by Alec Waugh
All through that summer the debate in her mind continued. By the autumn it was beginning to leave its mark on her. A tired listlessness had displaced the bright-eyed happiness with which six months earlier she had welcomed love.
“We never have any fun together now. We just argue: whether we shall or whether we shan’t. He says I don’t love him. I say I do. At the rate we’re going we shall be hating each other by Christmas.”
“You ought to take a holiday. You ought to get right away from him,” I told her. “Go alone somewhere. Give yourself a chance to think it out.”
“I might do that.”
“Go somewhere where you won’t be worried: where there are games to play: new people to be amused by. Don’t think about him for a fortnight: then set yourself the three alternatives: wash it out altogether; or make an affair of it, work it out of your system that way: or else marry him. Do one of the three. Mooning around won’t get you anywhere.”
“Perhaps you’re right.”
Two mornings later she rang up to tell me that she was taking my advice: that she was going to Devonshire: to the Eastpoint Hotel. That she had bought herself a vast Alsatian dog. To console herself for the loss of Kenneth, she explained. Helen will have made her mind up in a fortnight, she declared.
Ten days later I received a telegram “Helen in another mess. Do please come straight away.” I needed a holiday. I was fond of her. I am inquisitive. I went.
The Eastpoint Hotel is situated in West Devon on the edge of Dartmoor. A long, low Georgian building, set in parkland, for two centuries the country seat of an influential Wessex family, sold to liquidate death duties in the third year of the war, it has retained in its new guise some of the traditions of its past.
At certain times of the year, particularly in August and September, it is as near an approach to a country club as is to be found in England. Life there is communal. A golf course lies at its gates. Competitions of one kind or another are in daily progress. Most evenings there is dancing. Every Saturday there is a formal dance. Its atmosphere is not unlike that of a winter sports hotel in Switzerland to which the same people return year after year; where everyone knows or is in a position to know everybody else; where the days are devoted to games and the evenings to conviviality.
Helen was waiting the arrival of the station bus. She was breathless: dramatic; flurried: all in a rather imperious, self-important manner. She would not wait for me to check in at the reception desk.
“You needn’t bother about that. I’ve arranged it all. And the porters won’t lose your luggage. I want to talk to you. I can’t wait.”
She pulled impatiently at my arm.
“There’s never any one on the terrace now. We can talk there.”
From its grass-grown, shadowed length she pointed to the tennis-court below.
“There he is,” she said; “that’s my trouble.”
We stood watching: a mixed foursome was in progress. There was little doubt as to its outcome. The girls were evenly matched, but a young, loose-limbed, erratic, hard-hitting player was hopelessly outmanœuvred, outgeneralled, outpointed by his grey-haired, but tall and broadshouldered opponent.
Helen sighed.
“He really is a marvel. He must be nearing fifty: yet he’s as fit as an undergraduate. If it wasn’t for his grey hair, and I like his hair, he wouldn’t look a day over thirty.”
“So it’s the elder one then?”
“Why, of course. You wouldn’t expect me to fall in love with a child, would you?”
I looked at “the child.” He didn’t seem very much younger than her Kenneth. Then I looked back, more carefully, at the elder man. He was handsome certainly. A man of fifty, when he is physically as well as mentally attractive, is a rival of whom the most irresistible of young men have cause to be afraid. And I had always thought that it was with an older man that Helen would fall in love: she needed strength, guidance; to have her mind made up for her. I had a suspicion that Kenneth, against such a one, would not stand much chance. If the situation were a straightforward one, that was to say. Which apparently it was not. I looked closely at the man.
“There’s something about him that seems to me familiar.”
“Of course there is. He remembers you all right, though you haven’t seen him for ten years. He used to work in my father’s firm. No, don’t start telling me. I know. It couldn’t be a bigger mess. I’m not only half-engaged, but he’s married. He’s got two daughters. His wife’s got all the money; and what’s more, she’s charming. I couldn’t have got in a worse mess if I had tried. If I had said to you a month ago ‘Of all the men you know, which would be the most likely and the least suitable for me to fall head over heels in love with?’—you’d probably have said ‘Roy Rickman.’”
When people say “I must ask you your advice,” that is not really what they mean at all. It is not advice but an audience that they need. Helen did not want me to tell her what to do, she wanted to tell me “all about it”; to clear her own thoughts by a recital of them: in the same way that certain writers read their stories out loud to friends and families “to see what they sound like.” They do not want criticism or advice. They want to make their own minds up for themselves. It was important for Helen that she should have someone to “talk it over with”: but I recognized, and accepted my rôle as that of the spectator, not the mentor.
She told me everything; from the start.
“Even the beginning was dramatic.”
She was having trouble about her dog.
“If it hadn’t been for Roy, I should never have been allowed to stay here.”
In the organization both of the games and the conviviality of the Eastpoint Hotel Roy Rickman had played for ten years in succession a prominent part. He had an easy manner. He was experienced in men and life. He could talk to most people on their own subject. He was able to mix on terms of equality both with his seniors and his juniors. His firm and tactful personality gave him the necessary position of authority. His skill as an athlete assured him a welcome among the young. While he was a guest at the Eastpoint Hotel few things were attempted without his advice or undertaken without his co-operation. He had become, indeed, so a part of the hotel’s life that he felt very little regret when each autumn, to pay his income tax, he let the shooting of his place in Yorkshire to a transatlantic visitor.
“This place has become a second home to me,” he said.
He knew every member of the staff. He felt as much at home there as he did in his club in London.
It was, in fact, with very much of a clubman’s feeling that within his club the necessity for introductions had been dispensed with, that on the day of Helen’s arrival he had paused to pat the head of a vast Alsatian wolfhound that was standing at the reception desk by the side of a young, graceful, and well-dressed woman.
It was by the dog, not the woman, that Roy’s interest had been struck.
“That’s one of the finest dogs I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Its owner turned. She was not, he saw, a woman, after all. But a girl and an extremely pretty one.
“It certainly is. It’s just too bad that I should have to leave this nice hotel because of him.”
He looked at her, more closely.
“How do you mean—leave the hotel because of him?”
“They say they won’t let me keep him here.”
The assistant manager leant forward across the desk.
“If Miss Balliol had a chauffeur or someone who could look after the dog there would be no difficulty. But it would not be possible for her to look after the dog herself, not all the time, and she could not, for instance, take it into the dining-room or into the lounge. Guests would object.”
“It’s a perfectly quiet dog.”
“Madam, I am sure it is. But there have been many accidents caused through Alsatians. People are afraid of them. It is stupid of them, but there it is. In a hotel one has to make rules. One has to accept the prejudices of the m
ajority.”
Roy Rickman appreciated the situation. The manager was right —indubitably so. People were nervous about Alsatians. At the same time, he both liked the dog and respected the courage of the girl who had brought it.
He turned to the manager.
“You’d make no objection if there was someone competent to look after the dog?”
“Of course not.”
“If you’ve no objection, that’s to say,” he added, turning to the girl. “My man’s experienced with dogs. He’ll take care of it all right. There are some kennels round by the garage.”
“That’s kind of you.”
She was looking at him intently, appraisingly; gratitude mixing with surprise and curiosity. Her look was so intent that it embarrassed him. He turned away to the manager.
“You might see that my man’s sent for, will you? And,” he added to the girl, “you’ll let me know, won’t you, if there’s anything you want?”
“You are very kind.”
Her look followed him as he walked towards the lounge, noting detail by detail the broad set of the shoulders, the firm stride, the well cut, comfortably-aged tweed coat, the high set of the head, the close-cut silvering grey hair with its crinkling wave above the temples, the lean fingers that swung half-closed against the clean well-creased flannel trousers. She drew a long, slow breath.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“Captain Roy Rickman. He comes here every summer.”
“He’ll be here for a little while then?”
“A month at least. You see that lady he’s talking to?”
“The plump, rather handsome woman?”
“Yes; that’s his wife.”
“And I’d meant it to end there, really I had.” Helen explained to me, “I’m not the kind of girl to chase after other people’s husbands. I thought: ‘That’s that. And I’m out of luck.’ But it wasn’t easy in a place like this, where you keep seeing the same people every day; when you can’t help seeing them, when you’re playing games, and sitting round with them afterwards over drinks. It happens without your realizing that it is happening. First you become friends and then …”
She paused: looking away; such an abstract, tender expression on her face as I had seen sometimes on her mother’s: a kind of trance.
“It was at a dinner that it happened, that it began; that I … that we really knew.”
It had been at one of the Saturday dinner dances that are one of the features of the hotel’s life. She had been at the Rickman’s table. He was at the far end, six places away from her. She was glad that she was not sitting next to him. At any informal moment, on the tennis-court or golf course; when they were turning the pages of a newspaper on the sun porch over their evening cocktail, she felt more at ease with him than with any man that she had ever known. But on formal occasions she felt constrained. When she was set down beside him at a dinner table, knowing she had to talk to him, she could not think of anything to say. They were too intimate to make light talk. She was afraid of their talk becoming over-serious on occasions when seriousness would come amiss. She was glad she was not sitting next to him.
She had turned to the man beside her. She had begun to make easy talk. It had been smooth and friendly, enjoyable; no effort; just enjoyment. Then suddenly there had been a pause: she turned. She was conscious of Roy watching her. She had looked across. She had looked up. Their eyes had met.
She looked; then looked away.
She closed her eyes.
She had read about people exchanging looks like that: looks that made your breath check; that took the place of words; that made you think: “Yes, that’s how it is. He feels in the way I do.” She had read about looks like that. She had not believed in them; or rather, she had wanted to believe in them but had been sceptical as her generation was sceptical of “big words.” But it was true, all right. She knew that now. It was about the one thing of which she could be sure.
But this for very certain she did know: that she was proud to be capable of such emotion, she had been so afraid that she would never feel this way. She had been afraid that she was hard-boiled, or shallow; that she was not big enough for big emotions. She had met men, who had attracted her, men whom it had been fun to flirt with, who had thrilled her in a way. But she had never mistaken it for the real thing. They had been something to pass the time, to decorate a moment. Even with Kenneth, she had felt … but what was it she had felt for Kenneth? Something so different. A kind of playfellow feeling. She had felt alive when she was with him. But you felt alive when you were playing tennis. Kenneth was so much of her own age. They met as equals. There couldn’t be any sweeping off her feet. It wasn’t like this. This was the real thing.
“It is the real thing,” she assured me. “If only it weren’t so difficult. If there weren’t his wife. If she wasn’t so nice. For she is: terribly nice: the kind of woman I could be friends with: the kind of friend that Helen’s always needed: someone older than myself; who could advise me; guide me; who could be impersonally affectionate; who wouldn’t think I was in competition with her; to whom I could chatter about all my woman problems: not just clothes and face creams; the realer things; how to run one’s life. She’s been through it all before. She’d know what the road was like. She could tell me. I’ve always wanted somebody like this.
“If only she were not Roy’s wife.…
“Though somehow I can’t think of her as Roy’s wife. There’s such a gap between us. I’m ‘Helen’ to Mrs. Rickman; I could never imagine myself calling her ‘Fane.’ Between Roy and me there’s no such difference. From the start I thought of him as Roy.
“And then there are the daughters and his not having any money: not more than a little pocket-money; oh, but it’s a mess all right. Such a mess that if it weren’t for his wife I suppose I’d take the easy course: ‘I’d say It’s an impossible situation. It’s all too difficult.’ I’d take the second best. I’d make an affair of it and let it go at that. But when it’s a case of a woman of that kind I just can’t; it must be everything or not. If I can’t go straight to her, face her, lay my cards on the table, say ‘Your husband and I are in love with one another. We are going to run away together.’ If I can’t do that, well then I won’t do anything.”
“And are you going to do that?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. Sometimes I think ‘yes’, sometimes I think ‘no.’ I suppose that it depends on him: on whether he can persuade me that he really needs me. I’m not going to spoil his life for him, but if I could make something real out of his life: if I could give him faith, ambition: he’d give anything for a son: if I could give him that. He’s so fine, and he’s so wasted. If I could help him make something of himself.”
Her infatuation for Roy Rickman fulfilled her two chief instincts: the need to be guided and the need to have a purpose to her life. The dice were heavily loaded against Kenneth.
I asked her about Roy Rickman. A good deal I knew: that his wife was rich: that he had retired from business after the war: that she had encouraged him to retire: he had earned his leisure, she had assured him. Acquaintances had suggested another reason: that his lack of employment, and consequent lack of money would give her a hold on him that might be valuable later on. That I knew. But there were other things I did not know. Had he hobbies: interests: ambitions of any other kind?
Helen shook her head. “He’s no one to be ambitious for. If he had a son … if there was some one to work for. Some one who depended on him.”
“Does he ever write poetry now?”
The war boom in verse was over. I had not seen Roy’s name in print for seven years.
Helen flushed at my question.
“He says he wrote nothing for ten years. Nothing inspired him. But he’s writing now.”
“Sonnets.”
She nodded. “He seems to do one every day. They just pour out, he says. He sits at a table: for half an hour or so: and they write themselves.”
> I thought how Frank Tallent’s lips would have curled at the description.
“But if you run away together, I take it that he’s not proposing to support you on the proceeds of his sonnets?”
The extent of her infatuation may be gauged from her taking of my question seriously.
“Oh no,” she assured me. “He would still write poems of course, but I’d want him to have a real career.”
At fifty I thought! But Roy was strong: he was capable: he sat lightly in the saddle. He might make something of a career if he were forced. He could organize. He was good with men. There might be employment for his particular capacities in public life, at a time of crisis. Helen was right. He might make something of his life, if he had her.
“All the same,” I said, “though you have talked a lot about his wife making things difficult for you, you don’t seem to have taken her into any particular account.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve talked about what you feel for Roy, what Roy feels for you; whether you would ruin Roy’s life or make it; but you don’t seem to have considered what Fane Rickman’s likely to think about it all.”
“Oh, but we have. That’s one of the very first things I asked him: what would his wife feel: did she really need him.”
“What did he say to that?”
“That they were capital friends. That they got on very well together. But that it was her daughters that she really cared for: that she might miss him, but he wasn’t essential to her.”
“Then you don’t think she suspects anything?”
“Good heavens no. She’s middle aged herself; with all that sort of thing miles back in her past: she thinks it’s the same way with Roy.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Oh quite.”
“And Roy agrees?”
“Of course he does. Fane Rickman hasn’t the least suspicion that we’re anything more than friends.”
I had only seen Fane Rickman twice: a long while back. But if I had been in their position I should not have been so confident of her credulity.
Helen was not alone, however, in thinking that she lived in a fool’s paradise. Later that afternoon, two women of advanced and accepted middle age were drawing the obvious comparisons between her and Roy. They were talking of Roy’s fitness, agility, youthfulness.