfully clever, of course, an’ that sort of thing.”

  “Yes, he’s very clever,” Elizabeth agreed.

  “Always feel a bit of a fool when Stephen’s about,” he confided. “Jolly nice chap, though.”

  “I think I do too,” she said, half to herself.

  “Oh, I say, what priceless rot. I bet you’ve got a lot tucked away under that topping hair of yours, Betty.”

  She blushed. She was flattered, but she felt vaguely that she ought not to allow Wendell to say these things.

  Married women ought not to flirt with their husband’s friends.

  “No good pretending you’re a fool,” Wendell continued. “Frightfully wise look in your eye, don’t you know? Mysterious, an’ all that sort of thing.”

  That was interesting, and a surprise to her. She looked up at him.

  “Mysterious? Whatever do you mean?”

  By Jove, she was a pretty kid! Fascinating. That innocent little face. Inviting mouth too, and pretty teeth. Lovely dimples when she smiled. Too jolly attractive by far.

  “Oh, what I once heard a poet-johnny call ‘unfathomable.’ Lot behind.”

  She walked on faster; the dimples peeped out.

  “How silly! You’re not to say such things. You’ll make me vain.”

  “You vain? Rot, Betty, rot! Imposs. Ab-solutely. Lucky chap, Stephen.”

  “Why do you insist on calling me Betty?” she asked. “No one’s ever done such a thing before.”

  “That’s why. Suits you, too. I like nicknames, you know. Cosier. More pally. See what I mean?”

  “No, I don’t think I do,” she said primly.

  Stephen went out with Wendell all the afternoon, and in the evening Nina came to dine. Elizabeth was worried about the trifle. There wasn’t enough wine in it, and she was afraid it would not go round. That distracted her attention; she was not at ease until dinner was over, and then she began to worry about the coffee, hoping that it would not be muddy as it was last night.

  “Nina,” Stephen said, when they were gathered about the drawing-room fire. “What’s this I hear about young Hemingway?”

  “Shut up!” said Nina. “Nothing at all.”

  “Keep your hair on!” he advised her. “No need to give yourself away.”

  She laughed, and flushed. Elizabeth suggested that they should “do something.”

  After some discussion they played vingt-et-un and poker, because Wendell suggested it. Elizabeth lost, but she enjoyed the game because no one took it very seriously. It didn’t matter if you could not remember poker-rules, especially as Stephen and Wendell argued about it, and seemed to have quite different rules. It was a complicated game, Elizabeth thought, but it didn’t matter much if everyone had a different conception of its laws.

  Wendell said it was a pity there wasn’t a gramophone. Nina answered quickly that she wouldn’t have come if there had been, and Elizabeth agreed with Wendell that they could have got up an impromptu dance if they had had a gramophone.

  “’Lisbeth, would you really like one?” Stephen asked eagerly.

  “Not if you hate them.”

  “That’s just my pose. Snobbery, I think. We’ll go up to town next week and get one. Why didn’t you demand one before?”

  “Mechanical music,” said Nina, laughing. “I shall go on being snobbish. I once listened to a pianola. I did really, Stephen.”

  “I had one in my rooms at college,” Wendell said. “You can get a lot of fun out of a pianola. Just as good as a piano, and not half the fag.”

  “Oh, no, they’re dreadful!” Elizabeth said suddenly. “So horribly churned out.”

  “Hurray!” Nina cried. “Down with pianolas and barrel-organs. Elizabeth, have you ever heard Musetta’s song on a barrel-organ? It fascinated me. Like a dog against its will. I stood on the curb-stone and shivered all down my spine. Yes, and gave the man sixpence to play it again. Nobody understood my feelings except Aunt Charmian, and she said, Like looking at snakes.”

  “Just what mater would say,” Stephen remarked. “Do you know my mother, Wendell?”

  “No, haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her yet.”

  “When you do,” Stephen said, “she’ll probably say, ‘Ah, I once had a chauffeur whose name was Charles.’ So don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “A chauffeur?” Wendell repeated, in mystification.

  “Or a parrot, or a pet duck. Anything that’s thoroughly uncomplimentary,” Nina explained. “She always does it. When I was born she begged mother not to c
all me Nina as she’d once had a cat of that name and it died.”

  “Oh, I see!” Wendell said, and laughed, trying to sound as though he really did see and was amused.

  He didn’t like Nina; Elizabeth could see that. When Nina had gone, he said,

  “Pretty girl, what? Always get the wind up with those clever women. Never know what they’re driving at. More in Stephen’s line than mine, so I let him do all the talking.”

  That touched Elizabeth on the raw. Nina was “in Stephen’s line”—how well she knew that! Nina and Stephen understood one another; they had the same interests, and they thought the same things funny. They talked nonsense to each other, and neither thought that it was nonsense. Or if they did, they considered that it was amusing to be silly and inconsequent. Elizabeth didn’t think it amusing at all. It got on her nerves; it was a strain to have to follow their line of thought. Not only that. It was usually impossible.

  Stephen’s book was finished at last, and had gone to his typist. The publishers were impatient to see it; there was no doubt that they would accept it. Already they had begun to advertise.

  “That’s off my chest!” Stephen said. “They wanted to publish in the spring; I insist on June or later. Just before the summer holidays. Next there’ll be my typist’s idiocy to correct, and then—oh, ghastly job—proofs! And, Elizabeth—” he caught her in his arms. “I want my wife!”

  She hoped he would not notice the hard beating of her heart. Why was he so insistent? Couldn’t he understand that she wanted to be left alone?

  He was coaxing, petting her.

  “Darling, it’s had a dull brute of a husband for months, but I’m free now. And I won’t sit up till four o’clock in the morning any more. Oh, and I’ll try to be punctual to meals! So can we go and have another honeymoon, please?”

  “I’d—rather—stay here,” she faltered. “Or—London —I don’t mind—but—one can only have—one honeymoon.”

  “Nonsense, babe! We can have as many as we like!” he said gaily. “One every year.”

  “I—I’d prefer to stay here,” she said urgently. “I’ve —never seen—the Halt in the spring. And there are those eggs hatching out. Ducklings and chickens. I couldn’t miss them. The garden, too. Primroses. If—if you want a holiday—I don’t want to be a wet-blanket. You go away—if you want to.”

  His arms fell away from her.

  “Good God, Elizabeth, you can’t think I want a holiday from you? We haven’t been married a year yet!”

  “I didn’t mean that! I only thought— Husbands do go away by themselves. I know they do. It’s—it’s good for them. I could have Auntie to stay with me, too. Oh, and Sarah!”

  She could see the frown gathering in his eyes; she dreaded an outbreak of his temper.

  “Your Aunt! Sarah! Where do I come in, I’d like to know? It seems to me that I don’t come in at all!”

  “Oh, you can’t think that I—I didn’t mean that a bit!”

  With an effort he choked back his rising anger, and spoke levelly, holding Elizabeth’s hands.

  “I wish you’d tell me just what you do mean,” he said. “I can’t keep up with these half-sentences and—innuendoes. In my family we speak out. Can’t you do the same, Elizabeth? Am I to understand that you want me to go away?”

  It was what she had meant, but now that he put the wish into words she was frightened of it, and shrank away.

  “Oh, no! How could you think that?”

  He sighed faintly, looking at her.

  “My dear, I don’t know what to think. You hold me off with a pitch-fork.”

  “I—I don’t! It’s—it’s your imagination!”

  “It’s not. Else why am I still excluded from your room? I don’t like my dressing-room, Elizabeth.”

  She was silent. There was nothing she could say.

  “You’re not being fair to me,” he said quietly. “I happen to be human, you see. You expect too much—or should I say too little?”

  “It’s you who expect too much of me!” she cried, goaded to it.

  He stood very still. For a moment there was silence; Elizabeth dared not look up.

  “Do I?” Stephen said slowly. “Oh!”

  “You—you expect me to like living here—in the country, and you expect me to like your friends—and everything! And I don’t! oh, I don’t!” A sob rose in her throat.

  “You don’t? A minute ago you said you wanted to stay here. Who don’t you like? Is it Nina?”

  She was embarrassed, and sought to dissemble.

  “I ought not to have said that. I didn’t really mean it. Things—get on my nerves. Please don’t pay any attention to it!”

  Then his temper surged up, exasperated and hurt, and white-hot. He crushed her hands together; she saw the flame in his eyes and knew fear.

  “God, can’t you be honest with me?” The words bit. “Say what you think, and damn my feelings! How can I help to straighten things out if you lie, and lie all the time? Say that you loathe Nina! Say you loathe the Halt, and Me, and let’s have it out! You may like groping about in a fog. I don’t! I was taught to be straight forward, not to cheat and lie!”

  “How dare you?” she gasped. “Oh, how dare you? I hate you! How could you say such a thing to me? How could you? Oh, I hate you!”

  The grip on her wrists was torture.

  “Yes, we’ve got it out now,” he said grimly. “You hate me. Don’t try and say you didn’t mean it! I’d rather have it straight from the shoulder like that, than be fooled and cheated, and held at arm’s length!”

  She was sobered for an instant, appalled at the storm she had roused.

  “Ah, I didn’t mean that! I—I don’t hate you, Stephen! You—oh, you know I don’t!”

  “I don’t know it. I’m beginning to feel that I know nothing about you. You’re wrapped round in a net-work of hypocritical evasions! You may think it’s fair to me; I don’t! D’you think I’m a fool to be deceived by your talk of ‘influenza’ and ‘to-morrow’? You don’t mean to live with me as my wife. You’re hoping the desire’ll die in me. You—little—fool, don’t you understand?”

  “Let go my hands! You think me a fool! Oh yes, I’ve known that for a long time!”

  “If you can cheat yourself into imagining that I’ll be content to live with you as we’re living now you certainly are a fool. Good God, Elizabeth, I love you!”

  “You don’t! You’d never—treat me like this—!”

  He laughed; it was an ugly sound, savage and mirthless.

  “I’ve treated you as though you were made of porcelain. You know that. I’ve been a damned fool! And you thought I’d keep it up for ever! Heavens, don’t you know what a man’s like yet? What do you suppose I married you for? To look at? That’s what I’ve been doing for the past months. Do you realise that? Do you think it’s a natural state of affairs? Do you think it’s fair to me, this—this platonic arrangement of yours? What do you take me for, Elizabeth? An iceberg, like yourself? I’m not. Got that? And I’ve had enough of this life we’re leading! I thought if I were patient—hell, patient! —you’d come to me of your own free will.” Again he laughed. “Instead of that you take advantage of my patience, and draw farther away from me! Oh yes, you can look outraged, and if you like you can think yourself an insulted saint! But you’re not! You made a bargain with me when you married me, and now you refuse to fulfill your part of it. Yes, and I’m a brute to expect it of you, aren’t I? I ought to be satisfied with your presence in my home, thankful that you let me kiss you! When you find that I want more than that from my Wife, you think me unreasonable! You sit on your pinnacle of false righteousness and never see that you’re cheating me of what is my right!”

  She had stopped struggling; she tried to cling to dignity, to stand straight and to face the flame of Stephen’s eyes.

  But she was trembling from head to foot, from stark terror, and a sense of violated decency.

  “I—never—dreamed you would—s-say such t
hings—to me!” How her teeth chattered! She tried to smother the Fear, but it was too great. Were all men such primitive monsters as this? “Let me go! You Ye—you Ye hurting me! How dare you—say such things to—me? I think you Ye horrible—horrible!”

  “I daresay you do. You’ve heard the truth for once, and it shocks you. And you’ve shown me that it’s folly— crass folly—to let a woman have her own way! The strong yielding to the weak!” Again she shrank from that ugly laugh. “I tell you, Elizabeth, it’s women like you who make men into beasts! That’s what you think me, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

  “Yes!” she cried. Dry sobs shook her. “Yes, yes, yes! You’re hateful, cruel, unjust!”

  “My God!” he said. “Yes, you think that. You can’t see that it’s you who are cruel and you who are unjust! So long as I’ll submit like a weak nincompoop to your unnatural ruling I’m decent and nice. But when I refuse to give way to you any longer, then I’m cruel and unjust! Well, you can go on thinking that for as long as you’re fool enough. But I’ll be master. Do you understand that? We’ve tried your way, and it’s no good. Now we’ll try mine, my lady.”

  “You—can’t mean—you can’t, can’t mean—you’d f-force me—?”

  “Can’t I?” There was savagery in his voice, and unleashed passion. “You shall yield or you shall be made to yield. I mean that!”

  Then, before she could cry out, or struggle, he dragged her roughly into his arms, and kissed her as he had never kissed her before, fiercely and hard, in anger, full on her agonised mouth.

  She was helpless; his arms were like steel, and as merciless; she felt that she was suffocating and that the remnants of her sanity were slipping from her. She tried to scream, and could not; fought madly, but could not break away one inch. Then she was released, suddenly, so that she staggered backwards, panting and in wildest alarm, catching at a chair-back for support.

  Through a haze she saw Stephen stride to the door and go out. She sank quivering into the chair and crouched there, listening. She heard the front-door slam, and the excited barking of the dogs. The sound of hasty, nervous footsteps died away on the gravel path; the barking grew fainter, and stopped.

  She did not know how long she cowered in the chair after Stephen had gone, or how long it was before the chaotic, racing thoughts grew calmer and more reasonable. The Fear was less now Stephen had gone, but when he came back it would return, more awful this time, impossible to control. She had seen the real Stephen, the primitive Stephen, and the sight appalled her. There was no longer safety under his roof. He was merciless and powerful. He could force his will on her.