“A lot of James’ friends used to talk like that,” said Caroline, and then went quite white.
“It’s too hot for you in here, my dear,” said Hugh, who was next to her, looking at her with concern. “Come along and we’ll get a taxi. You bring Anna, Francis, and give me our tickets.”
There was the usual block of traffic, which gave plenty of time for conversation.
“Caroline,” said Hugh, “I’m going to do a little blundering. Do you still care for James?”
Caroline shrank from him as if he were James himself and shook her head.
“No, no,” she said. “I hardly even remember him.”
“But you don’t like talking of him?”
Caroline put her hand on his arm.
“No, I hate it. But I feel I ought to do a kind of five finger exercises by saying his name till I can say it without making a fool of myself. Not because of hating him, because you don’t hate a person that you never think of. I think I forgot all about him when I was ill, after Francis took me to Beechwood. But a person’s name can suddenly hurt one so much. Do you know what I mean?”
“I do. There are some names that one can’t even say in a normal voice because they lay open some nerve. I was frightfully in love with a woman once. Her name was Susan and she came from Norwich and she lived with her husband in Ovington Square. I fell out of love with her, and I haven’t seen her or heard of her for years, but if I read or hear the words Susan, or Norwich, or Ovington, I go all queer. Nearly as queer as you went just now, my poor Caroline.”
“Thank you,” said Caroline, edging back towards him.
“Not at all, dear cousin. I only want to show you that though I don’t forget for a moment what you have been through – and probably I don’t know half of it – I don’t want you to think that you are alone and shut off in being self-conscious about mentioning James. The more you can mention him the better. I didn’t mean discuss him, which thank heaven we needn’t do, but just to be able to let his name slip out naturally. It will be easier for his people too. Do you mind my telling you this, darling?”
“No. I am really very grateful and I’ll try hard. Was she very lovely, Hugh?”
“Who?”
“Susan, that you were in love with.”
“I suppose she was. I really would hardly know her now.” Caroline had by now reached her normal position in the taxi so that Hugh could comfortably slip his arm through hers.
“I shall try to behave better,” she announced.
“My dear, you are perfect. But I can’t bear to see my cousin pale and distressed, so I had to give you good advice. Don’t let yourself be too lonely. You need someone to bully you. Not really bully,” he added, as he felt Caroline flinch, “only for your good. I hope some day we may be on terms that will let me bully you even more than I do. Bless you, child. How much does it say on the clock? Two and threepence? I shall give the man three shillings to mark my approval of my fellow passenger.”
Francis and Anna were also beguiling the time with conversation, as their taxi moved forwards with jerks and grindings.
“How is everyone at Beechwood?” asked Francis, approaching the subject cautiously.
Anna, pleased to talk of her beloved Beechwood, said that everyone was very well. Francis inquired if a fellow called Beaton hadn’t come into Whitelands. Anna said he had, adding that the society of Colonel Beaton and his daughter Julia had been the greatest pleasure and solace to herself and Caroline.
“Everyone likes Colonel Beaton,” she said. “Father is so glad to have someone really clever to talk to, and Mother adores him. He has done Caroline a lot of good and really takes her out of herself.”
Francis said how glad he was to hear it.
“He is working on Gustavus Adolphus at present,” Anna continued. “Julia tries to do secretary for him, but she is so silly, though an adorable creature, that she isn’t much good. So Caroline goes over to help sometimes. She is rather good at reading Colonel Beaton’s handwriting, which is like an oriental manuscript. I hope she will go on with the secretarying when we go down to Beechwood again. It is so good for her.”
Francis said with some difficulty that he was sure it was.
“Francis,” said Anna, “I do hope darling Caroline will marry again. It sounds a brutal sort of thing to say after the time she had with that beast James, but she oughtn’t to be hanging about as an unattached woman. She seems to have a kind of feeling that people don’t want her because she hasn’t a husband. It isn’t true of course, but she can easily make it true by shutting herself away from people. You will do all you can to help, won’t you, Francis?”
“Of course I will.”
“I have sometimes had a kind of idea that she and Hugh might get married,” pursued Anna, zealous for her sister-in-law’s good.
Francis nearly laughed at the preposterous idea, but determined not to disabuse Anna. It would be all the more amusing for her when she found how wrong she had been.
“Do you think we are a nice family to marry into?” he asked carelessly.
“Of course I do.”
“I’m glad you think so,” said Francis, examining a handful of silver and coppers, “because what you think will mean a good deal to me.”
Anna got out and went into the theater while Francis paid the cab. Her mind was so whirling with the thoughts that Francis’ last remark had roused that at first she hardly saw her brother George, white-gloved, the center of a group of serious young men, with Wilfred hanging about nervously at the edge of the crowd. George waved kindly to her, but she gathered that the presence of an acknowledged sister might be a blot on his evening, so she went on with Francis to the seats where Caroline and Hugh were already installed.
During the interval, Francis and Hugh found themselves alone for a moment.
“I say,” said Hugh, “I did some good work for you in the taxi. I hinted to Caroline that she needed someone to look after her, and she didn’t seem at all displeased.”
“Oh,” Francis. “I say, what do you think Anna said? She has a mad kind of idea that it is you who are fond of Caroline.”
“That,” said Hugh, “is where her toes turn in. But seriously, Francis, you know I would be frightfully pleased to see you and Caroline happy, so go ahead. After all, why should you want me and Anna to help you, I don’t know. Perhaps I’m butting in where I’m not wanted. But you aren’t being very ardent, you know,” said Hugh in a slightly disappointed voice.
“Ardent,” said Francis with a short laugh. “Oh, well, never mind. But one daren’t say too much or go too fast. She is all quivering with nerves still and I feel as if one word too much might drive her so far into herself that I couldn’t get her back.”
“Damn that swine James,” said Hugh in a loud cheerful voice, which made a young man near him, whose name happened to be through no fault of his own Henry James, give a nervous start and move hastily away. Francis heartily concurred.
When the performance was over, the younger men disappeared, to continue the arduous night life of balletomanes in Simonovna’s dressing room and afterwards at the Cafe Royal, so Francis and Hugh took the others home in a taxi.
“I would ask you to come in,” said Anna at the door, “but the parents are probably asleep, and if they are asleep they will infallibly wake up and be gently reproachful tomorrow. On the other hand, if they are awake they will expect me to go and report myself, and wonder why we stayed so long downstairs. So, do you mind?”
“Good night, Caroline,” said Francis, “come and have tea with us one day soon.”
“Yes, do,” said Hugh. “Good night, dear cousin.”
“Good night, Anna,” said Francis. “Take care of Caroline. I am so thankful that she has you with her.”
“Of course I will,” said Anna.
“And will you come to tea if Caroline comes?”
“Of course.”
So Anna and Caroline went upstairs to bed. As they slept on the third floor back
and Mr. and Mrs. Danvers on the second floor front, they were able to talk in safety, once they had got past the landing. But neither was very much inclined for talk, so they kissed and said good night.
Anna lay awake for some time thinking about Caroline and her cousins. If Hugh and Caroline did get married, it would be an excellent plan. Francis evidently thought so too, and Francis had said that what she thought would mean a good deal to him. It seemed to Anna that if Francis, whose image was seldom absent from her thoughts, cared so much for her opinion, he might perhaps care for her in other ways. If she had heard Hugh’s conversation with Caroline, she would have appreciated what he said about the potency of names. The mere mention of the words Lincoln’s Inn Fields (where Francis had his office), was enough to set her whole being madly adrift like a leaf in a gale. She was by now indulging in her favorite pastime when alone, of imagining the scene in which Francis would ask her to marry him, the extraordinary bliss it would be when he held her in his arms. Just as she was trying to make up her mind whether it would be more romantic to be proposed to on the drawing room hearth rug after dinner (her family having obligingly dematerialized), or in Francis’ study when she and Caroline went to tea there, a sound from Caroline’s room broke into her imaginings. She sat up in bed to listen and again heard a stifled cry. At once, she got up and opened the door between their rooms. Feeling her way by the light from her own room, she turned on the reading lamp by Caroline’s bed. Her sister-in-law lay looking at her with unseeing eyes and such an expression of frozen terror that Anna was almost afraid.
“Can I do anything, darling?” she asked uncertainly.
Caroline recognized her and the wild light died from her eyes.
“I am so sorry,” she said apologetically. “It was a nightmare, and I didn’t know where I was. I hope I didn’t wake you. What time is it?”
“Only one o’clock, darling. I was still awake and you didn’t wake me a bit. What was it?” she asked, sitting on the bed and holding Caroline’s shaking hands.
“James,” said Caroline. “I thought he was here, and then I tried to call Hugh to save me, and then I must have screamed till I woke myself up. I am so dreadfully sorry.”
Anna’s feelings towards her elder brother were so venomous that she could not trust herself to speak. Telling Caroline to put a shawl around her and keep warm, she padded downstairs in dressing gown and slippers and explored the kitchen regions for milk. While the milk was warming on the gas stove, she gave herself a good deal of relief by squashing two or three black beetles with a flat iron, treating each as symbolic of James. Then she took the milk upstairs. As she reached the first floor landing, she heard the chink of a latch key, and Wilfred and George came in. She gathered from the muffled noises that reached her that both her brothers were taking their shoes off, less from an altruistic desire not to disturb their parents than from a wish not to be caught on the way upstairs. She ran up to her own landing, and bending over the banisters in the dark, listened. The boys had accomplished more than half their journey in safety when just outside Mrs. Danvers’ room George let one of his shoes fall. Immediately a line of light appeared at Mrs. Danvers’ partly open door, and Anna heard her mother’s voice saying, “Is that you, boys? Come and tell me if you had a nice time.”
There was a short scuffle on the landing and Wilfred appeared breathless beside her, so exalted by his back stage experiences that the sight of his sister on the landing at half past one in the morning with a glass of milk did not appear to strike him as at all unusual.
“Mother has caught George,” he announced in a whisper. “I’m off to bed.”
“Go quietly,” said Anna. “Caroline can’t sleep tonight.”
“Rotten luck,” said Wilfred sympathetically, and went into his room where he performed a series of ballet steps, reminiscent of Simonovna, to his own whistled accompaniment while undressing.
Anna took the milk to Caroline, sat with her while she drank it, and remained with her till George, whose pleasure had been dragged to earth by having to tell his mother about it, and even having to allude to Simonovna in so soul destroying a place as his own home, came muttering upstairs and banged his door. After this, Anna went back to bed and fell asleep with Francis in her mind.
Chapter IV
Anna Has A Serious Talk
Although the cousins and Anna met on various occasions, the projected tea party did not take place for some weeks. Hugh had to go abroad once or twice and Francis was away for several weekends, so it was not till near the end of November that Hugh rang Anna up one morning, inviting her and Caroline to tea on the following Saturday. Anna said they would love to come, but they were going to Colonel Beaton’s lecture that afternoon at three-thirty, so might they bring him and his daughter to tea as they would be staying at Cadogan Square.
“Of course that will be splendid,” said Hugh. “You know I met Beaton and Julia in Berlin and fell for them both. How is Caroline?”
“Very well. How is Francis?”
“Very fit. He’ll be awfully glad to have the chance of meeting Beaton. He was asking me something about him only the other day.”
Francis was standing by his study fire when his cousin broke the news to him that evening, and his pleasure took the outward and visible form of kicking a piece of coal violently and uttering a malediction on people who couldn’t leave plans alone.
“Dash it all,” said Hugh, not unreasonably, “why shouldn’t I ask Beaton and his daughter? I know them both, and they are charming. Besides, I want to pick Beaton’s brains for the review.”
The whole Danvers family looked forward to the visit of the Beatons. Anna and Caroline were very fond of father and daughter, and Julia got on excellently with the boys. With Mrs. Danvers, Colonel Beaton was a great favorite, while Mr. Danvers, who had talked a good deal with him at Beechwood, had a great respect for his capacity and had made certain suggestions which Colonel Beaton divulged to Anna.
The Beatons were to spend the night before the lecture at Cadogan Square. As Mr. and Mrs. Danvers were out when the Beatons arrived, Anna gave them tea in her sitting room. When Wilfred and George came in about six o’clock, they carried Julia off to hear some new gramophone records, so that Colonel Beaton and Anna were left alone.
“Anna,” he said presently, “do tell me something about your young brothers. I don’t know them well, and I have a rather special reason for wanting to know.”
“Well, Wilfred is an English Fascist, but he can’t be bothered to go to the blackshirt meetings much, because they are apt to happen on nights when he has a theater or dance, besides somehow involving him in high tea. George is very pro-Soviet and adores Russian ballet. At least that is what they have been this autumn, but really you never know. Of course it’s easier for George than for Wilfred, because the ballet is so nice to go to, though expensive.”
Colonel Beaton laughed.
“That’s all right,” he said. “All young men need a label. But I mean how do they seriously think of their lives? Do they like the business? Are they keen to get on in it and make it a success?”
“As far as I can see, and of course an elder sister, I imagine, sees less than many other people, George is keener than Wilfred. George does so love town life and being what he calls a balletomane, and he wants to get rich so that he can go about a lot and entertain. But Wilfred loves going abroad. Sometimes he says he will go to a friend who farms in Kenya, but we haven’t heard so much of that lately. I don’t think he will stay in father’s business myself.”
“That’s very helpful. Now, Anna, I will tell you what is in my mind, because you may be able to help me with a decision. Does your father ever discuss his affairs with you?”
“Sometimes.”
“He has talked about them a good deal to me and he is, like you, not at all sure that Wilfred is fitted for his business and he wants me to consider coming in. Now this interests me very much. I have a pretty good knowledge of the markets your father deals with, an
d I’ve got some capital, and I’m not entirely without business experience. But I can’t go much further in this unless I am absolutely sure that I’m not injuring your brothers’ prospects in any way. It would hardly affect George, for he is still so young that he couldn’t possibly hold for some time to come the kind of position your father wants me to take. But with Wilfred I feel a certain difficulty. He is older and might resent an outsider coming in over his head, and whatever I do I can’t possibly imperil my delightful relations with your family. No decisions need to be made immediately but if you can, by your clever brain and your intuition, get at what your brothers, Wilfred in particular, feel, I shall be very grateful. Wilfred doesn’t take life as easily as George. He will expect too much and feel rather bitter when he doesn’t get what he wants. I have seen dozens of young subalterns like him. The first time things go wrong they want to shoot themselves; if they don’t, they are some of our best men in time. He is growing up slowly and it hurts him. Now George is growing up quickly and easily, and no outsider would guess that he is the younger of the two. I wouldn’t mind hurting George, because he would soon get over it and bear no malice. Wilfred would resent the shattering of any dream or ideal he had and never forget the humiliation. That’s why I so need your help, to prevent me from making any mistake which might be disastrous to our friendship.”
Anna, immensely flattered at being treated as a grown-up person by her guest and having her opinion asked, promised to do all she could to sound her brothers without rousing their suspicions. The colonel then asked after Caroline.
“She is much better,” said Anna. “I think London and seeing people are doing her good. By the way, you know her cousin Hugh Mannering, don’t you? He said he met you and Julia abroad.”
“Of course I do. A very intelligent and delightful fellow. And what is he doing now?”
“He is editing that international review affair. I do hope you and Julia can come and have tea with him after your lecture. He wants so much to meet you both again. And you’ll like his cousin Francis too. He’s a solicitor.”
O, These Men, These Men! Page 5