by Martin Boyd
“You’ve heard?”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you. But everyone says how badly you’ve been treated.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that.” Her mind seemed to go away from him. He watched her expectantly as he felt that she was following some process of reasoning. He saw a flash of anger in her eyes and then she said: “Very well. I’ll come.”
“We’ll have the moon—the people and the things,” said Russell.
They sat side by side on the sofa for a long time without speaking. They had to assimilate the decision they had made.
Josie waited for John in the little sitting-room but when he did not return, she thought she had better go away as, if Lady Eileen or one of the household came in, it would be rather difficult to explain why she was there. On her way back she went through the state drawing-room and found Diana and Russell.
“What’s the matter, Mummy?” she asked, seeing something unusual in Diana’s expression.
“A horrible drunken woman was rude to your mother in the ballroom,” said Russell, to save Diana the difficulty of answering.
“Oh yes,” said Josie. “John went to ask her to leave. Did he?”
“Yes. I think he’s taken her home.”
Josie looked relieved at this explanation of his not returning.
“Where’s Daddy?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Will you find him darling?” said Diana. “We ought to go home.”
“Must we, yet?”
“You’re mother has had a rather dreadful experience,” said Russell. “She’s a bit shaken.”
“Oh Mummy, I am sorry,” said Josie and she went off to find Wolfie.
When she had gone, Diana said thoughtfully, “There are a lot of complications.”
“We can cope with them.”
“Yes. When can we meet? Not tomorrow—say Friday. I can’t think clearly now, only of the—the elementals.”
They smiled, looking into each other’s eyes, almost questioningly, as if seeking mutual reassurance. They made an arrangement to meet in the National Gallery on Friday at three o’clock, and Josie came back to say she had found Wolfie.
Wolfie, who had spent nearly the whole evening in the cloakroom explaining to the attendants that he did not feel well, was given a ribald account of Mrs Montaubyn’s departure by a friend who had come in to collect his hat. He added as an afterthought:
“By the way, I believe she was talking to your wife.”
“Dear Goodness! Dear Gott!” exclaimed Wolfie, horrified.
On the way home he waited for Diana to give some account of what had happened, but she did not mention it, and only spoke to Josie, asking her about her partners. When they arrived home, after seeing Josie to bed, she went to her own room and moved her things into the room which formerly had been Daisy’s, and made herself up a bed there. Wolfie made no comment on this. He did not dare speak first as he might give away something that Diana had not discovered. Occasionally from time to time she had moved into another room, if one of them had a cold, or in summer when she said that the east rooms were cooler.
Cousin Sophie, to ease her conscience, offered me a lift home. But she may not have felt that her conscience needed easing, as she had told me that I could ring up for a hansom to come to the ball, and if I had demurred she might have said, as I had to Mildy: “What is ten minutes’ drive by yourself?”
When she dropped me at Mildy’s gate and drove off with the twins, I stood, reluctant to open it. A gibbous moon had now appeared in the sky, and before me the house stood dark and silently reproachful, a casket containing unconsoled grief. My own misfortunes during the evening had made me sensitive to this. Until now, Mildy’s blackmail had not come off. Her tremendous sacrificial gesture of staying away from the ball had passed unnoticed. No one, not even George or Diana, had asked where she was, and if I had not dirtied my shirt and been ridiculed for dancing with Mrs Montaubyn, I would not have thought of her either. Now I felt the emanation of her grief from the dark little house, which looked so sad and sweet in the unwholesome moonlight. On either side of the path was a crab-apple tree, and with the shadowed pseudo-medieval gables of the house beyond, the garden looked like an illumination from the very rich hours of the Duc de Berri.
While leaning on the gate I was subject to a curious experience, an enlargement of the understanding, extremely painful. I saw Mrs Montaubyn and Mildy with, as it were, the eye of God. I understood that the degradation of the former and the folly of the latter were irrelevant to their true natures, and had come upon them like physical sores, under which they were bewildered and pitiful. I felt an intolerable anguish at the thought of them. When this passed I went in to bed and slept peacefully for what was left of the night. In the morning I felt no particular sympathy for anybody; but caught the tram to the architect’s office, where I continued with the working-drawings of a cement factory.
CHAPTER EIGHT
In the morning Wolfie had to go into Melbourne. He was still afraid of turning suspicion into certainty and did not even ask why Diana had moved her bed. She spent the morning moving her clothes and the rest of her personal belongings into the other room. The housemaid looked surprised, and Diana said: “There’s so much traffic now on the beach road. I don’t hear it on this side of the house.”
Wolfie spent a miserable day and could not give the slightest attention to his work. When he set out for home he felt in great need of female consolation, but he knew that he would not receive it from Diana. He knew that something serious had happened in her mind. She was in a cold, withdrawn mood which he had never seen in her before. Hitherto, when she was annoyed with him, she had been heated rather than cold, or had shown a kind of patient logical exasperation.
He was angry with Mrs Montaubyn for going to the ball and for behaving so outrageously when there. He thought that he would find some consolation in rebuking her, and at least with her he would have the moral ascendancy. Instead of going to the railway station he went up Collins Street and rang the bell of her flat.
She was frightened and ashamed of what she had done, and her fear was worse because she could not remember exactly what she had done, but she had a dim recollection of having caused a scene. In the morning she felt very ill and in the evening when Wolfie called, she was a little better but she had not yet dressed and was lying in a loose and lacy tea-gown on her bed.
“Dingo!” she cried with tearful relief when she saw him at the door. He nodded his head gravely and walked before her into the flat. Mrs Montaubyn lay down again on her bed.
“You have been indiscreet,” he said.
“Now, Dingo, don’t you go on at me. I haven’t half got a head.”
“It would be wrong if I did not show you your mistake,” said Wolfie.
“I know,” said Mrs Montaubyn. “I lost my head. Let’s forget it.”
“When I have spoken, then we shall forget it. You intruded into Government House to embarrass me. That was not good.”
“I had a right to be there.” She showed a little truculence. “I got a ticket with a crown on it.”
“Even so, it was inexpedient of you to come. If you came you should have been temperate and modest and kept far from me. How shamed I was to see you whom I love, flushed in the skin. You spoke coarsely to my dear wife. You did not behave as one who loved me. Love is the noblest thing. All good that we have flowers from it. From my love for you has sprung glorious music. So it was holy. But what did you do? You took this precious thing which stirred beautiful music in my heart and exposed it to laughter. That was not good. For the most beautiful and the most true grow in secret.”
Wolfie had instinctively taken off his coat, and now was loosening his tie, as he stood addressing her over the foot of the bed.
“They cannot be exposed without losing their essence,” he continued. “What grows from them may be revealed, the music, the beauty. The flowers may blossom in the gardens of summer and waft their scent, but the roots must remain in the dark
earth. What did you do with our love? You revealed what should be dark. You have injured the fibres of our roots. And as more evil grows from evil, you have spread that harm. My life is in danger. I may lose my dear home, my wife and children by your exposition.”
As Wolfie spoke of this possibility, it became more real to him. Trembling with distress he hung his tie on the bed end.
“Do you not understand that life must have balance?” he demanded. “So it is music. In the orchestra are many instruments. In our lives are many people. Some are violins and some loud drums. My daughter is a sweet flute. You give me the rich notes of the clarionet, but my clarionet has played out of tune and has attempted to drown all the harmony in stridence. Will you please unfix the stud from my collar? It is tight.”
He lifted his chin and bent over her while she performed this service.
“So all is suspense,” he said, straightening himself. “It is through your selfish deed. You thought of yourself. That is very wrong. You thought I shall be grand Mrs Montaubyn who visits Government House. So, that would not be wrong with discretion, but with self-evidence it is folly. All is endangered. Now I have been foolish and come to you while the danger is still. But I was alone and I needed my clarionet.”
Mrs Montaubyn only half understood Wolfie’s rebuke, but she gathered she was forgiven, which made her ignore for the time being the fact that her old grievance remained in an aggravated form. She was further than ever from “entering society” or being introduced to Wolfie’s relatives, and he had practically told her so.
“Well Dingo,” she said, “I reckon I talk better English than you, but you’re more educated in your mind like, and you didn’t ought to take advantage of me to say things like that. If I was educated in my mind I reckon I could say some things to you too.”
“I had to speak. Now it is forgiven, yes?” He lifted a tress of her hair.
When Wolfie left Mrs Montaubyn it was past dinner time and he had said that he would be home to dinner. He was in a panic. He told himself that he was mad to have let his need of a little consolation further endanger his situation. He rang up Diana from the railway station. He said that he had been kept late and had missed the train. He was having a snack at a tea shop near the station. His anxiety was increased by the fact that Diana, sounding indifferent, only said: “Very well.” Normally she would have said: “Oh Wolfie how tiresome! Don’t have a meal at that grubby little place. Wait till you get home, and I’ll ask Bessie to grill you a chop.”
When Wolfie did not turn up to dinner, Diana wondered if he could possibly have left her for good. It was odd that he had said nothing last night or this morning about the incident at the ball, and that he had seemed to accept the barrier which she had raised between them. This would simplify her situation immediately, and yet the possibility gave her a curious empty feeling. Did she want to have it out with Wolfie first? It would be very painful. She should be relieved at the likelihood of avoiding a scene of recrimination and argument. And yet she was relieved when she heard his voice on the telephone, though she answered him with reserve.
She had expected him at about six o’clock, and had braced herself to introduce the subject then. When he did not come her nervous tension increased. She knew that it would be very difficult to keep Wolfie to the point. He would fling red herrings in every direction. When he had not returned by half-past six she wrote down the chief points of her arguments in case she should forget them in emotional recriminations.
Wolfie came in looking nervous, almost sidling round the door, and he gave too voluble explanations of why he was delayed.
Diana went with him into the music-room.
“Wolfie,” she said. “That woman at the ball last night, Mrs Mont-something, is your mistress.”
“Why do you say so?” asked Wolfie, turning sharply.
“She told me, more or less.”
“Would she tell you such a thing?”
“She was tipsy. Besides she did tell me. I’m not making it up.”
“She disgraced herself,” said Wolfie loftily.
“Then you admit you know her?”
“I know her—yes.”
“But you never told me you knew her.”
“I do not tell you of many of my friends. You are too high for them.”
“Why must you have low friends?”
“They are not low. They are humble and worthy.”
“Is Mrs Thing humble and worthy? What is her name?”
“She is Mrs Montaubyn.”
“She didn’t look humble. She was tipsy and she used horrible language.”
“I say she disgraced herself.”
“She disgraced me too. I felt as if I had been splashed with mud from the gutter.”
That Mrs Montaubyn, whom he had left tenderly, within the hour, should be called “mud from the gutter” distressed Wolfie.
“What do you wish?” he asked.
“I want to clear the situation.”
“Do you wish me not to see her then? It will not happen again. I have rebuked her.”
“You have seen her already?” said Diana.
Wolfie gaped for a moment, then he said: “I telephoned to her.” Diana knew that he was not telling the truth, but that was a minor detail. She had wanted to keep cool, but she was angry that he should have gone so soon after last night’s incident to see the woman. She did not know whether her anger was reasonable or if his visit made any difference to the situation, except that it emphasized its sordidness and made her more determined to hold to her intention.
She glanced at the piece of paper in her hand on which she had made her notes, and she thought how absurd it was to conduct a vital discussion with her husband from notes. But Wolfie touched everything with absurdity. The amusement it caused spread a protective cloud round him which preserved him from the results of his behaviour. She would no longer be amused.
“Listen,” she said, her voice shaking a little, “I’ve never asked very much of you. I had great belief in your music. I still have. I thought that people who can create music or art of any kind should have more freedom of behaviour—that it might be necessary to their work. If a man can write a poem which brings understanding to millions of people over the centuries, we can never pay what we owe him. It was a silly romantic idea perhaps. But that’s why I put up with all those girls on piano stools. I didn’t like it.”
“You do not speak like a lady,” said Wolfie.
“Possibly not. But I expect I’m as ladylike as Mrs Mont-thing. I know you like young girls.”
“Please!” said Wolfie haughtily, holding up his hand.
“Listen,” said Diana. “I thought it was troublesome but harmless. I thought, as you said, they inspired your music. When you married me I was a young girl—” She gave a little choke. “I’m not one any longer, so I tolerated the piano stools. But this woman is something entirely different. She is my own age, and you prefer her to me—you prefer that unspeakable vulgarity …”
At her reference to Mrs Montaubyn, Wolfie clutched his hands.
“What do you want? What do you drive at?” he demanded.
“I want the situation cleared up.”
“Do you want me not to see her more?”
“That is no longer my concern. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think that I have any longer the obligation to sacrifice my life to yours.”
“And then please?” said Wolfie haughtily.
“I want a divorce.”
He stared at her incredulously. “A divorce!” He gave a long sarcastic artificial laugh.
“I’m serious,” said Diana.
“You are serious, please? After twenty years of our happy life—suddenly—a divorce! No previous intimidation —nothing! Just five minutes, then please, divorce. I laugh again.” He repeated the horrible sound.
“It’s not sudden,” said Diana. All the things she had endured, his complete indifference to her convenience and the requirements of a household, and
the more serious but less explicit worries he had caused her, came seething into her mind and she could have poured out a flood of accusation. But she did not want to widen the issue. She clung to Mrs Montaubyn as her key to freedom. Also she knew that it is possible to love most deeply those who have asked most from us, and if she released this flood, the end might be a reconciliation she did not desire.
“You are serious to ask a divorce,” said Wolfie, “because I have one extra friend. She does not harm you.”
“She has insulted me in about the most public place possible, in the sight of half the people I know.”
“That was a misfortune. It will not happen again. For this one thing you will wreck our life, our beautiful home where we are so happy. Do we not often laugh together? Do you not put your feet on that sofa while I play you lovely melody? Are we not proud together when our children come home to kiss us—our sweet Josie who is gentle like a flower? Is it all to be gone, blown off in a harsh tempest of jealousy? That would be wickedness.”
“It is you who have wrecked it,” said Diana.
“You say so. But it is not I who will do so. It is you. I do not speak of divorce. Divorce? My wife, my beautiful home, my dear children—broken apart! What shall I do in this desolation?”
“You might have thought of that earlier.”
“What must I do? What do you wish? That I should give up my Mrs Montaubyn? Will that satisfy your cruel heart? Very well, I shall do so. I shall not see her again. She will be a sacrifice to your coldness!” He was now in a state of extreme agitation.
“Wolfie, do be calm,” said Diana, her own voice trembling.
“I am to be calm before such horror? I am not like you. I have no cold blood.”
“I’m not cold,” she said, “I don’t like wrecking our home. But the children are grown up. We can go our own ways.”
“You are glad to leave me. Suddenly, in a day! You are treacherous.”