Thirteen Such Years

by Alec Waugh

  “‘What do you mean?’ she gasps.

  “‘That you’ll treat him as you’ve treated all the rest. Jerram, and the ones that were before Jerram—treat him as you’ve treated me.’

  “She sobs, and her fingers flutter tremblingly to her throat.

  “‘John,’ she wails.

  “But he is relentless. A sense of shame is goading him to quit himself of reproach by an exaggeration of her faults.

  “‘You’ll treat him as you’ve treated all of us,’ he says. ‘You’ll smile at him. You’ll get what you can out of him, and then when he starts becoming exigent you’ll move on to some one else.’

  “Her face has grown pale and bloodless. And her hands are lifted as though in self-protection before her eyes.

  “‘So you think that of me,’ she cried, ‘think that I don’t care; think you mean nothing to me, just because once or twice I go out with Evelyn Summers. Oh, but it’s foolish of you. He means so little, so less than little. Look, I’ll show you.’

  “And before he can interrupt, she has flung herself away from him, has caught up the telephone from its stand beside the mantelpiece, and is speaking a number breathlessly into the mouthpiece.

  “‘Is that you, Evelyn?’ she says. ‘Yes, this is Daisy. I’m terribly sorry, Evelyn, but I can’t come to-night. My little boy’s rather bad, and I daren’t, I simply daren’t leave him. You will excuse me … when else? But how can I say. I can’t decide anything till he’s better. Won’t you ring me up in a day or two?’

  “As she turns from the telephone, she presses down the tortoise-shell clasp of her beaded bag, ransacks for a moment its silk-lined interior, pulls out a little calf-bound book.

  “‘There,’ she cries, ‘there’s my diary. There’s not an engagement there that I won’t cancel if you ask me. I’ll ring them all up here and now as I’ve rung up Evelyn Summers. I’ve only made those engagements because you’ve yourself so many, and it’s lonely for me to be alone. But I’ll cancel every one of them if you ask me. You’ve only to say to me that you want to do this or that on such a day. Will that prove to you who comes first?’

  “He hesitates, humbled and abashed, then with a quick stride across the room, he has folded her into his arms.

  “‘Forgive me,’ he stammers, ‘forgive me. I’m suspicious. I’m unjust, but I shouldn’t be if I didn’t care so much.’

  “Wearily she lets her head rest upon his shoulders.

  “‘This isn’t the first time,’ she says, ‘that you’ve been in love.’

  “‘Would it be likely, at my age?’

  “She sighs. ‘I know, I know, but there is that past.’

  “‘A past that means nothing. Those others…’

  “She interrupts him. ‘No, no’ she says, ‘don’t libel the past. It was the present once. And this moment, this moment now, will become part of it. And you’ll be speaking of it to some other woman, and of me along with it, grouped indistinguishably with the others; like all the rest. If only,’ she adds slowly, ‘I were free.’

  “‘You are free,’ he objects. ‘We are both free, if we have the courage to take our freedom.’

  “She shakes her head. ‘If it were only myself,’ she says. ‘But there’s my boy. I couldn’t bear to lose him. It would be unfair to him. There’s his future too. My family are Victorians. They would never leave their money to the son of a divorced woman.’

  “His impatience returns in the face of her objections. And once again he is the victim of the suspicion that he is being played with.

  “‘Your son,’ he says scoffingly, ‘you don’t care for him really, you’re never with him.’

  “‘Because you don’t happen to be seeing me with him.’

  “‘He exists for you,’ he says brutally, ‘as a useful excuse, as just now with Summers…’

  “‘Oh, John.’

  “And again before that pleading, imploring look the sense of shame returns to him; not though sufficiently to stifle his resentment.

  “‘I’m tired,’ he says, ‘of being brinked.’

  “She gasps, but her voice as she replies is calm and dignified.

  “‘It’s not fair,’ she says, ‘to use against me the things I’ve told you.’

  “‘Then you shouldn’t treat me as you treated Jerram.’

  “She makes no reply. But her eyes that are large and blue and luminous are more eloquent than could any words have been. It is impossible to believe that that expression of hopeless misery, which has been lifted though you know it well, to how many men before you, you cannot believe that it is no more than a carefully weighed device. It can not be insincere. And John Murgatroyd falls forward on his knees, and takes in his the little cool white hands that are resting with their palms turned upwards against the stiff brocading of the sofa, and his head sinks downward on her lap.

  “‘Forgive me,’ he cries, ‘forgive me. I love you. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I’ll go with you where you like and when you like, on whatever terms you like. But it’s driving me mad, this staying here like this.’

  “Slowly she draws her fingers from his hold, slowly, caressingly, she draws them through his hair.

  “‘Darling, my poor darling,’ she whispers. ‘Do I make you so very miserable? But it would be so much easier, you know, if I cared less for you.’

  “It is only, though, a temporary reconciliation. The situation has grown intolerable. And Murgatroyd is not a man to let life batter him. Sooner or later it has to be written, the letter that amounts to an ultimatum.

  “‘I am leaving England for a long time’ (it says), ‘on the 17th. Am I to go alone?’

  “The reply is equally abrupt. ‘Will you be at the lounge of the Piccadilly Hotel on Thursday at 1.15?’

  “He is there five minutes before the quarter, but it is not to be kept waiting. She is seated opposite the door beside a small, fierce, petty-looking man whom he has not seen before. As he hesitates in the centre of the room, she whispers a word to her companion, rises and comes across to him.

  “‘Well?’ he says.

  “Her lips part slowly, and her smile is the saddest thing he has ever seen. Automatically they have half turned towards the sofa on which is waiting for her that other man.

  “‘Is that,’ he asks, ‘my answer?’

  “She bends her head.

  “It is a moment for bitterness. But he does not feel bitter. It is by an intolerable sense of loss that his heart is weighted.

  “‘We’ve had some happy times,’ he says. ‘I shall always remember them. I shall always be grateful to you for them. We should be grateful to the people who make us love them.’

  “For a moment he thinks that she is going to cry. Her lips tremble, the blue of her eyes is blurred. And when she puts out a hand towards his arm, it is almost as though it were to steady herself. But her voice when she speaks is level.

  “‘I, too,’ she says, ‘I shan’t forget. And, John dear, remember this: when they come, those other women, with whom you will start comparing me, who may seem to you less niggardly, more generous than I, remember this, that it’s easy, so very easy, for a woman to be—to be reckless with a man she does not really love, when she doesn’t care what he thinks about her afterwards, but that when a woman cares, when her loving has gone deep, when she can’t bear to be remembered afterwards as one of many, like all the rest… when one is just attracted, it doesn’t matter, nothing’s at stake, but when one loves… darling, one’s got to be so sure, so more than sure.’

  “There is a mist before his eyes, as he stumbles out into the chill rain-swept thoroughfare: a mist, too, over his mind, for he does not know, there is no way of telling, whether she has spoken truly, or whether she has been merely acting; whether she has been no more than making an effective curtain. He does not know whether he has been loved or played with. He does not know whether it is trash or jewels that he is rid of. He does not know whether he has misjudged or has been deceived, whether it is regret o
r remorse that is waiting him. He does not know. One cannot tell; there’s no way of telling when a woman looks at you like that.”

  §

  He ceased speaking. And sitting beside him there I was conscious again of the little shadowed square and the cafés and beadsellers and the suave, shambling, dark-skinned bootboys. And sitting there I remembered that telegram of five years back: “Terribly sorry cannot dine to-morrow. Going abroad”: remembered also the picture which had consolidated so firmly that friend’s position, the portrait of a blue-eyed girl with light flaxen hair that was cut low in a fringe upon her forehead. Light flaxen hair, that had bunches like clustered flowers about her ears, and from whose shoulders had fallen over a sheath of silver a cascade of golden gauze. And my eyes followed the little barefoot girl who was coming slowly again towards our table.

  “One can’t tell,” my friend repeated, “there’s no way of telling. And how would he feel, this Murgatroyd, were he to discover that she had spoken truly: were he to have it proved to him beyond questioning that it was only because she had cared so much that she had deserted him; that it was his, not her, unworthiness that had divided them: were it to be shown that rather than be classed thus with all the others, she had done the one thing that would set between them an impenetrable obstacle, the thing that of all else beneath the sun had seemed to her before she met him, most intolerable. Suppose that on his return Murgatroyd were to see her again, across a restaurant with the man for whom she had deserted him, and suppose some one were to touch his elbow: ‘Look, Daisy Querrel. She’s gone back to her husband now’: suppose he were to find out that: suppose he were to realize that to retain his faith in her, to save herself, because she was not sufficiently sure, from being classed with all the others, she had done the one thing she had sworn she would never do, returned to her husband’s roof?…”

  He paused. His fists on the creaking table were clasped so tightly that the flesh had whitened about his knuckles. And so he leant forward breathing heavily, the little barefoot girl for the second time hesitated at our side, with luminous pleading eyes, and crinkled outstretched fingers. For a moment he looked dazedly at her, then driving his hands into his pockets, he poured into those begging palms, a scattered stream of silver.

  “One never knows,” he said, “it may be true. You cannot tell. And remorse cuts deeper than regret. It’s better to be deceived than to misjudge.”

  Chapter VII

  When I started on my world tour it was Malaya and the South Sea Islands that I was particularly anxious to see. I had no intention of going to the United States. I had booked my return journey from Tahiti through Panama. Only a last minute decision sent me northwards to San Francisco. My stay in New York was of twenty-eight bewildered hours’ length.

  A man whom I had known casually for several years once to my surprise invited me to dinner three times within a fortnight. In the course of those three dinners we became good friends. We are now extremely good friends.

  “I never quite understood why, after knowing me for four years, you suddenly started showering me with invitations,” I once said to him.

  He smiled at that.

  “For an unusual reason. I knew you were a friend of—” he mentioned a girl’s name. “I was in love with her. I thought you might say nice things about me to her.”

  “Are you still in love with her?”

  He shook his head.

  “It didn’t go too well. In fact, our friendship is the only thing that’s left of that. Funny how what seems essential goes, and what one sets no store by becomes essential.”

  In the same way of all the places that I had planned to see on that long voyage, New York, that I had not meant to see at all, that I had included at the last moment only because it was the handiest port to London, is now the one place that is a part of my life to-day. So much a part of it that when people say to me, “Is New York what you thought it to be?” I find it difficult to think back into the days when it was no more than a geographical fact to me.

  §

  Like most Englishmen, I had of course a quite definite idea of what I imagined the United States to be. “America is this,” I used to say, “American women are like that; American men think this way.” But now, in the light of the varied experiences of the last five years, it is not easy to reconstruct that previous picture of American manners, customs, psychology and culture.

  It had been a picture built up out of a series of impressions gathered at hazard over many years.

  At my preparatory school America had been a yellow oblong across a map below the red strip that was Canada and above the many-coloured lozenge that contained Brazil, Colombia and the Argentine. Later, in the course of English history, traversing the Wars of the Roses, the parsimony of Henry Tudor, the wreck of the Armada, the divine rights of the second Stuart, I had reached the episode to the Pilgrim Fathers and later had memorised the names of the thirteen states. The War of Independence had been presented to me as an unfortunate interval between the glories of Clive and Wolfe and the triumphs of Wellington and Nelson. I had not been taught to take sides historically; I was not taught that Washington was a traitor. England’s failure in America was historically accepted as an administrative error; something to be guarded against; a warning that was taken.

  From that point on the thirteen states did not figure in my history books. There were casual references to a casual war in the Napoleonic period about some navigation act, but the issue of the war was never clear; nor its result. I memorised the fact of Admiral Cockburn’s burning of Washington in 1812. But that was all. For the next century of history America did not exist for me except as a place that a book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written round, and where slaves had been badly treated till a war was fought about them, after which they were set free, under the inspiration of a hymn by Julia Ward Howe.

  With the campaigns of Philip of Macedon and the boundaries of Hadrian’s empire I was familiar. At Sherborne I was in the history sixth and my knowledge of modern history was adequate to a rough comprehension of the European political situation. But American history I only knew in so far as it touched English history. Of America’s own history I knew nothing. I considered as far as I considered them at all that the United States were inhabited by the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers. I had not pictured the steady flow of diverse people by which in the course of a hundred years the Atlantic and the Caribbean had been united with the Pacific; nor how geography and science had combined to make of the United States an Empire as compact as Caesar’s but built not on slavery but freedom. I did not recognize how, while the spirit of independence that had driven Englishmen to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa to build there independent and self-governing dominions, had little by little drained England of its adventurous blood: the fact of geography had enabled the original thirteen states to maintain that spirit of adventure within self-determined boundaries just as the facts of science, the telegram, the train, the aeroplane, the telephone had made it possible for their administration to be centralised at Washington. America did not send its youth overseas. What was old could still draw upon what was new. I had not realised that, nor had I realised how America, composed as it is out of the needs, ambitions and instincts that have been unable to fit into the European plan, has become a country as foreign to Europe as India was to China.

  When, therefore, America after a century and a half entered English politics and as a result of that entrance there grew an intense curiosity about every phase of American life, I was as prepared as the majority of my countrymen to base my opinions of her on impressions, incidents, conversations the extent of whose typicality I was unable to assess. I saw only what was immediate and obvious.

  Practically the first American that I knew well was the London agent of a New York firm, who had been brought by one of the members of my side to watch a football match that I was playing in. I was at that time a member of Rosslyn Park. Every Saturday we played somewhere within a thir
ty-mile radius of Hyde Park. Each week practically the same side was fielded. After the match those who had their evenings free would go on to Simpson’s or Devereux’s Oyster-bar to eat a steak, drink pints of luke-warm ale, and argue about the referee’s decisions. They were cheery evenings. The team was tired and stiff and bruised; but till Monday morning they were out of training.

  The American came with us. He was older than the rest; in the early thirties, but he mixed easily. He was a jolly fellow. We all liked him. It was the first time he had drunk draught beer. At the end of the first pint he shook his head. “About all you can say for this,” he said, “is that you can sit all evening drinking it and know that you’ll be able to find your way home all right.” Five hours later he placed a rather higher value on it; it was fine, he said, so was Rugby football, so were we all. He was coming to watch us every Saturday. Where were we playing next week? he asked.

  Against the Harlequins at Twickenham, we told him. We were catching the 1.49 from Waterloo.

  “I’ll be right there,” he answered.

  We never expected that he would be. But when we gathered round the platform barrier, there he was, with his broad grin and immense high-collared coat. From the touch line he exhorted us vociferously. At the Devereux afterwards he accepted three “no heel-taps” challenges; after which he announced that this was the best time that he had had in weeks, and yes, sir, he certainly was going to watch us trounce the Exiles next Saturday at Orleans Park. He was there that Saturday; the Saturday after he was christened the team’s mascot, and shortly charged on no account to miss a match.

  With the England and Scotland match at Twickenham on the last Saturday in March, the Rugby season ends. I did not see the team’s mascot again till the middle of September, when I went down to the old Deer Park for the trials and found him on the touch line.

  His smile and his coat collar were as vast as ever.