Cold Pastoral

by Margaret Duley

  We are wondering when you will arrive, and hope you will not have to wait until November. Felice is busy house-hunting and can get one in Chelsea for six months, beginning October. It is nice, with a roomful of window and grand piano. I think Felice will take it.

  I hate to explain myself over here. People seem so sure of what should be. Their opinions are polite, but seem to be set in cast-iron. How awful if I had to explain the skiff to the Lieutenant-Commander. Maxine occasionally drops out a word about me, but, if it suits her, she says I was born on an iceberg when my mother was being driven to the hospital by a reindeer. Nobody listens, but they accept the iceberg. People can be trying, and English people are ignorant about the Colonies. Philip, thank you for everything, and all the money. I’m afraid I’ve bought expensive things. I have definitely decided not to go to University. I am sad and glad together, and I send my love.

  MARY

  Cable from Philip to Mary Immaculate :

  Thank you for letter stop do not bother about the Brompton Oratory stop I want you to be happy stop London in November stop love to Felice and yourself write again. Love.—PHILIP

  Cable from Mary Immaculate to Philip

  I will, Philip.—MARY

  TWENTY-TWO

  “…A GREAT STREAM OF PEOPLE THERE WAS

  HURRYING TO AND FRO.”

  In London five months, she was awakened one morning by the plop announcing a gas-fire. English fires were little, she thought, visualising the gigantic fires at the Place. Hearing the snap of curtains, she came closer to her surroundings. Would this be another portentous day? Felice had hired three servants and a house in Chelsea, and the scene was set for Philip and David.

  Philip! His name kept making two terse syllables in her mind. What now? she wondered. Felice was in Liverpool meeting the boat, and before another day had passed they would be together again. The Place was resting, waiting for the tread of a new generation, with a gardener living in the basement to temper its desertion. Hannah was in a home, muttering through the last lap of her life, and Rufus had disloyally capitulated to the gardener.

  Her nose vibrated, feeling peevish with London air. November staged a dingy substitute for the high winters she knew, but it was not daunting. London was in her bones, and she could sop up its murk as well as its sun. Five months of intensive living had been like a various finishing-school. The levelling and impersonal education of a great city had steadied her. Liberty had been an intoxication, but it had stayed mainly in her feet. She could pillage the faceted heart of england and chatter about it to Felice. Her record was good, and she had not lost her way in town vagabondage.

  Stretching luxuriously, she approved the quilted-chintz look of the room. Other people’s things! David and Felice found them satisfying. That they could be foot-loose and content with various mansions would confound philip. He would be the man of property, liking his forefather’s clutter.

  She hoped Maxine would go before the family reunion. Definitely she did not want an outsider when Philip and David arrived. To determine the possibilities of Maxine’s departure she turned over to study her in the other bed. Her eyes fastened on a closed olive face fumbling towards consciousness with pucker and strain. Maxine looked tormented, on the threshold of a morning ushering in her devils. Maxine had devils, and she housed them in a big way. Particularly of late she had indulged the rough edge of her tongue. Why did she like Maxine? Because of her brittle no-nonsense attitudes or because she could reveal a world Felice did not inhabit ? In her casual way she had been kind. Having been gathered up as an initiate, Mary Immaculate had set out to find her feet in Maxine’s world. Often they contended like two strong personalities refusing to concede an inch. Then their differences were punished by Maxine’s insolent departure, while Mary Immaculate did something else, sure of Maxine’s return. The latter used few words to condemn, but when she did, American, Colonial, Provincial, came forth as biting accusations.

  Mary Immaculate could laugh and understand Maxine a little better. After five months she knew any outworn London welcome was better than a return to her Devonshire home. Further, any distraction was acceptable provided the other fellow financed it. In appearance she was an enhanced, elongated edition of Felice, with a spurning walk and a figure that was an asset to slender models. Occasionally she took part-time jobs as a mannequin, and from her Mary Immaculate could consider the possibilities of exploiting her own face and figure. She learned from the same source that love and marriage could be casual, entered into unadvisedly, unsoberly and more as a convenience than as a remedy against sin. Despising the men of that world, she thought Maxine’s qualities were more offensive when they were entirely male. By this time she knew homage could be claimed for herself by just sitting and looking. All of Maxine’s friends capitulated to good exteriors. They were not people to know about Josephine and Tim.

  “Your breakfast, miss,” said a maid presenting a tray.

  “Shall I bring Miss Maxine’s?”

  “Certainly,” said a voice speaking decisively for itself.

  Maxine left her bed at once, as if consciousness impelled her to instant motion. Belting a gown round her waist, she began to prowl up and down the space at the foot of the beds. As she walked she smoked, and when her breakfast came she drank without eating. Picking up a letter from her tray, she crumpled it in her hand with scant regard for its contents. Absorbed, Mary Immaculate studied a letter of her own. Watching her balefully, something about her inspired Maxine’s devils. “You’ll soon know it by heart,” she mocked. “Lieutenant-Commander, I suppose.”

  “Yes?” murmured the girl. “Malta! He’s asked me to marry him again.”

  Maxine walked as if the information was offensive.

  “Of course! Marriage is an old English custom. Naturally the Services would remember it first.”

  Mary Immaculate stared over the letter. “What’s the matter?” she asked mildly. “You drink at night and you’re cross in the mornings.”

  Maxine gestured impatiently. “Any word of the boat?”

  “No, but they’re sure to be here this evening.”

  “Aren’t you dining ?”

  “Yes, with Mater’s brother, Major—”

  “Extraordinary girl! What a waste of an evening. He’ll take you to his Club…!”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  Maxine’s shrug indicated the hopelessness of explanation.

  “What’s Philip like?” she demanded.

  “Younger, slighter than David, better eyes and lashes, very active!”

  “Is he rich?” asked Maxine, as if an important fact had been admitted.

  “No, certainly not. Just well-off.”

  “It takes money to cross oceans and stay away for six months.”

  “M’mm, but he’s not poor. He’s worked hard and saved.”

  “Going to marry him?”

  Mary Immaculate gave her a still look. It did not do to answer Maxine’s personal questions. She took everything apart and it was never the same thing again. Without replying she got out of bed, picking up a gown on her way to the bathroom. When she returned, trailing bath-essence, she was surprised to see Maxine reclining on the bed and flicking cigarette-ash recklessly on the carpet. Instinctively the girl thought how the mater would despise such slovenliness! A sidelong glance told her Maxine was not resting. Momentarily still, she seemed merely leashed by will-power. It was not the easiest thing to dress under critical, baleful eyes, but she went on, reassured by her fresh reflection. Something about it seemed to wake Maxine’s devils. From utter stillness she exploded into motion and comment.

  “God, get out of my sight!” she commanded. “You look so clean. I hate the sight of your face.”

  “Sorry,” mocked Mary Immaculate equably, “I’m so sorry, but if you don’t like me you know what to do. I happen to be the hostes… Maxine?’ she questioned on another note. Her voice trailed away, stifled by something she could not comprehend. Then she saw with the eyes o
f her hard-won experience. Maxine’s face was desperate, hunted, even as she stood superbly in defiance.

  “Maxine, tell me,” she whispered. “There’s something wrong.”

  She knew Maxine for an ultra girl. Now she became galvanic with drama. Flinging her dressing-gown on the bed, she drew herself up to her spurning height.

  “Do I look natural ?” she demanded.

  “Yes,” faltered the girl.

  Maxine ripped off her nightdress with a crackle of electric sparks.

  “Now look!”

  Mary Immaculate stared, seeing nothing but slim olive nudity, very reminding of the bronze girls she had found years ago in David’s room. Then a thought hit her, wilting the support of her legs. Instinctively she dropped on the bed, whirling towards the incredible.

  “So you see?” said Maxine desperately.

  “No, no, I don’t see! I just think. You’re insane—”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said in a knife-cutting voice.

  Like a projectile the words hit the two terse syllables beating in her mind. Philip! She could see them drop dead from this large assault. Swiftly and selfishly she wanted to rush Maxine out, hide her away with all other irregularity. When she had the courage to look she was swamped by a memory of being outcast from the Place. Tim and herself had once been the children of disgrace. Philip’s cruelty, the cruelty of men to women simmered in her mind.

  “Put on your gown,” she commanded, “and close the door.”

  Sitting on either bed with knees touching they faced each other with some mutuality. Maxine looked drained, as if her confession had sent her devils in retreat.

  “What are you going to do, Maxine ?” she asked, evoking a programme that seemed prepared.

  “I have an address! I found that part very simple. The difficulty was to get the money to go with it. It must be in notes, paid before the operation. I hear there are two methods. One, you go in the morning and stay—”

  “Don’t tell me,” commanded Mary Immaculate sternly.

  “Very well, if you’re so particular,” agreed Maxine with a twisted mouth. As if glad of an invitation to stark outline she went on: “There’s nothing for you to do but get me sixty pounds for an abortion.”

  The request was too staggering for comment. Mary Immaculate stuttered until she took a firm grip on protest and speech.

  “You’re out of your mind,” she accused. “I will not!”

  For a second the two glared at each other until Mary Immaculate softened. This time the battle was not even. “Couldn’t you marry him?” she suggested gently, unprepared for the volley of scorn spat in her face.

  “Bah! I might have known you’d say that! What, go crawling hat in hand, asking a man to marry you? I’d take the river first, and that’s not a gesture. I’ll marry in pride or not at all. Men are worms enough, but if you give them the whip hand—”

  “I don’t know men like that,” protested the girl proudly. Then she went on with hardy resistance. “Doesn’t he know?”

  “No, and I’m not going to tell him. It would be a waste of time. Besides, I wouldn’t marry him. I couldn’t!”

  “But if you could—”

  “Oh, don’t be a fool,” ordered Maxine. She got up, beginning to walk again, with tormented steps. “There are hundreds of bed-worthy men you could never marry. Of course, if he had money I’d borrow it,” she explained casually, “but he hasn’t a penny, and you’ve got lots.”

  “I have not! If you’d asked me months ago when I first came over—”

  “I didn’t want it then,” interrupted Maxine impatiently.

  “But why have you come to me ? You’ve got lots of friends.”

  “Friends! Yes, dozens, hundreds, when I’ve got something to give them,’’ agreed Maxine wildly. “There’s only Aunt Felice, and that means—”

  “No, no,” protested the girl, with her mind on Felice waiting so happily for David.

  “With those two men it’s dead easy for you.”

  “You’re crazy, Maxine! Even the most generous men don’t give sixty pounds to a minor without knowing why.”

  Maxine clasped her hand until the knuckles showed white. “I must have it, I must have it,” she entreated like a desperate litany. “Mary, this agony of mind, it’s a torture! I don’t feel any different, but I went into a Public Library and read whole chapters on the symptoms of pregnancy. Then I knew it was true. Every second I wait for it to make a visible appearance for everyone to see.” She put her hands over her eyes as if to shut out a sight. “God, the way you can feel! The other night some vulgar brute asked that definition about optimism, you know, pregnant flapper rubbing vanishing cream on her tummy. Someone laughed and I wanted to scream. I know, I feel it, some wretched girl did that out of desperation.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Mary Immaculate sensitively.

  “Oh,” continued Maxine with hard liberation, “you think you know it all, and you can snap your fingers at the old taboos. You can, so confidently when you’re on the right side of convention. But once the cut has come it’s as separating as the guillotine. Your head and your body part, but you don’t die. You feel yourself outside your tradition, and your family looking at you as filth. When I think of them, being so ordinary—”

  “Yes, yes, ordinary! It’s so wise to be ordinary,” agreed mary immaculate with a long shiver.

  Silently both girls rocked a little, suffering acutely for the burden and responsibility of woman. There was a long silence until mary immaculate spoke sharply, ejecting spontaneous thought.

  “Maxine,” she accused, “what you plan is murder!”

  Maxine whirled round like a fury. “There you go again—”

  “With my provincial mind, I suppose,” agreed the girl sternly. “I know better. It’s better to marry and go with nature than go against it.”

  “Rubbish! It’s absurd! murder for something that’s barely started?” “It’s life,” said Mary Immaculate inflexibly.

  “Oh, shut up!” ordered Maxine rudely and desperately. There was more hard silence broken by the sounds of the house and Maxine’s nervous breath. With indrawn eyes Mary Immaculate looked at the carpet, thinking hard.

  “Maxine,” she asked slowly, “isn’t it a terrible thing to ask a qualified doctor to perform an abortion? Isn’t the very word insulting?”

  Maxine shrugged. She was so frantic for the medical outrage that she could not consider professional ethics.

  “Perhaps,” she said grudgingly; “but addresses are legion.” Staring hopefully at the younger girl, she tried persuasion. “Mary, there’s nothing to say when the consequences come—”

  “I know, I know,” muttered the girl.

  “How do you know?” said Maxine sharply.

  “Never mind, odd things have happened to me,” was all the information she would concede. “I can understand how awful you feel.”

  “If it’s any encouragement to you I’ll tell you, when I come out of this there won’t be enough bishops in England to bless my marriagebed.”

  “Let me think, Maxine, let me think.”

  She went to the window, flinging it up, admitting the acrid air. Her head went down in her hands, and she tried to think in what freshness London had to offer. Behind her Maxine coughed spontaneously, but she did not heed. She felt herself being propelled along, assailed with the fatality of a natural lead. Would this bit of irregularity be the final bit of the jigsaw completing her, or would it show her up as the bit that could never fit? Nothing in her was shocked that Maxine was pregnant. From earliest years she had heard strong talk of procreation. Everything in her was shocked that Maxine planned an abortion. To ask Philip to finance it would be an outrage! On every count he would be rocked unspeakably. There was her own youth he held so preciously, the sordidness of the request and the conflict with his professional integrity. Yet what man could visualise the special agony of a woman outside convention? By the very nature of things it was impossible. Philip had insulted h
er girlhood chastity and made her feel like an abomination. Tim was dead! Poignantly, vividly, she relived their pitiless expulsion from the Place. Coldly she entertained a thin streak of cruelty running like steel through her veins. Some new attribute in herself demanded recognition, and she saw it as the capacity to hurt someone deeply important.

  “I’ll get the money,” she said with hard decision.

  Maxine gasped, collapsing on the bed. For a moment the younger girl saw her impersonally, wondering if Maxine was capable of tears. She hated tears herself. Maxine did not cry. In a second she had flung up a head, proud as Lucifer even in shame. Surprisingly she turned to the breakfast-tray, beginning to eat like a starving person. The spontaneous natural reaction affected Mary Immaculate strongly.

  “What will we do today, Maxine?” she asked gently.

  “Will you spend it with me?” asked Maxine almost gratefully.

  “Yes, anything you say.”

  “Thanks, I’ll take myself off before they come. I couldn’t bear a doctor’s eyes. Make it right with Aunt Felice, will you?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll meet for lunch tomorrow, but today let’s go tearing round, will you?”

  “All right,” agreed Mary Immaculate, returning to the dressingtable. In that way she and Maxine were similar.

  They had the same high-powered capacity for storming the event.

  It was ten-thirty when the maid opened the door of the Chelsea house.