I was happy at this college, though I made no friends there, for all the girls were richer than I and many of them were doing their training, not in order to earn a living, but to have some sort of career in their hands either to while away the time before they married or to maintain themselves if ever it became necessary for them to leave their future husbands. ‘Darling,’ one of them said to me, ‘you have to look to the future. Suppose he’s a brute but not enough to divorce him for: well, you leave him, but you may not get a penny, and then what? It’s far better to know that you can leave a man at any time, because it keeps him in order.’
No—my friends were the local ones of my childhood: girls I had known at school, boys from the grammar school or the Catholic college of the Salesians. We were growing up together, and life was cheerful. It had been a principle of my mother’s that it was far better for me to bring boys home than to meet them surreptitiously around corners. In fact, I did both. But her insistence upon open house once a week for any of the boys and girls of my acquaintance was a good one, for she had an excellent eye to the weeding-out of undesirables. My father continued her custom, less from principle than from laziness. He trusted me, I suppose, whenever he thought about the matter at all. Emilie fretted, but she never dared to say so, and kept guard on me only by waiting up for me with cocoa whenever I went out dancing.
In those years, dancing was a national mania. The Charleston had just reached us from America. We used to turn on the gramophone, roll back the carpet and practise earnestly, my friends and I, till ten o’clock, when Aunt Emilie brought us tea and bread-pudding and put the clock on the sideboard to indicate that it was time the visitors thought about going home. For me it was a free life, an innocent one, a good one. None of the boys and girls were entirely strangers to each other, or to each other’s families. Even if some unknown boy had been picked up on the Common (a harmless, giggling, very mildly romantic proceeding) he would usually turn out to be the nephew of one of the women Aunt Emilie knew at church, or a cousin of another boy whose credentials were already accepted.
Ukeleles were fashionable. All the young men tried, with more or less varying success, to play them. Dicky Flint, a blond, strapping lad a little older than the rest of us, and the only one at whom the accusation of ‘fastness’ had ever been levelled (without justice, incidentally), was famous among us for being able to play ‘melody’ as well as accompaniment. His ukelele bore a charming knot of ribbons at the top of it, and was quite an expensive one. It was the custom, on warm evenings, for the young men and girls to draw deck-chairs into a circle in the big field by North Side, and for Dicky to play while the others sang the tunes of the day, but these open-air parties Aunt Emilie resented, and she forced a kind of reluctant resentment upon my father. ‘Bring them home if you like, but sitting there with them on the Common is common,’ she would say; she had few synonyms.
‘Yes, Christine, don’t do it,’ my father would echo her feebly, while thinking of something else.
Yet, one blue June evening, when I had disobeyed orders and was sitting with the others, he strolled by, looking rather dashing, as he often did, in his tipped cap; seeing me, he simply raised it, gave my friends his odd, charming smile and passed on, leaving the smoke of his cigar like a blessing upon the love-haunted night.
The week after my dismissal of Leslie was a nerve-racking one, for he bombarded me with letters and even with calls at extraordinary hours. I would not see him, but I did write a long, false letter telling him how precious his friendship would always be to me, though I could offer him nothing more. Aunt Emilie suspected that I had treated him badly, but did not interfere; she would always side with a woman against a man, if that man were not my father. He, on the other hand, conspired with me frankly to see that Leslie did not get beyond the doorstep. ‘I never thought that boy was any good to you, Christine, the silly lolloping lump. Plenty of time for that sort of thing. You stick to your shorthand.’
In fact, my mind was full of my unknown partner; my fancy touched such romantic heights that if the dance had been held in Buckingham Palace and Keith discovered to be the Prince of Wales, reality could scarcely have matched my imaginings. Also, I had determined that upon this occasion I was going to outshine Iris, turning her mere prettiness to nothing by my own dignity and mystery. (I had never thought of myself as mysterious before, and it now seemed an excellent idea.) My father was willing to pay for a dress, so I bought a perfectly plain pink one and decided that, as a coup, I would wear no necklace, no earrings, no trinkets of any kind. I had read novels in which the heroine’s studied lack of adornment had made diamonded countesses seem tawdry and underbred.
Of Iris I had heard nothing, except for a note, dropped in my door, to the effect that I should call at her home on the Saturday evening at seven and that the boys would take us by taxi all the way. She added a PS. ‘Victor says Keith really is handsome, by the way; not very tall, but quite heavenly.’
On the important night I came downstairs stately but full of misgivings.
‘You must have been up there a couple of hours,’ said my father.
Aunt Emilie took one look at me. ‘Why ever do you want to make yourself such a plain Jane? Why not wear your crystals?’
‘Jewellery isn’t being worn this year by really smart people,’ I said. I hoped even they would notice how the absence of it threw my personality into relief.
Emilie prowled slowly round me, as if I were an inanimate object. ‘Well, I think you look like a charity child. Doesn’t she, Horace?’
‘You and I don’t know about these new fads. The colour suits her.’ My personality did not appear to strike them.
‘I still think the crystals, or your silver rose—’
I was shaken: but I stuck to my guns.
‘Don’t you be too late,’ said my father, not specifying how late. ‘Yes, I must say pink’s your colour.’
‘You’re not going to walk to Iris’s in those shoes?’ said Emilie.
‘I’m not going to carry a horrible little bag,’ I said. ‘It’s blowing half a gale,’ my father observed, ‘but please yourself.’
Chapter Six
It was a March night of tearing moon and cloud, a night so vigorous, so full of movement, that even the far-off ragged edges of the Common seemed to be rising and falling like the rail of a ship. I had tied a scarf over my hair but even so, was afraid I should arrive dishevelled; the wind seemed to fight me back as I crossed North Side and turned into Winchester Gardens, where Iris lived. I hoped I should be early enough to tidy myself before the young men came; I could not afford the smallest physical disadvantage, even a momentary roughening by the wind, in the presence of my friend.
She opened the door to me herself: over-dressed as usual, but making me aware, with a conclusive sinking of the heart, that my studious, hopeful underdressing had been a mistake. I felt as though I had come out in my nightdress.
‘Oh, pitty, pitty colour!’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands like a baby and eyeing me with an air of mature appraisal. ‘You look so virginal, darling. I do wish Mummy could see you, but she’s round at Aunt Ada’s. Come into the bedroom and tittivate. They’ll be here at any moment.’
I looked with one last faint resurgence of hope at my reflection in the mirror, saw behind me, emphasising my unfortunate starkness, all the characteristic clutter of her room: the frilled dressing-table; the pallid, slightly soiled crinoline doll whose skirts formed a nightdress case; the row of soapstone elephants, descending in size, along the mantelpiece.
‘You look like a Puritan maid, dear,’ said Iris; adding, after a slight pause, ‘but why?’
This seemed unanswerable, and I did not attempt it.
She put scent behind her ears and along the hem of her dress. ‘Mummy says I’ve got to have a decent stage-name. Iris is all right, but Allbright’s all wrong. She wants Iris Lavallière, but
I think it’s oofy. I want Iris La Haye.’
I said I didn’t like either. ‘You’re pretty enough,’ I suggested, ‘to startle people with something very simple. Like Iris Green. Or Grey. Or even Jones.’
‘How can you say that! I look like a horse; don’t contradict me, I know I do.’
We got in each other’s way, each of us fighting for the greater share of the glass, and all the while Iris chattered and chattered, in so high and nervous a voice that I suddenly realised she was uneasy about something.
‘What is it?’ I asked her.
She set down her hairbrush and looked at me. ‘What’s what?’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. Why should there be?’
‘I thought there was.’
‘Don’t be oofy,’ said Iris. She put her arm round me, regarded me with her veiled flirtatious look. ‘Say I don’t look a horse?’ She held herself closely against me; I could feel her heart beating. ‘Darling, you know I adore you? You know Iris would never let you down?’
I felt an increase of apprehension. ‘There is something!’
‘No, darling, not really; because you’ve got such a sweet nature and nobody’s kinder than you, but it does sort of seem that Keith—’
The doorbell rang.
‘There they are!’
‘Keith what?’
Iris spun about in a gust of pale-blue tulle and violet scent. Her bracelets jingled. The colour ran into her cheeks, as it runs into a glass of clear water when a brush of crimson paint is dipped in it, first veining, then suffusing.
‘Keith what?’ I cried.
Pushing me away, she ran out into the hall and opened the door. She greeted the young men with a kind of wordless chatter, something that sounded as if it were made of real words but was probably not. I came out behind her; and the gust of air from the night sent our hair blowing on our foreheads and flattened our pink and blue skirts against our knees.
‘This is Victor,’ she announced in a tone of wild gaiety, her eyes looking everywhere but at me. He was a deep-dimpled young man with toffee-coloured eyes; all of him shone.
‘And this is Keith.’
I took the shock immediately; my succeeding emotion was one of pure dizzying anger.
Keith was handsome—Victor had not lied about that. He was more than handsome; his face was beautiful, a sad, clear, cold face, the eyes great and blue; questioning; resigned to the answer. But the eyes were below mine, on a level with my lips, and I was small.
He was a cripple, so stunted that a body meant to be broad and powerful had to support itself upon the legs of a boy of twelve. Wedge-shaped, one shoulder sloping down behind his head like a hillside in the background of an Italian portrait, he offered himself in hate and pride to my appraisal. For he knew at a glance that I had not been warned.
We shook hands.
‘I hope we’re not late,’ said Victor, ‘but if we are we’ve got an excuse. We didn’t come by taxi. We came in Keith’s car. He only got it today.’
‘From my father,’ Keith said, unsmiling, looking at nobody. ‘He promised it for ages, and today he came across.’
Iris opened the door again and peered out. ‘Oh, you lucky! Doesn’t it look gorgeous, crouching there like a tiger?’
‘It’s only second hand. It was my father’s car. But he bought himself another.’
‘Aren’t we lucky girls, Christie?’ she demanded, skipping back to stand at my side. She put her arm around my waist: I held myself rigid.
I was in a kind of terror. I knew that I must conquer my fury, not in an hour’s time but now, instantly; that I must not let Keith see it, or, if he suspected it, to be sure of it. The fury was against Iris, for her deceit, her feebleness of spirit: she had known the truth, perhaps belatedly, but had not dared to tell me. I thought: This is all she thinks I am worth; this is the measure of her contempt. And at the same time (this horrified me) I felt some of that rage diverting itself to the cripple, that he should be as he was. I could not help it, though I hated myself for it. And in self-disgust I also knew a pettier self-pity. Somehow the plain pink dress, the device of wearing no ornaments, made me ridiculous in my own eyes, so that I turned from myself in hate not only for the cruelty I could not help but for the silly affectation I could have avoided.
‘Make yourselves comfortable while I retire for a weeny minute,’ Iris called to us, seeking escape if only for a few seconds; ‘you’ll find cigarettes in the box.’
‘I must say Iris looks terrific tonight,’ said Victor smoothly; not so smoothly adding, ‘So do you.’
‘I don’t really try to compete.’ I sounded disagreeable, and knew it. I found the cigarettes for him. ‘I’d better get my coat.’
I ran to the bedroom, where I found Iris, tight-lipped, putting on some more powder.
‘How could you do that!’
‘Darling, I didn’t really grasp it. You know how bad men are at describing each other. I only knew he was a bit lame—or that’s what I thought.’
‘You knew what he was.’
‘Christie, you’re not going to quarrel with me? Please, please! You shall dance with Victor quite as often as I do.’
‘Victor is a horrible greasy boy,’ I burst out; ‘I’d rather have Keith.’
Iris burst into tears. ‘Now look what you’ve done! You’ve made me look hideous. You’re spoiling everything. Oh, go away! I’ll join you in a minute.’
When I went back into the sitting-room I found Keith alone.
I saw that he was older than I had thought; perhaps twenty-four or five. Or perhaps the strain and resentment of his life had added the years to a boy of eighteen.
He stood with his back to the fire, hands locked behind him, his face quiet and still.
‘It must be fun to have the car,’ I said. My voice sounded normal to my own ears. I was fighting against time to subdue the sick and heaving anger so useless to me, so brutal to him.
He drew a very white, stiff handkerchief from his pocket and passed it between the palms of his hands. The overhead lamp, rather dim, as all Mrs. Allbright’s lamps were, shone on his head. His hair was acorn-coloured, thick and flat.
‘I’m afraid they didn’t tell you,’ he said, not a flicker of change in his expression. ‘That was fair neither to you nor me.’
I searched wildly for words. There should be words that would not hurt him, but it was no good trying to find them. There was not time. I could only speak, and hope that by luck the words came right.
‘You mean, that you’re lame. No, they didn’t. But I don’t suppose people notice as much as you think they do.’
Then he smiled, a tender, eased smile, but having in it nothing that was humble. ‘“Lame” isn’t really the idea. I can dance—not badly—but I’d as soon sit and talk. It is as you please.’
My anger sank, to be submerged by a pity almost as painful, which had in it a touch of a new anger—an anger for him.
‘But I’m going to dance. I want to dance a lot.’
‘Victor says you write poetry.’
‘I try.’
‘I read it. I wish I could write it. He tells me you’re extremely clever.’
‘I’m clever and Iris is pretty,’ I said, out of old resentments. ‘We’ve got our labels.’
‘I think you are both,’ he replied slowly. ‘And I wish I were like other men, so that you could take the compliment seriously.’
He did a curious thing; he held out his hand palm upwards and waited for me to put mine into it. I did so. It was like the first figure of a dance that neither of us knew very well. He pressed my fingers very tightly and then walked away.
Victor came in. He was followed by Iris, determinedly gay and noisy.
‘And how have you two been getting on
?’
‘I have been telling Christine that she looks very pretty,’ said Keith. I saw then that he was not a boy who looked older than his years; he was a man who looked younger. He was probably nearing thirty.
Iris reacted to this quite automatically. ‘There! Christie getting all the compliments as usual and not a word for poor me!’
Keith smiled, and said nothing.
‘Oh, we all know you’re a horse and a hag,’ Victor teased her. He ran his hand over her bare shoulder. She told him not to tickle. She was sensitive. She didn’t like to be touched. Especially she didn’t want to be touched by people who called her a hag. She made him play out a little scene with her, to get her to forgive him; and by the time she had agreed to do so it was a quarter to eight.
‘I think we’d better be going, if you don’t mind,’ Keith said in his odd, impassive way. ‘It’s a fair drive.’
So we went down to his car through the battering wind.
‘Now, Christie shall sit with Victor in the back,’ Iris said authoritatively, ‘and Keith and I will tell each other our life stories in front.’
‘Oh, I say!’ Victor protested.
‘No. You’ll all do as I tell you. Keith has a down on little Iris and thinks she’s nasty, and I’m going to have everyone being friends before we get to the dance!’
Keith silently held the door for her as she stepped into the driving-seat. She managed to whisper to me, ‘I’m making it up to you, you see!’ Really, she had sensed his disapproval of her, his kindliness towards me, and could not bear that, even by him, I should be preferred. In this kind of behaviour Iris was entirely without cruelty towards the person she attempted to dispossess. She bore no animus. She did not even think of that person. She had grown up loved, admired, worried over, exclaimed over. If she were not first with anyone whom she met, this merely seemed to her a disturbance of the natural order of things that must be set right. I think that if any girl, robbed of her sweetheart in this fashion (and there were many), had turned upon Iris and made a frank complaint, Iris would, with bright, surprised eyes and all her good-nature aroused, simply have accepted the justice of this plea and stepped aside; but very young men and women set great store by something they call pride, which is really lack of courage and self-confidence.
An Impossible Marriage Page 4