by Alec Waugh
“I see, Geoffrey,” she says, “I see. I understand you perfectly.” There is a dimple by the corner of her mouth; Geoffrey grows increasingly uncomfortable. He feels that not only is he being scrutinized but that he has been scrutinized; not only that he is being weighed but that he has been weighed; not only that he is being taken count of, but that he has been taken count of. He has the sensation that a general has who sets out at the head of a band of mercenaries without a guide into an enemy and unmapped country.
“Sybyl,” he stammers, “Sybyl.”
But the stillness in the brown eyes stays him. He cannot speak. He has said all that there is to say.
“I understand perfectly,” she repeats. “We’ve been seeing a good deal of each other during the last three months and you’ve begun to fall in love with me, or rather you’ve begun to feel that you want to make love to me, which may or may not be the same thing. And you want to make your position clear to me. You don’t propose marriage to be the climax of your love making. And you don’t want to place me or, to be more accurate, to place yourself, in a false position. You don’t in fact want either of us to be—how shall it be put?—led up the garden? That’s it, I believe, isn’t it?”
She smiles in answer to his nod.
“So now,” she concludes cheerfully, “we know exactly where we are. It’s very nice of you to have been so frank about it.”
And she returns her attention to the rapidly melting sauce of her pêche melba.
For Geoffrey Brackenridge it is a miserable half-hour. He is embarrassed and he is angry. Angry because she will not display one signal of embarrassment. She finishes her pêche melba. She says she will have her coffee white. She thinks that she would on the whole prefer a Benedictine to a Green Chartreuse. She sips slowly and appreciatively at the thick golden cream. She smokes three cigarettes and discusses with the utmost unconcern the details and psychology of a contemporary and sensational divorce suit. Geoffrey is completely wretched. If only she will finish her coffee. It must be cold by now. If only she will sip at that last drop of Benedictine. If only she will not light another cigarette. None of the things that he longs to say to her can be said here, in this restaurant that he has thought previously to be the quietest place in London, but that seems now to him to be noisier than the dance palace at Hammersmith. He waves a hand of summons. Perhaps the sight of the folded bill at his side will hurry her. The ruse fails.
“I think, Geoffrey,” she says, “I would like another coffee. One of the ones they call their specialty.”
A specialty that will take, he knows and she knows too, a good fifteen minutes to prepare. Slowly these minutes pass. It is her revenge and she is savouring it.
But at last the meal has ended, the wretched meal that has dragged out its interminable length till after ten. At last in the warm darkness of the taxi they are alone together. The scent of Émeraude is about him. His fingers are stretched out to hers. The tardily-come headstrong words are upon his lips.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” he pleads, “don’t misjudge me. Don’t think that I don’t love you. I do, more than I can say, I do. But I’m not the marrying sort. I’m not, and that’s the end of it. I’d only make you wretched and I love you so. I can’t face the fear of that. I love you so, I want you so. Don’t think of me as a cad.”
She shakes her head.
“I don’t think that of you,” she says.
His little finger is twisted about hers. Swaying together as the ill-sprung cab jolts over the uneven road they sit in silence. His shoulder is against hers, a strand of her hair is ruffled against his cheek.
“What then do you think of me?” he asks.
Again she shakes her head.
“Ah, if I knew myself, my dear; nice things, though, you can be sure of that.”
And there is no further need between them of the poor medium of words.
Chapter VI
An Offer of Release
As is the case with the majority of Londoners who subscribe to the inconveniences of a telephone, Gwen Lawrence’s correspondence consisted of receipted and unreceipted bills, solicitations from financiers, engraved cards of invitation, and such notes as: “Half a line, Gwen, dear, to remind you that I’ll be calling at quarter to eight to-morrow.” It was only on rare occasions that she received what the Victorians would have called a letter, and these were for the most part tearful testimonies of devotion or indignant protestations at despised affection.
It was with some surprise, therefore, that she read on the back of an envelope on the day following Christopher’s cocktail party, the embossed outlines of an address in Lincoln’s Inn.
“Lincoln’s Inn,” she murmured to herself. “That looks like solicitors. And I can’t think of anyone who’s likely to be leaving me any money. Perhaps the wife of one of my admirers has decided to cite me as a co-respondent. She’ll have a hard job to prove anything if she has.”
And with a hurried flick of her forefinger she tore back the flap.
“DEAR MADAM,” the letter ran, “We should be very grateful if you could make it convenient to call upon us one day soon, as we would like to discuss with you a matter of some importance.
“Yours faithfully,
“TERENCE, JOHN & GREENIDGE.”
“Terence, John & Greenidge,” she repeated. “Never heard of them. Well, let’s see what it is they want.” And, leaning sideways among her pillows, she lifted the telephone that at night she had always moved from the drawing-room to a small table by her bed.
“Is that Terence, John & Greenidge?” she asked. “It is. Good. This is Mrs. Lawrence. You wrote to me this morning.”
It was a thick but ingratiating voice that answered her.
“Ah, yes, Mrs. Lawrence, of course.”
“You wanted to see me. What was it about?”
“On a matter, Mrs. Lawrence, that it would be scarcely proper or indeed desirable to discuss across a telephone.”
“So? Then you’d better, hadn’t you, send someone up here to discuss it with me.”
At the other end of the line there was a little gasp, followed by a pause.
“But, Mrs. Lawrence,” the voice resumed more ingratiatingly than ever, “we are busy people——”
“And I am an extremely busy woman.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure, I’m sure,” he gabbled hastily,”very busy, extremely busy. At the same time, Mrs. Lawrence——”
She cut him short.
“I’m not going to discuss it,” she answered testily. “You want apparently to see me. As far as I know I have no reason for wishing to see you.”
“It will be to your advantage——”
Again she interrupted him.
“The more it may be to my advantage the more it will be to yours. I shall be in this morning,” she added, “till twenty-five past twelve.”
At the other end of the line there was a little sigh.
“It is most unusual.”
“I shall be in,” Gwen Lawrence repeated, “till twenty-five past twelve,” and, replacing the receiver, she rolled back again into the warmth and comfort of her bed.
“It’s curious,” she murmured to herself, “how easy it is to get things done for one the moment one has ceased to mind whether one has them done or not.”
At five minutes to twelve there was a knock upon the front door and a card on which were engraved in Baskerville italics, “Terence, John & Greenidge,” was presented by an exquisite young person with one of those foolproof figures for which it is scarcely possible for a tailor to build a badly-fitting suit.
The effect was almost too exquisite in fact. The double-breasted lapels lay back too smoothly on the creaseless shoulder; the weight of the coat was borne with too little effort by the second button. One could have wished that the pockets gave the appearance of having served at any rate at some point in their existence as the receptacles for a tobacco pouch; beneath the tapered points of the waistcoat the pleats of the trousers curved wit
h an excess of grace. And it was a pity that the pattern of the tie was repeated so closely in the crêpe handkerchief at the breast pocket.
With a smile and a slight inclination of the head he walked forward.
“I have come,” he said, “on behalf of Terence, John & Greenidge.” He paused, looked quickly round the room, smiled again, executed an inclusive gesture of the hand: “Such a charming flat——”
“It is nice of you,” she said, “to like it.”
“But who could fail to?” And stepping across the floor, he peered slowly at one of the black-framed etchings on the walls. “You will excuse me,” he said; “modern art interests me so intensely. A Wadsworth, ah no, a Nash. An admirable example of a most distinguished art. The most personal, I sometimes consider, of all our more recent painters. Pattern, that’s what I find there, pattern.”
The rich amber-coloured eyes glowed with a gentle mockery. So this was the new technique—the modern business method that had found its way even to the walled cities of the law. Had there been prints of horses on the walls, he would have discussed with equal volubility and equal superficiality the chance of Spawn Spadah in the Grand National.
“This matter, Mr. Terence, on which you wished to speak to me?”
“Ah, yes, this matter,” and, stepping soundlessly across the floor, he seated himself in a corner of the chesterfield and leant forward confidentially. “It is, if I may say so, Mrs. Lawrence, a slightly delicate matter. It concerns your husband.”
“Ah!” Involuntarily the exclamation sprang from her lips, but her back was to the light and he could not see how the faint lines about her mouth and eyes were tightened.
“We may assume, may we not,” he continued brightly, “that the relations between your husband and yourself have not recently been too happy?”
“His continued absence from this flat would justify that assumption.”
“Exactly. Now we have been in touch lately with your husband.”
“What! You have seen him? He’s in London?”
A suave, deprecatory hand was lifted.
“We have been in touch with your husband,” Mr. Everard Terence corrected her, “and it has occurred to him that possibly you might wish the existing condition of affairs to be discontinued.”
“You mean——” the room was swimming before her eyes; the breath in her throat was choking her. Against the cool satin slip her heart was thudding. Did Eric want, then, to come back? And if he did, what was she to do? She felt lonely suddenly and weak: defenceless before the return of a love that had once so thrilled her. “You mean——?” she repeated tonelessly.
The reply came jauntily, as one that this polished person was in the habit of making with refreshing frequency.
“It occurred to him that it might possibly be in your interests to be free.”
Twice quickly Gwen Lawrence blinked. So it was no more than that, then. The time had come for Eric to feel that a divorce would suit him.
“He thought,” Mr. Terence continued, “that a person, may I say, as attractive as yourself,” and the large smooth features were animated by a courtly smile, “might find herself very easily in the position of wishing to remarry. Our client, I may say, does not find himself in any such position. Marriage, he has told us, is the last proposition that he would consider. Any proceedings, therefore, that he might be induced to take would be taken with the sole purpose of affording you relief. It would be a completely disinterested act. As far as he is concerned, he is content that things should continue as they are. But for you he realizes things may be very likely different.”
He paused on a note of interrogation that Gwen ignored.
“Go on,” she said.
Mr. Terence shrugged his shoulders as though he were loth to conduct the conversation down avenues where delicacy might hesitate to accompany it.
“Our client, I repeat,” he said regretfully, “has not, as far as he is himself concerned, the slightest inducement to seek his freedom. Indeed, he has a great number of very cogent reasons for wishing to avoid it. The world is more tolerant than it used to be on such occasions. But even now the Divorce Courts leave their stigma, especially in certain professions. Our client is engaged at the moment in work the exact nature of which I cannot naturally particularize, but for which an unblemished record is essential. It is not unlikely that our client would lose his appointment were he to become involved in such proceedings. That, of course, is a very serious consideration.”
Again he paused on the same note of interrogation, and again Gwen Lawrence refused to assist his suave unravelling of his theme. Again Mr. Terence shrugged his shoulders.
“Our client, you will see,” he continued, “has nothing to gain and a very great deal to lose. He is conscious, however, very rightly, though also, I consider, very chivalrously, of certain moral obligations that he has towards you. And he is prepared to help you in any way he can, short, that is needless to say, of actual loss to himself.”
Again he paused, and this time Gwen Lawrence took up her cue. Like a short-arm jab with the whole of the boxer’s weight swung into it, the clear-cut sentence crashed heavily through Mr. Terence’s guard.
“How much does he want?” she asked. “Will a thousand buy him?”
For a full half-minute Terence, John & Greenidge’s social representative was incapable of answer.
“That is not,” he said at length, “the way in which I should prefer to have the matter put.”
“It’s the true way. He’s ready to give me the freedom I’ve a perfect right to if I’ll buy it at the price at which he’s pleased to value it.”
There was an unhappy expression on the face of Mr. Everard Terence.
“You can hardly expect our client to run, without some guarantee, the grave risk––”
Impatiently Gwen Lawrence tapped her fingers against the side of her chair.
“Now, now, now,” she said, “we’ve had enough evasion. Let’s have the truth for once. My husband has begun to wonder whether there may not be someone anxious to marry me who is well enough off to make it worth his while to be divorced. That’s how it stands. So let’s get down to figures. Will a thousand buy him?”
“The word ‘buy,’ Mrs. Lawrence,” he protested.
“It’s the right word, Mr. Terence, but you can use some other word if you think that it sounds prettier.”
“The word I used was guarantee.”
“Then I will, too: is a thousand, do you think, a sufficient guarantee?”
Everard Terence looked dubious.
“If my client were to lose his present employment it might take him a considerable while to find another. There might be the matter of travel, too; it’s not as though he were at work in England; travelling is expensive nowadays. A thousand is not a great deal for such a risk as that.”
The corners of Gwen’s mouth lifted scornfully.
“Fifteen hundred would probably be a more adequate guarantee?” she suggested.
Everard Terence nodded.
“Our client has, as far as is consistent with his own safety, no wishes other than your happiness. He would neither expect nor ask to be guaranteed a penny further than was strictly necessary. He would be generous and chivalrous enough, I think, to accept fifteen hundred.”
“So we know now exactly where we are,” and Gwen Lawrence rose from her chair in indication that the interview was ended. “You will hear from me,” she added, “in a few days’ time.”
Mr. Everard Terence bowed and smiled.
“You have been most kind to me,” he said. “You have made extremely pleasant an occasion that in less skilful hands might have been extremely awkward.” As he turned to go he looked once more slowly and appreciatively round the room.
“How I envy you that,” he said, pointing to the black-framed etching. “You will remember perhaps my interest, should you ever have need to be dispossessed of it.”
Another minute and the door of the flat had closed upon his ele
gant and scented person, and Gwen Lawrence was left to stand brooding in the centre of the room.
So she could be free then, if she chose.
• • • • • • • •
With a liquid and envious eye May Julian examined the menu of the second Lyons in the Edgware Road. Spaghetti and Toast, 5d. And she was feeling more than usually hungry. Fivepence was fivepence, though. It would take three minutes to bring the dish, two minutes quite to eat; she had only one hour for lunch, the cleaning of the flat took a good thirty minutes, the flat was quite seven minutes’ walk from it. And if she spent fivepence she would have to buy French flowers instead of tulips on Saturday.
And she had so wanted to buy tulips. There were some lovely mauve ones at three and six a bunch in that shop on the left of Chapel Street. Sixpence a day would manage it. And they would last a week. Gwen would be so grateful for them. That was the sweet thing about Gwen. She never took things for granted. Every Saturday when she came back to find the vase on the dressing-table in her bedroom filled with fresh flowers she would throw her head back happily, “My darling,” she would say, “how dear of you.” And she would put her hand upon your shoulder and as you lifted your face to meet her kiss, it was like a beautiful perfumed flower bending over you. No wonder men were mad about her. But however many lilies and orchids they might shower on her, it was by herself that the bedroom vases were always filled.
She was so sweet and kind to one. And it was lovely in the evening when she came back after her dance or theatre and lay back in the arm-chair, with her arms so white and lovely rested out along the sides, while you sat at her feet, and she told you of all that she had done and seen and said. And if occasionally she was irritable and snapped at you, what could you expect, with all these men bothering her? And, in a way, it was rather nice to think that you were there for her to snap at when she wanted to; as she couldn’t, if there were a maid or charwoman living with her. It was good to get things off your chest. And it would be silly to spend fivepence on spaghetti when you weren’t really hungry, and it would mean those silly pansy things instead of tulips, and only twenty minutes to clean the flat in.