by Henry Green
“Oh I don’t think so, Charles! Prior’s not that sort of man at all.”
He took a gulp at his gin.
“Can’t be too careful. Could make quite a lot of talk,” he said.
“Yes, I expect there might be a bit of a sensation. I see what you mean,” she conceded.
“I’m thinking of you,” he told Diana Middleton, and put his nearest arm around her shoulders. She laid the glass down.
“Oh Charles!” she said, in a grateful voice.
They kissed for quite a time. Then she drew away, and he allowed this.
“I simply must come up for air,” she announced. “Oh Lord, how can I look?”
“Lovely as always,” he answered, drawing her into another kiss.
This time she withdrew after only a moment.
“You do more than something to me, Charles,” she said, in what seemed to be wonder.
He put his mouth close to her ear.
“Let’s go upstairs,” he suggested, in a flat voice.
“But, my dear,” she objected “you’re all on the one floor in this place!”
“Next door,” he levelly corrected.
She pecked a kiss at him.
“No, Charles. Two wrongs don’t make a right, do they?”
Mr. Addinsell relaxed his hold.
“Bother Arthur!” he complained.
“Oh don’t I know, darling! Oh Charles, you are sweet, but can’t you see it wouldn’t be right?”
“This is just the two of us,” he argued.
She briefly kissed the man once more.
“I’ll say “so,” she conceded. “And then, no, Charles! You are one of the few people in the world I’d do it with, and yet I can’t! You see that, don’t you?”
“Suppose I must.”
“And you won’t be terribly cross?”
“Whatever you say, Di.”
“Not exasperated, or anything?”
“No.”
“Then, Charles, kiss me once again, because I have to go.”
They kissed.
“I’ll run you back,” he announced as, without lingering, he rose from the sofa.
“Even after I’ve behaved like this? Now you are truly being noble,” she said, on which they left.
Nothing else of consequence passed that night between them.
•
The next afternoon Miss Paynton met her confidante in the pub, after work. They drank light ale.
“The plot thickens,” Annabel announced.
“I thought it might.”
“I was caught by his wife with my skirt off whilst he knelt at my feet.” This account was met in silence. Miss Paynton then let out a sort of scared giggle.
“Well, go on, Ann. There must be more.”
“Oh he ran! She’d come back unexpectedly to fetch him. When she burst in on us she called him out and they both went off without another word to me.”
“And have you seen the chap since?”
“Of course.”
“Ann, you are a perfect idiot! What were the repercussions?”
“Fairly severe, I fancy,” Miss Paynton replied in a satisfied kind of voice.
“Look out that nothing boomerangs back on your head, then.”
“But how d’you mean? I couldn’t help his spilling coffee over my dress, could I?”
“Well, anyone could dodge being caught.”
“What can you mean, Claire?”
“Why actually take the skirt off, Ann, in where you were?”
“Because it was fairly on the way to being ruined. His maid was gone. We were alone. There wasn’t even a kettle on. What else could I do?”
“Not be found there with him,” Miss Belaine proposed.
“If you think I went to his flat for a purpose, then you’re very much mistaken, Claire.”
“Well, for the matter of that, why did you go?”
“You say I oughn’t so much as go out to lunch in public with Arthur? Because one thing leads to another? Is that it?”
“You’re being promiscuous, Ann.”
“I’m not!” Miss Paynton protested in ringing, confident tones. “I only know Campbell and a schoolboy, and how am I to meet anyone if I don’t show myself.”
“Yet just because you do go out to restaurants with Mr. Middleton for lunch, here you are having to come back to his flat alone after dinner.”
“I’d only been the once.”
“Yet you’ll find yourself there again, if he asks you?”
“I don’t think he will, not now,” Miss Paynton said. She giggled.
“And what does go on when you’re with him?”
“We talk,” the girl said, it seemed with satisfaction. “Mostly about his boy, Peter. You see I’m so much nearer to Peter in age than his father is. And he simply dotes on him. Of course he kisses me every now and again.”
“Does he?”
“All right, when you go out, doesn’t your Percival kiss you?”
“I suppose so. Then he isn’t married!”
“But this is just like a Victorian melodrama, once more.” Miss Paynton exclaimed. “What’s a kiss between friends, good heavens?”
“And supposing his wife tells your mother?”
“She couldn’t!”
“She might.”
“Why? What for?”
“ ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,’ ” Miss Belaine quoted.
“But she hasn’t even been scorned, Claire.”
“Why not?”
“He dotes on her! I must have told you. He honestly does.”
“Well, he may. But being the person he obviously is, Ann, don’t you think she may end up scorned?”
“Of course, it depends on what you mean by that extraordinary word. Still, I’m almost sure not.”
“If he asked you, would you marry him?”
“He’s married, isn’t he?”
“Suppose he said he’d get a divorce?”
“Oh, now then,” Miss Paynton protested quite quietly “there’s been nothing like that, you know!”
“I see,” her companion said, following which they talked clothes, then went their separate ways, seemingly well satisfied with one another.
•
After Mr. Middleton had come home, the day’s work done, his wife waited till he’d had his tea and read the papers, she delayed until he’d taken his bath, and even so she did not speak before their dinner was over. Just as he was about to make himself scarce in the study with what he had brought back in his briefcase, however, Diana stopped her husband.
“Darling,” she said “I know the other night I almost promised I would never mention this whole business again, but something else has happened now.”
“Yes?” he answered in a resigned tone of voice, sitting down once more.
“Paula Paynton’s been to me, exactly as I told you she probably might.”
“If I remember, Diana, it was you proposed to call on Annabel’s mother.”
“I may have said so, dear. But if I did, the other was what I really expected.”
“And I suppose she didn’t just drop in to discuss this awful weather we’ve been having.”
“She may have mentioned the rain, now I come to think, Arthur.”
“Then out with it, Di. I’ve more than enough work to get through this evening. And don’t torture me,” he pleaded. “You know I’m on tenterhooks over the whole of the wretched misunderstanding.”
“Oh you needn’t be alarmed,” she told her husband. “You can be sure I saw Paula off, quite politely too, of course.”
“Then what in the name of God, Di . . . ?”
“Now, now,” she interrupted. “All in my own good time.”
“I won’t listen to any more of this nonsense,” Mr. Middleton announced, almost with passion. “Nor have I the leisure, even if you think you have.”
“Very well,” Diana told him, giving nothing away in the tone of voice she used, “Paula only came to ask w
eren’t you seeing rather much of her precious little girl.”
“But just because there has been a stupid accident, am I then to see no more of the child?”
“Oh you told me you’ve been having her out to lunch, darling. I admit that.”
“Really, I must say very heavy weather is being made over some spilt coffee.” Mr. Middleton appeared to sulk. His wife closed her eyes and sighed.
“There was no mention of the skirt,” she said at last.
“Who’s been talking?” Arthur began again.
“You don’t suppose I was so foolish as to ask Paula” Mrs. Middleton replied. “No, naturally enough, when one goes out, one’s seen.”
“Doing what, good heavens?”
“Oh, Arthur, don’t tell me there’s been something else?”
He put his face in his hands.
“I shall go out of my mind,” he said in a frantic voice. Mrs. Middleton watched her husband with a quiet, appraising look.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “I know my Paula. I’ve dealt with her, at least for the time being.”
“So what’s the position now?” Arthur demanded, rather more calmly.
“I suppose it all depends, quite a lot, on how much you intend to go on seeing the girl,” his wife replied.
“Now look here, Di,” he said. “You know how hard I work. I don’t visit the club at night. I don’t fish, I don’t shoot. My one relaxation is to take a friend to lunch. And I always secretly wanted a daughter. Oh I’m not blaming you! Everyone realizes what you went through having Peter. But what’s wrong with my taking Ann out to a public place occasionally? It’s all above board, surely? There’s nothing clandestine about that, is there?”
“Well, I imagine Paula might prefer you to be more secret, anyway she said so.”
“No, Di, this is a wild paradox you’re putting forward.”
“Well think, dear, and now go back to your briefcase. Try and see if you can do with perhaps a little bit less of Ann.” She got up. She kissed him on the forehead. “There,” she said. “But you do understand I had to warn, don’t you?”
•
Mr. Middleton asked the Paynton girl out to lunch at the usual time and place. He waited until they were seated at their table before he started.
“Your mother’s been to see Di,” he said.
“Oh?”
“About my taking you out to lunch like this.”
“But how terribly disloyal of Mummy,” Annabel wailed. “All I can say is, I hope you never treat Peter like that.”
“In what way?”
“Because she’s never said a word to me on the subject.”
“Could it have made any difference if she had, Ann?”
“Of course not. But she would only have been polite if she did, don’t you see?”
“A bit,” he seemed to admit, with a measure of diffidence. “And do you think her going to Di has altered the situation?”
“What situation?” the young lady enquired, open-eyed. “There isn’t one, is there?”
“I mean about your coming out to lunch occasionally,” Mr. Middleton explained.
“What does your wife say?”
“That we ought to be more secret.”
“Here’s a fine thing,” Miss Paynton protested. “I shan’t come at all if you even start to talk like this.”
“Honestly, she did.”
“Then I don’t want to hear. I shall have to forget all of it, and I’m afraid I shan’t find that easy.”
“I’m very sorry, Ann.”
“So you should be, for sure.”
“What else can I do but apologize?”
“Just never mention it again.”
“All right. But Ann, who’s been talking, then?”
“How could I know?”
“D’you tell your mother when you come out with me?”
“I do not,” she said. “Certain things have to be observed in family life,” she announced, as though lecturing. “And if a girl’s to say to her parents where she is every moment of the day, then there’s absolutely no end to things.”
“How did your mother find out then?”
“Perhaps Diana told her.”
“No,” Mr. Middleton objected, in steadfast tones. “Di and I don’t fib to one another.”
“Well, I haven’t said a word to a soul, no one,” the girl maintained.
“I can’t understand it.”
“And Arthur, have you spoken about us?”
“I have, yes, once,” he admitted, obviously reluctant. “To a man.”
“Who?”
“Oh, a very old friend,” he said, airily. “Charles Addinsell . . .”
“The one who’s taking Diana out five times in eight days?”
“Yes,” he admitted, in a low voice.
“But how could you?”
“It was before he’d asked Diana out so often, you see.”
“And what about my reputation?” she demanded.
“Now Annabel,” he said. “We haven’t done a thing, have we?”
“I’d like to get hold of that Mr. Addinsell and tear his odious, prying eyes out, that’s all.”
“Because there’s no harm in us, is there?” he went on.
“I’d thank you to know what you mean, Arthur.”
“Well Charles talks, then Diana says this and that to me, she goes on about your reputation just as you do—good heavens, to listen to ’em, we might spend all of every weekend in bed together.”
“I must confess I don’t think Diana’s one to speak,” the girl commented, thin lipped.
“How’s that?”
“When she obviously does, with this Mr. Addinsell.”
“Now look here, Ann, you go too far!”
“All right, but have you asked her?”
“Of course not!”
“Don’t you discuss things with your wife?”
“Not those,” he answered, beginning to seem shamefaced.
“I don’t know about marriage,” she protested. “Not yet! Still I can’t think what could be better to talk about?”
“You will,” he replied, almost with a smile, and appeared to regain his composure.
“But it’s so important, Arthur.”
“What is?”
“Sex. D’you honestly mean to tell me you don’t know who your wife goes to bed with?”
“Listen, Ann,” the man said in a tired voice. “You’ve got the whole of this wrong. All I maintain is, that one must be wicked to become jealous. D’you agree?”
“No.”
“Very well, but I say it is so. We’re all entitled to our opinions. And if, as I say, I’m wrong to be jealous, then I’d better not know whether I’ve grounds for jealousy. Do you see my position now?”
“I just can’t understand why a man, like you describe you are, ever marries.”
“But, Ann, the ideas one marries with, soon merge into the ideas one remains married on.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said.
“Perhaps not, but possibly you can imagine that.”
“Well, I’m not sure, Arthur. And still, if a day or two ago you’d told me this Mr. Addinsell would have been the one to tell darling Diana, and we can’t know how much he’s simply invented yet, then, with all your experience, I’d’ve said you were crazy.”
“So would I,” he admitted.
“Then it must be frightful to be married!”
“At times, possibly. Although things can be almost as bad when you’re single, you must admit.”
“So what ought one to do, Arthur?”
“Go on seeing each other.”
“No, about marriage I mean, stupid!”
“Nothing, darling. Drift.”
They both laughed. She told some funny stories about Campbell, after which both went back to work.
•
That night Mr. Middleton failed to go off to his own room after dinner, as he usually did, but stayed by his wife, fidget
ing with a newspaper on her sofa.
“What’s this?” she asked. “Darling, have you stopped being married to your briefcase?”
“I can’t make you out at all these days, my dear,” the man complained.
“How’s that?” she peaceably enquired.
“Di, I want us to have a little talk,” he said.
“Well, all right.”
“You’re sure you won’t mind, darling?”
“Why should I?” she asked. “I never interfere with your work, you know, and, if you wish to discuss anything, then here I am, as always.”
“Yes,” the husband assured her, in almost a reverential tone of voice. “But sometimes I wonder if it mustn’t be most infernally dull for you.”
“Oh well, what’s best for Peter’s sake suits me,” she said. “I mean, your working so hard is to educate the boy, then give him a start in life. I keep the house going, there’s a home for him when he’s back in the holidays. That’s all!” There was something defensive in her tone.
“But the way I’m wondering tonight is, do you have enough in your life, Di? What I’ve on my mind—well look, we’re not getting any younger, are we? I’ve such an awful lot to plough through every evening, that’s my job, yet how about you? Can’t be very gay for you, when I am at last back from the office?”
“Oh well, my dear, I suppose by now I’ve got used to it.”
There was a pause. And then, quite suddenly, he spoke in what seemed to be acute annoyance.
“Yes, certainly,” he said. “And all the same there’s no call, is there, to go out five times with Charles Addinsell in eight days?”
“But, Arthur, I haven’t,” she protested with spirit.
He ticked the occasions off on his fingers, aloud.
“I’m rather sorry I told you, now, about when I did meet him,” she answered. “Yet that’s what we arranged, that we should tell each other, and we’ve kept it up for eighteen whole years,” she said. “Still I don’t agree going out to tea can be meeting someone, not in the sense we’ve continually used.”
“Now, Di, you’re deliberately trying to aggravate me.”
“I’m not, darling. You know what we’ve always agreed. That we should each of us go whenever the other was invited.”
“But I haven’t been asked out! Not once, when you were with Charles.”
“Please not to trip me up when I express myself,” she said in a calm, collected voice. “Of course I meant, we ages ago settled that if one was asked without the other, then whoever was invited, accepted and went.”