by E. H. Young
Mary looked puzzled. “But I wasn’t there,” she said.
“Silly child!” Mr. Blackett said. “You know I wrote special descriptions of them for Mother to read to you.”
“Well, she didn’t. Did you, Mother?” she asked, turning to the other end of the table.
“No, I didn’t,” Mrs. Blackett said pleasantly, “because I very much dislike being read to myself.”
“I don’t mind if it’s exciting,” Mary said.
“Ah, there I’m afraid I shouldn’t have obliged you. The fault of my pen, of course, for the places themselves were exciting enough.”
“What happened in them?”
“Many interesting things, no doubt, but what I tried to express was what happened to me when I looked at them.”
“What did?”
“Nothing, I’m sure,” Mr. Blackett said acidly, “which is likely to happen to you.”
“Hope not, if it was horrid,” Mary said.
Mr. Blackett made a little sound of vexation but he managed to produce a feeble smile in response to Flora’s look of sympathetic exasperation. “Well, well,” he said, and did not return to the subject until he was alone with Bertha. “I was a little hurt,” he said then, “about my letters. I took some trouble with my little narratives and I flattered myself they were rather well done.”
“And I expect you enjoyed doing them.”
“I did. It was a pleasure to me and I hoped to give pleasure to other people.”
“And instruction,” said Mrs. Blackett.
“Yes. And though I have been disappointed there I may get some more pleasure for myself by reading them again.”
“Then what a pity I didn’t keep them,” she said.
“You didn’t keep them?”
“I never keep letters.”
“You get very few to keep,” he retorted.
“Very few,” Mrs. Blackett said.
“And these, if I remember aright, are the only ones you have ever had from me since we were married.”
“I know,” Mrs. Blackett said with a heartfelt mournfulness for which he was momentarily at a loss to account. However, he did his best with this remark.
“And surely,” he said, “it was better to have been together than to have exchanged letters though, for me, there was a charming novelty in writing them.”
“But not in getting them?”
He laughed. “Well Bertha, you haven’t the pen of a ready writer, have you? I was always delighted when I saw your envelopes—there were not many of them by the way—and a little disappointed at what I found within. But it did not matter. I am not entirely lacking in imagination.”
“No indeed,” Mrs. Blackett said.
“And yet I have not quite enough, not quite enough, to understand why you should have destroyed the letters. You see,” he said gently, “I have not been able to do the work which would have been my choice. I should have much preferred to write something different from the dreary stuff I have to put on paper and, rather ironically, about paper, though I have done it with a certain amount of success. Possibly I should have been less successful if I had followed my inclinations,” and as Mrs. Blackett did not dispute this statement though he gave her time, he added, “I could not have afforded to have a wife and family,” and with gratification he saw her draw the deep breath of someone who has escaped disaster by a hair’s breadth. “I might,” he went on with amusement but watching for more signs of distress, “have been living in the traditional garret,” and he was surprised to hear her say in decided tones, “You wouldn’t have liked that.”
“Perhaps not,” he said sharply. “And you wouldn’t have liked it, either, would you?”
“But I shouldn’t have been there.”
“Really, Bertha, I might be talking to Mary! If I must be more explicit, what I meant was that you would have missed all the comfort and happiness we have had together.”
“Yes.” Mrs. Blackett sighed again. “I should have missed all that.”
“And it’s probably all for the best as it is but when I was away in new and beautiful surroundings and with leisure and the sort of freedom an artist needs, I did feel that I could get some of my impressions into words, inadequately, of course, but not so very badly. I had hoped you would appreciate them or at least appreciate the effort, so I felt hurt, Bertha, and yes, even a little angry. I had looked forward to reading them in a moment when what, for want of a more suitable word, I must call the inspiration had left me.”
“The inspiration,” said Mrs. Blackett, “seems to have died away during the last part of your holiday.” She knew what she was doing. While he talked, she saw herself confronted by three choices and two were false and one was honest. She could be responsive and a little awed; she could display those signs of jealousy he fancied he had detected in another direction, or she could let out all the cruelty she had accumulated in twenty years, but the time for that had not come, that must be kept for a more fitting occasion or for one when she could no longer contain it, and she chose the middle course because she thought, hating but determined to indulge herself, it would make her laugh now and add to her weapons for the future. “Your letters lately,” she said, “were very short and hurried.”
He did not answer immediately. Then, looking down and smiling self-consciously, he said, “I was certainly very pleasantly occupied.”
“So I imagined,” said Mrs. Blackett, thinking how silly he looked, and she, too, dropped her eyelids but she did not smile and Mr. Blackett, understanding everything, could not altogether regret the loss of his efforts at fine prose. He would have liked to know whether she had destroyed his letters in a spurt of anger, handling them roughly, or with her usual gentle deftness and before he could say anything either provocative or reassuring, he heard her sigh again, a sound he found very satisfactory.
“What is the matter, Bertha?” he asked hopefully.
“I was just thinking what a lot of people there are in the world altogether, and how important they all are to themselves.”
This was not so satisfactory and he said testily, “Really, women’s minds seem incapable of concentrating on the same subject for more than a minute at a time. And where are the girls going?” he asked, as their figures passed the window.
“To hear the news, I suppose.”
“What news?” Mr. Blackett said scornfully.
“That’s what they want to find out.”
“Don’t be silly, Bertha. You know quite well—at least I hope you do—that I consider all this fuss quite unnecessary. We are in good hands. This is a mere excuse for gadding across the road.”
“You shouldn’t expect young people to stay at home all the time.”
“It depends on the home,” said Mr. Blackett. “However, I hope that unfortunate episode with one of those loutish youths, I can never distinguish one from the other, was merely an episode.”
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Blackett said, “and it was never of any importance. He soon got tired of Flora.”
“Tired of Flora!”
“Yes, people who are always thinking about themselves become very wearisome.”
“I’m surprised,” Mr. Blackett said with reproach, “to hear you speak like that about your daughter.”
“She is your daughter too.”
“I know that very well,” he said with a look so slyly reminiscent that she very much regretted a remark which had, in fact, been meant as an accusation. “And,” he went on, “she made quite a different impression among the friends we met abroad, I can assure you.”
“Perhaps other people stole her chances,” said Mrs. Blackett.
“I don’t understand you.”
“Never mind.” She stood up and went to the window. She had half a mind to follow Flora and Rhoda. Piers was there, she knew, though he had left his car elsewhere. That was a pi
ty. It would have annoyed Herbert to see it there.
“What are you looking at?” Mr. Blackett asked.
“At nothing I can see,” she said without turning round.
“You are rather mysterious to-night,” he half complained.
“Never mind,” she said again as though she spoke to a child.
Just on the other side of the wall on her left hand, so near that it was a wonder she could not hear them, were the two people she liked best in all the world, Rhoda and Piers. There was, she decided, a difference between love and liking. She supposed she had some natural love for Flora and rather more for Mary; she was anxious for their well-being and happiness; but, as Rhoda had said, it was liking that really mattered, the trust and security that went with it, and she wished with all her heart she could like the man who sat behind her. Was she fair to him? she asked herself. Had she ever tried to get below those varnished coats of conceit and self-esteem with which he was plastered? And what would she have found if she had succeeded? How good it would be, she thought, if she could drop on her knees in front of his and put her arms round his waist and laughingly try to shake him while she told him what an old goose he was but how much she liked him, all the same. But he would not care to be called a goose and she did not like him. She could not have really liked him in any circumstances and, bound to him as she was, her body at his disposal, what might have been a mild antipathy was an increasingly strong one. She wished he had not gone away. She felt as though the poison in her system, not altogether deleterious while it was under control, had now, with her temporary freedom, flooded her whole body and she was in danger of complete corruption, and she understood how people could go to a priest to be shriven. But that way was not for her. Sooner or later, she would have to find another.
“You are looking at nothing for a long time,” Mr. Blackett remarked.
“But I’m seeing something now,” she said with a note of pleasure in her voice, for Connie, carrying a heavy suitcase, had just come into sight. “It’s Connie. What a good creature she is! She needn’t have come till to-morrow.”
“I think she ought to have been here long ago,” said Mr. Blackett. “And the precious news must be over by now. It’s time the girls were back.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Blackett, starting for the door to welcome Connie, “do try to be more liberal.”
“Liberal?” he said.
“More generous.”
“What an extraordinary thing to say to me!” Mr. Blackett exclaimed in genuine astonishment, but she had gone.
It was pleasant to be with Connie in the kitchen, to hear about her holiday and her relatives and her opinion on the state of affairs, even though she had forebodings about her brother who was a reservist and fears for her nephews who were growing up, and while Mrs. Blackett was there, listening with sympathy and some affection for a faithful friend, Mr. Blackett had the vexation of seeing Piers Lindsay escorting his daughters to their door.
“Really,” he said later to Mrs. Blackett, “I’ve come to the conclusion that someone ought to tell him about Mrs. Fraser.”
“What about her.”
“She has a husband.”
“Perhaps he knows.”
Mr. Blackett laughed. “I’m quite sure she has kept that fact pretty dark.”
“I don’t see why she should.”
“Of course you don’t, thank Heaven! But I do. She doesn’t want to frighten him away. The victims who get entangled in her web are what she feeds on.”
“Then,” said Mrs. Blackett, “you think she ought to have no men friends?”
“No nice woman can have men friends,” he replied.
“Miss Spanner lives there too.”
“I should hardly call Miss Spanner a woman,” Mr. Blackett said with a smiling sneer. “But of course you were referring to her as a chaperon, and in that capacity she may justify her existence,” and Mrs. Blackett, going upstairs to wish Rhoda good night, told herself it would be impossible for anyone to tease or persuade him out of his prejudices.
She found the room in darkness. She felt her way to the head of the bed and stood there for a moment, thinking Rhoda might be asleep but, as an ominous little sound reached her, she bent down and found her face was wet.
“Isn’t it awful?” Rhoda gasped.
“What, child, what?” Mrs. Blackett asked anxiously.
“Not being able to cry properly because of Mary. There’s only one place in the house I can sometimes get to myself and it’s not comfortable enough to cry in.”
Mrs. Blackett crossed to the other bed. “Mary’s fast asleep,” she said. “But why are you crying? You never cry.” ·
“Everybody,” Rhoda persisted jerkily, “ought to have a private place.”
“Yes, indeed they should. But why are you crying?” Mrs. Blackett asked again, sitting on the edge of the bed and stroking Rhoda’s hand until the sobs subsided.
“You’re sure she’s asleep? I’m so ashamed,” Rhoda whispered.
“Ashamed?”
“Of Flora,” Rhoda said, and Mrs. Blackett was immediately conscious of relief. “And I can’t explain, exactly, but it was all wrong and horrid. Showing off. And they were all there, Chloe and Mr. Stephens and Cousin Piers and all the others and Miss Spanner, of course, and suddenly she began sort of teasing Felix, and she’s hardly ever spoken to him before, and hinting she’d seen him somewhere, with somebody to-day, as if he’d been doing it on the sly, laughing, you know, in a silly way, but spiteful underneath. It was awful. It doesn’t sound anything when I tell you,” Mrs. Blackett, however, thought it sounded far too much, “and it didn’t last long, but it made me feel as if my inside had all shrivelled up and I was ashamed to look at anyone and Felix stared at her as if he’d like to kill her, quite slowly and politely, I mean the killing, and Cousin Piers changed the subject and everybody began to talk. And now we can never go there again!”
“You can,” Mrs. Blackett said.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. You’ll find it will be all right.”
“Then I’ll try to go to sleep and forget it, as though it had nothing to do with me, but it has, you know, in a way.”
“Yes, in a way,” Mrs. Blackett admitted.
“And have I worried you? I wouldn’t have told you if you hadn’t come in just then. Have I worried you?” she repeated.
“I’m sorry about it,” her mother said, “but I shan’t cry.”
“No, you can’t,” Rhoda said crossly. “You’ve nowhere to do it in, have you? You’re worse off than me.”
Chapter XLIV
Flora knew she had made a mistake. She had made one with James, though this she did not regret, and now she had made one with Felix. She had her father’s capacity for mental juggling, but she was not easy as she undressed, with frequent pauses to contemplate herself in the mirror and favourably compare her vivid colouring with the pale yet, she had to own, somehow attractive young woman she had seen with Felix that morning. She had a lively instinct in such matters and she knew, from the way they walked in silence, that they were not casual acquaintances, and she felt a bitter enmity for that girl who, she was sure, was not a lady, nor was she as pretty as she was herself.
She turned from the mirror as she heard her mother go to Rhoda’s room and, after a while, pause on the landing, but she only called out a good night and passed on and Flora let out the breath she had been holding. There was a part of her that could not but respect her mother’s standards of behaviour, old-fashioned though they were—or, more truly, it was her mother herself who evoked respect. A reproach from her would have been unpleasant, but apparently Rhoda had told no tales. She was probably too stupid to realize there was one to tell and Flora would not have realized it herself but for Felix’s cold stare and the very reserved good night of Cousin Piers. She was not sensit
ive to the surrounding atmosphere. She saw her mistake now, not as one of essence but of situation. Where she had been wrong was in teasing Felix in the bosom of his family. He would have been quite different if no one else had been there; he would have liked it, she was sure, but she had not been able to control her desire to show herself lively and knowing, to attract his attention and relieve her jealousy of someone who seemed to be getting what was her own due.
Downstairs, though with no sense of error and not actually looking in a mirror, Mr. Blackett was experiencing some of the feelings he would have been disgusted to discover in his daughter. Across the road, the family dispersed without reference to Flora. Miss Spanner had plenty to say but she was biding her time until Rosamund was in bed. Below, in the garden, Chloe and her lover were saying a long good night and Miss Spanner made as much noise as possible while she undressed to warn them that she was not far away. Then the murmur of voices ceased, she heard Chloe coming up the stairs and hoped for another knock on her door, another confidential little talk, but happiness was self-sufficient, Chloe did not knock and Miss Spanner, though disappointed, consoled herself by reflecting that she was only being treated as most people treated God. He was a very present help in time of trouble, forgotten when times were good.
She braided her hair, donned the drab dressing-gown and then, as she cautiously reconnoitred the landing, she saw Felix making for his mother’s door; another disappointment but one highly provocative of speculation, and with speculation Miss Spanner knew she would have to be content. She decided to get into bed but it was some time before she opened her book. Deliberately she put out of her mind all the little events of the day, James and Rhoda sitting on the roller in unsentimental oblivion of what went on around them, Flora’s coy impudence, and those murmuring voices in the garden which, now that they were silent, had changed from those of the man and girl she knew to an echo of all such murmurings in the past, a prediction of all to come, with every pair of lovers believing they were saying new things in new tones. In such murmurings Miss Spanner had had no share: she had been denied much happiness, spared much sorrow, and it seemed to her that she was like the neuter gender personified. She had put forth nothing and mentally she was the more able, though less able than she thought, to view greater events impersonally. On this occasion she did not try to view any of them. The little ones in the garden, in the long sitting-room, dropped quietly out of sight as though they had left the stage by some mechanical device; the crowded contents of her bedroom lost shape and meaning and she gazed at the opposite wall without seeing the smudged oil paintings or the ghastly clarity of the framed photographs and, in her way and very humbly, Miss Spanner tried to pray, putting up no definite petitions, aware that, unlike her father, she did not know what gifts the Lord ought to vouchsafe, but hoping that justice and mercy would be among them. That was all she could do. The pictures returned to the walls, the furniture appeared again, she felt her recurrent pleasure at being in this house, surrounded by her own possessions, but unpossessed herself by tyrannous affection. Opening her book, she forgot everything but the printed page and her sharp ears missed the sound of Felix shutting his mother’s door.