by Francis Iles
“Will you promise not to be, if I tell you?” Ivy asked, brightening.
“That depends. Anyhow, you’ve certainly got to tell me.”
“Well—it’s early-closing day in Merchester, you know.”
“Yes?”
“And somebody asked me to go out for a car-ride with him this afternoon.”
“Somebody in Merchester?”
“Somebody who works there. I nearly went, Teddy.”
“Who?”
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you that. But I do believe he rather likes me.”
After being pressed, as she evidently wanted, she told him that it was Mr. Chatford. Dr. Bickleigh was not surprised. He had noticed how Chatford monopolised Ivy at tea at the tennis-party, and had secretly rejoiced.
“He’s a very good fellow, Chatford,” he said warmly.
“Aren’t you jealous?” said Ivy in dismay, naïvely giving the whole thing away.
Dr. Bickleigh did his best to give an imitation of a man suffering agonies of jealousy. “Does he want to marry you?” he added, with careful nonchalance.
Ivy tossed her head. “Let him ask me first, and see what he gets. Aren’t you going to have another of these rock-cakes, darling? I made them myself. I did truly.”
“You might do worse, Ivy,” Dr. Bickleigh said slowly.
“You—you don’t want me to?” exclaimed Ivy. “Oh—oh, Teddy!” Her mouth began to tremble again.
“Want you to? Good gracious, no,” said Dr. Bickleigh hastily. “But, darling, you know you and I can never marry, and I mustn’t be so selfish as to keep you from marriage altogether. I should simply hate the idea of course—awful!—but I should have to bear it,” said Dr. Bickleigh with much nobility, “for your sake.”
Ivy was reassured. “I shall never marry anyone if I can’t marry you, dear, dear Teddy,” she said; but Dr. Bickleigh knew that the idea of Chatford had been planted in her mind; he could only hope fervently that it would fruit.
He kissed her gently.
But when, tea over, Ivy began to kiss him more intently and show signs of shy amorousness, Dr. Bickleigh pleaded a round of urgent visits and made his escape. The sight of her as he left her in the entrance to the cave, with trembling lips that she tried to hide, and an intensity of pleading in her blue eyes which she dared not annoy him by putting into words, made him feel acutely uncomfortable, and stayed with him all the way home; but the panic-stricken longing for flight was on him, and he could not have more pity on her than on himself.
When he came to think about it afterwards, he realised that for perhaps the first time in his life he had refused something that a woman was offering him. But why his friendship with Madeleine Cranmere should cause him to fly in panic from the advances of Ivy he was not clear, though quite certain that this was the reason he had done so. Because definitely he was not going to flirt with Madeleine ever.
But Ivy. . . .
2
MADELEINE CRANMERE’S loneliness did not last long. Within a week of Dr. Bickleigh’s first visit to her she was definitely in the whirl of social life in Wyvern’s Cross. The Torrs took her up first of all, led by Mr. Torr in full bay; the Bournes, the Ratteries, the Ridgeways (in spite of Ivy), Miss Wapsworthy, and Miss Peavy followed as a matter of course. Even Mrs. Hatton-Hampstead, Mrs. Hatton-Hampstead of Squerries, the Hon. Mrs. Hatton-Hampstead, who acted as hostess occasionally for her brother, Lord Cornwood, to the Prince of Wales himself (Mrs. Hatton-Hampstead, whose father, née Bert Tigley, had acquired so many worsted-spinning mills during the war that the Government had to make him a peer in sheer self-preservation), even Mrs. Hatton-Hampstead, having met Mr. Torr in the village one morning during one of her brief and rare visits to Squerries, left a card at The Hall afterwards: a quite unprecedented honour.
Dr. Bickleigh had availed himself of the invitation to sketch in the grounds of The Hall, though he had not found it necessary to say as much to Julia. During the three weeks that followed his first call he went up to do so on no less than four occasions. On the first three of these, his young hostess was there to welcome him, and, somehow or other, no sketching got done; the fourth time he was unlucky, and had nothing to do but sketch. Apart from that, he saw her several times elsewhere—at tennis at the Torrs’ and the Bournes’, and when she came to return Julia’s call—having casually mentioned to him the day before that she would be coming on the next one. They greeted one another now as old friends.
Ivy’s reference to Madeleine as deceitful amazed Dr. Bickleigh. Even after making all allowance for jealousy, the slander was so preposterous. There were things that a jealous girl might have called her, no doubt, with a possible substratum of truth: solemn too old for her years, dull (to those without intelligences of their own), even on some days plain, and quite truthfully dowdy. But deceitful! If ever there was a limpid clarity of mind and intention, it belonged to Madeleine Cranmere. Dr. Bickleigh had seen that from the first, and so had everyone else who really counted— Mr. Torr, the Davies, even Julia herself. As for the Davies, whose judgment Dr. Bickleigh respected more than anyone else’s, Peter was so loud in Miss Cranmere’s praises that his wife had pretended to tease him about the jealousy she was beginning to feel. And the very next time Dr. Bickleigh had gone up to The Hall to do his sketching, there was Peter Davy sitting with Madeleine under the cedar and no Mary on the premises at all.
The three had a merry little tea-party (Madeleine was not nearly so serious as usual that day), and, when Dr. Bickleigh gave Davy a lift back to his cottage afterwards, the novelist confided to him that he was studying Madeleine Cranmere with a view to incorporating in his book an entirely new character based upon her. Both men agreed with enthusiasm that they had never met a girl they liked better, nor one more entirely unspoilt by money and attentions, and Peter Davy pointed out how refreshing it was to have contact with a woman to whom sex was not the predominant thing in life.
“In fact, if one is to make any criticism of her at all,” suggested the little doctor, diffident in the presence of an expert, “it might be that—”
“Oh, she’s not perfect,” put in Peter Davy, who had an unfortunate habit of interrupting in mid-sentence, as if his own ideas bubbled up so spontaneously that they had to burst in speech without waiting an instant. “Nobody’s that, however they may strike us at first sight.”
“No, exactly. But what I meant was, one of her faults is that she is sexless. Don’t you think so?”
Peter Davy sucked at his pipe for a moment, while his companion cautiously rounded a blind corner in the narrow lane they were following. “No, I don’t. I think, given the right man, she has very great capabilities of passion. But her nervous system’s very delicately balanced. Crude handling, an initiation not entirely sympathetic, might destroy her capabilities for good and all. It’s got to be the one right man.”
Dr. Bickleigh preserved an astonished silence. He could not see any capabilities of passion in Madeleine Cranmere at all; it was impossible even to imagine her in passionate mood. In everything she seemed to stand for intellect as opposed to emotion, which was precisely why Dr. Bickleigh had been so impressed by her. For once, he felt his distinguished companion must be wrong.
Not for an instant did it occur to him that, if his companion was correct, he himself might be that one right man.
3
THERE WERE two peculiarities of his wife’s which irritated Dr. Bickleigh particularly. Quite small things, and not irritating in themselves, but they just happened to get on his nerves. For they were symbolical, in a way, of the difference between them; a perpetual reminder even in his own home. She never used a short word where a long one would do, and her enunciation was distinct to the point of affectation. Where ordinary souls would say: “It doesn’ do t’ take things casuly,” Julia said, “Itt doesn’tt do to take things casu-ally.”
One evening at dinner, a week or two after the tea-party at The Hall, she said very precisely: “That gairl, Madeleine Cranmere, is getting
herself talked about.”
Dr. Bickleigh was both surprised and uneasy: surprised because Julia never took part in any of the local gossip, neither repeating nor even listening to it, and uneasy for obvious reasons. “Really?” he said cautiously, and waited.
Julia produced another irritating trick of hers, and said nothing more. Dr. Bickleigh had to put out a feeler. “The people round here would talk about anyone.”
Julia looked at him so meaningly that Dr. Bickleigh shuffled in his seat and bent his attention most earnestly on his cheese pudding; her implication was quite obvious.
Normally Julia made no reference at all to her husband’s desultory affairs. He was always in doubt whether she knew anything about the current one or not, but her silence was a relief; though she conveyed the impression at the same time that they were so utterly vulgar as to be beneath her notice. This time, however, there was a meaning edge to her voice.
She condescended to amplify, somewhat surprisingly. “Though no doubt Mr. Davy would expect a little more licence than the rest of us, so far as the normal conventions go.” Julia’s tone added that in that event she would not be prepared to grant it to him.
Dr. Bickleigh was so relieved that he was able to be indignant. “You don’t mean to say they’re talking about Miss Cranmere and Davy, Julia?”
“I understand that is so.”
“Then it’s abominable. Of all the people in the world who. . . Good Lord, what a set of filthy-minded beasts. Who are talking? Who told you?”
“Mrs. Torr asked my advice as to whether it was not her duty to hint something to Miss Cranmere.” Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Torr ever undertook an unpleasant duty without consulting Mrs. Bickleigh about it first. That Mrs. Bickleigh usually offered to relieve them of it may have been the reason.
“Old scandalmonger! Comes from the precious Quarnian, I expect. I think it’s disgraceful. Simply disgraceful.”
“You seem very heated about it, Edmund.”
Dr. Bickleigh realised that perhaps he was being indiscreet. “Well, who wouldn’t be? A nice girl like that. Weren’t you annoyed yourself, Julia?”
“Certainly I told Mrs. Torr that I did not think the fact that Mr. Davy had been up to The Hall once or twice to tea need be taken too seriously, in Miss Cranmere’s case.”
“It beats me how these things get about,” groaned Dr. Bickleigh.
“But they do get about, Edmund,” said his wife, with so much meaning in her harsh voice that he instantly looked guilty.
“So—so it seems,” he mumbled.
There was an uneasy silence. The unhappy conviction grew upon Dr. Bickleigh that his wife had been playing the cat-and-mouse game with him, and still was. The next moment confirmed it.
“Are you intending to try to seduce that gairl, Edmund?” asked Julia without emotion.
Consternation, real anger, and a sickly, choking terror, clogged Dr. Bickleigh’s utterance for a moment. “Look here, Julia—” he began in shrill, unnatural tones.
“Oh, you needn’t bother to pretend to me,” cut in his wife, her pale, prominent eyes contemptuous behind their thick glasses. “I know perfectly well you’re not fit to be trusted with any decent gairl. Normally, I think you’ll admit, I don’t interfere with your amusements. If a gairl is fool enough to be taken in by a man like you, she must learn her lesson. But in this case, I warn you, I will not permit it.”
“You’ve no right . . . How dare you, Julia!” spluttered Dr. Bickleigh with shaking lips, anger gradually displacing even fear as the monstrous imputation grew on him. When for once at any rate he had been so completely sincere, so firmly Platonic! . . . There is only one charge more infuriating than a well-grounded one, and that is one that is baseless. “I think you’re absolutely horrible.” Never had Dr. Bickleigh spoken like that to his wife before.
“Don’t shout, please, Edmund. There is no need to say any more. And you could hardly expect me to believe you if you did. I have told you that I will not allow you to pester Miss Cranmere, at any rate, with your attentions. You had better not go up to The Hall again at all. If she wants a doctor, Dr. Lydston can attend her perfectly well. That will do.”
“It won’t do,” shouted Dr. Bickleigh. “I won’t stand this sort of thing even from you, Julia. You can’t know the first thing about Miss Cranmere if you imagine for one moment . . . That’s just like you frigid women: you’re always finding sex or some beastliness everywhere. Horrible minds. . . . Miss Cranmere, let me tell you, is . . .” He tailed off into futile silence, his face working.
Julia was looking at him as at some repellent insect that was not uninteresting in its very repellency. “Edmund, do you imagine yourself in love with this gairl?”
“No, I do not. And I think your beastly insinuations are—”
“Thank you, I have no wish to hear. You will do as I say about going up to The Hall no longer, and that can close the subject. Have you finished? Ring, please.”
CHAPTER IV
1
DR. BICKLEIGH went up to The Hall the next afternoon.
Madeleine Cranmere had expressed a wish a few days ago to see some of his work, and he had a portfolio of old sketches with him. His mood was an ominous one. Anger with his wife still predominated, and there was mixed with it a certain exhilaration, almost recklessness, in this plain defiance of her orders. In some indefinable way, too, he felt as if by going up to The Hall at the first opportunity he was protecting Madeleine against Julia’s beastly insinuations. But there was a curious sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach as he turned his car into The Hall drive.
It was raining, and they looked at the sketches in the drawing-room. Madeleine sat on the chesterfield with the portfolio open on her knees; Dr. Bickleigh sat beside her to explain and comment. They turned through several dozen mementoes of past holidays and scenes round Wyvern’s Cross. Madeleine was sparing enough with her praise to make it of real value when she did bestow it. At the end of the collection there were perhaps half a dozen heads, attempts at portraits, imaginary faces. Madeleine examined these with a closer attention.
“You’ve got a feeling for portraiture,” she pronounced, looking at him with her enormous grey eyes.
“Do you really think so?” beamed the doctor. “It’s what I like best, of course.”
Miss Cranmere sighed. “It’s a wonderful gift. I think I’d rather possess it than any other.” Her tone implied that Dr. Bickleigh did possess it.
“Oh, but I’m only a dabbler. I can tell you, Miss Cranmere, if I do get a likeness I’m as pleased as Punch about it.”
“It must be terribly difficult.” She regarded him sombrely, as if mourning over the terrible difficulties of the portraitist. “But all these are likenesses. One can feel it somehow. This one, for instance.” She picked up a charcoal drawing of a young girl’s head in profile. “How beautiful she must have been.”
Dr. Bickleigh looked a little uncomfortable. “Well—as a matter of fact, I sketched that out of my head. No model.”
But Miss Cranmere was not at a loss. “That’s exactly what I mean. There’s vividness in it that makes one feel it must be like someone. Just its vitality. If it isn’t, that makes it all the more remarkable. You see what I mean?” she added earnestly.
“Yes, yes, of course,” at once replied the doctor, who didn’t. “Very kind of you to say so.”
“You want more practice,” the girl said, turning through the sketches again. “That’s obvious. If only you could get more practice. . . .”
“So terribly busy,” lamented Dr. Bickleigh.
They both looked exceedingly solemn, as befitted two people contemplating the frustration of possible genius. It was obvious that Miss Cranmere was thinking that, if only more practice could have been had, the work of Dr. Bickleigh, R.A., on the line would now be a feature of each year’s Royal Academy.
Suddenly she smiled. She had a curious smile. Her mouth widened very slowly, as if stretched against its will and ready to snap back ag
ain at any moment like a piece of elastic. The rest of her face, except the corners of her eyes, remained immobile. It was a singularly unbeautiful smile, and gave little indication of real amusement. “Are you in a great hurry now, Dr. Bickleigh? You can stop to tea, can’t you?”
“That’s very good of you. I should like to very much,” said Dr. Bickleigh, who had had every intention of stopping to tea.
“Well, it’s still raining, so you can’t do any sketching out of doors.” Madeleine’s eyes searched his, earnest and helpful and not smiling with her mouth at all. “Why not have a little practice now?”
“You mean . . . ?”
“I’d sit for you, if you cared to make a sketch of me, with pleasure.” And her tone conveyed delicately that, though the suggestion was put forward half in joke, in case he might not wish to accept it, if he did, Miss Cranmere would feel herself really honoured. “I can get you some paper and things.”
“You sketch yourself,” cried the doctor.
Miss Cranmere shook her head. “I try, occasionally. But I’m hopeless.”
While she was out of the room, Dr. Bickleigh thought, almost devoutly, how in all their conversation on art in general, and his art in particular, she had never said a single word about her own aspirations and accomplishments. Yes, a girl like this was to be met only once in a life-time.
2
MADELEINE POSED for him on the arm of a chair near the window.
Consciously or unconsciously, her face had assumed its most ethereal expression. It was helped in this respect by the fact that she wore her sleek black hair parted in the middle, like a Madonna. Indeed, so spiritual did she look that, if Dr. Bickleigh could have caught only a fraction of the unearthliness of her expression, his picture might have been labelled: “A Soul in Search of a Body.” Her grey eyes loomed enormous in her face. Dr. Bickleigh thought, rather breathlessly, that he had never seen anything quite so wonderful.
Only the fact that she dressed so badly struck a note that might be considered even faintly jarring. But this particular note no longer jarred on Dr. Bickleigh. That the uninteresting chiffon frock she was wearing only insulted its wearer by having cost so much money and undeniably fitted in the wrong places, he accepted in conjunction with her Madonna-like appearance and accounted to her for a virtue. Here, at any rate, was a girl to whom clothes were not a supreme interest. She treated them with the scorn which, when one could consider it on the right plane, mere coverings for the body undoubtedly deserved. Dr. Bickleigh was charmed by the way her frock bagged where its wearer did not.