Call and I'll Come

by Mary Burchell

  That Katherine—Katherine who had trampled her heart and soul in the mud—should be smiling at her lost dreams, the tattered banner of her love!

  She was blind to everything but that hint of a smile, and in a fury beyond any control, she raised her hand and struck Katherine full across her pink and white face.

  “Anna!” Hamilton was the only one who found his voice. “Are you mad? How do you suppose anything so vulgar can help a situation that’s vile enough already?”

  She was silent, a little dazed now by the evidence of her own feelings. It was vulgar, of course, horribly vulgar to slap anyone’s face. No good trying to explain that quarts of blue blood would have made no difference to that furious impulse.

  She had played straight into Katherine’s hands. Hamilton could see her now just as Katherine had meant him to see her—labelled as a common little nobody before his friends, his family, himself.

  With a terrible little sob she ran out of the room and up the stairs to the beautiful bedroom that she hated. And that night no Tony came to comfort her.

  For hours Anna lay awake staring into the darkness that was no blacker than her thoughts. And, every minute, her despair and apprehension, not for herself but for Tony, grew deeper. With extraordinarily clearness she seemed to see the last three months now through Tony’s dismayed, astounded eyes.

  Three short months ago he had not even known that she existed. And then, by an utterly unexpected chance, she had been there beside him, weaving herself into the very fabric of his life, dazzling him with her peculiar charm, befogging his judgment because there was something about her which entirely fascinated him.

  And because of his wild infatuation for her—Anna’s mind stumbled a little over that word—he had turned his back on reason, and on all that his own world meant.

  He had imagined, just as she had, that together they could make a world of their own—out of their love for each other. But now they were both discovering that there was no such thing as making a world of your own. There was only one world—and love, however deep, was only a part of it.

  “Whither thou goest I will go ... Thy people shall be my people.” But that only held good in the Old Testament, when an all-seeing Providence was for ever leaning out of heaven to put things right. It was true she could go wherever Tony went, insisting that he noticed her, that he looked at her—even that he loved her. But—“Thy people shall be my people”—that was something quite different.

  To “his people” she would always be the impossible outsider, the interloper who had thrust her way into Tony’s life, putting it out of gear, so that it could never again run smoothly ... Never, that was, so long as she remained there as the obstruction.

  And Tony—Tony, who saw life in such kindly, simple, undemanding terms—would always be the centre of a problem that had no solution, the cause of a struggle which bruised and wearied and eventually embittered him.

  She could give him nothing that he had not already. She saw now how pitiably foolish had been her feverish hopes of doing something to make him proud of her, something to justify his preposterous choice of her. She could do nothing but tarnish his bright prospects with her sordid connections. And in a crisis, what had she done? Behaved, it seemed, in a way which they considered utterly unpardonable.

  For a terrible moment she wondered if she were nothing but the common little outsider that Katherine thought.

  “But Tony wouldn’t have loved me if I’d been just that,” she pleaded in a whisper, as though Katherine were there, accusing her. “He couldn’t have loved me, could he?—could he?”

  And Tony did love her. She knew that was true. He himself had said to her that she had only to call and he would come to her wherever he was. That, in a sense, was still true, too. Even this evening’s deadly scene, even the fact that Katherine had made him see her as a cheap little flirt, would never be enough to keep him away if she really pleaded.

  He would come—bewildered, powerless to resist—but he would come—to have a little more of his peace of mind destroyed—if she called.

  The choice was hers. She could call him to her—to his ruin—or she could let him go.

  “Oh, God, have I got to give him up?” she whispered. “I can’t do that—I can’t—I can’t. Isn’t there some other way? He’s all I have. I haven’t had much. Oh, I’m not complaining—please don’t think I’m complaining—but he’s all I have.”

  She tried to think of something else to say, but there was nothing else—and she just went on repeating over and over again: “He is all I have.”

  The light was growing quite strong when at last, utterly chilled and fatigued, she lay down and slept exhaustedly.

  When she awoke it was broad daylight, and Tony was standing beside the bed, fully dressed.

  “I’m sorry to have to wake you, Anna,” he began.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said hastily, and sat up with a little feeling of guilt. “It—it’s rather late anyway, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it’s after ten.”

  “After ten!” Anna was horrified. “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “There’s no need to be.” Tony’s voice was kind, but curiously formal, and, for the first time in all their acquaintance, she noticed that he had some difficulty in meeting her eyes.

  “But it’s long past breakfast-time.”

  He smiled faintly. “Well, suppose you have breakfast in bed this morning. I only woke you because I had a letter this morning which means I must go out of town on business today.”

  “Yes?” Sudden eagerness clutched at her heart. She might go with him, perhaps, and explanations would go much easier when there was no one else with them. She shrank for a moment from her feverish resolution of the night before.

  But his next words brought it back very clearly.

  “I shan’t be back until tomorrow morning, I expect, and then only in time to go straight to the office. Will you be—all right here?”

  If she said, “Oh, please take me, too,” he undoubtedly would. If she didn’t—

  She heard herself say clearly and steadily: “I shall be quite all right, Tony. I don’t expect I should enjoy a business trip much.”

  “No.” He gave her a troubled look. “I only thought He hesitated. Then suddenly he had flung his arms boyishly round her and was holding her close. “Oh, Anna, it’s such a silly beastly muddle, and we none of us meant half the things we did and said last night. Did we?” he added eagerly, as she made no answer.

  “I suppose not.” She was quite unresponsive in his arms, and her lashes were cast down in that peculiar baffling sullenness.

  “Anna.”

  “Yes?”

  “Look at me, darling.”

  She looked at him. She knew she had banished all expression from her eyes, but she didn’t know that their blankness was almost frightening.

  “You’re sure you wouldn’t like—to come with me?” The almost artless little note of appeal in his voice shook her resolution badly. But she reminded herself fiercely that she must not make any more false steps. She had made enough of them—and dragged him after her.

  Only he was so inexpressibly dear like this. It was cruel that she couldn’t draw his head down to her and kiss him. She must not call—because he must not come.

  She said: “But it’s only a day and a half, Tony. And what should I do in a strange place while you were busy?”

  “Yes, of course. You’re quite right,” He kissed her quickly. “And, Anna—”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t worry, will you? We—we can work out explanations afterwards—or perhaps forget about them altogether.”

  “Yes, Tony.”

  She kissed him gravely and watched him go.

  Dear, foolish, generous Tony—trying so hard to put the rope round his neck again.

  Anna lay back and suddenly pressed her cheek into the hollow which his elbow had made when he leant against her pillow. The despairing fever of last night was almost past.
She thought of him now with great tenderness—and the first touch of a peculiar resignation.

  She closed her eyes again for a moment—and when she opened them once more it was nearly lunch-time. Feeling rather ashamed, she got up and dressed quickly and went downstairs.

  To her relief, only the elder Miss Roone was in for lunch, and with her almost superhuman talent for pretending that everything was all right when it was really all wrong; she contrived to make the meal at least bearable.

  Afterwards, Anna decided to go out, for it was a close, heavy afternoon, and there seemed to be little air in the big, silent house. She went upstairs and put on the little ivory suit in which she had been married. It looked cool, and she had a silly feeling that it might bring her luck. As she took her handbag out of a drawer she noticed Mario Frayne’s card lying there, where she had thrust it last night when she undressed.

  She picked it up slowly and read the address: “Seven Killigrew Mansions, St. James’s.”

  She sighed a little, and made as though to tear the card across. Then, apparently changing her mind, she put it into the bag, next to the thick roll of notes still left from yesterday’s shopping, and went downstairs.

  As she closed the big front door behind her she had the curious feeling that she didn’t really belong anywhere. As though no one would notice or comment if she went away and never came back.

  It was silly to feel like that, of course, because she must belong to a certain extent wherever Tony was.

  Or was that all just a false situation which fell to pieces when it came into contact with reality? She shivered suddenly in the sunshine, and turned quickly to go into the Park, where it looked quiet and shady.

  As she did so, a very fat little boy stumbled against her and clutched her knees. Anna put out a hand to steady him, and he lifted a round, beaming face to hers.

  “Why, what are you doing?” she said, touching his soft brown cheek with her fingers.

  “Wunning away,” he said engagingly. And she laughed with a sudden lightening of the heart, because she had so nearly been doing the same thing herself. And she saw now how absurd it was.

  “Are you?” She bent down and gathered up the naughty little figure in her arms. He hadn’t much on, really, and he felt all warm, fat curves as she hugged him.

  A smiling nanny came up just then and said: “Thank you very much, madam. I’m afraid he’s being very naughty this afternoon. Come along. Alistair.”

  Anna looked wistfully at fat Alistair and wished she could have kept him to play with. But, with a nonchalant wave in her direction, he staggered off in the wake of his captor.

  Still smiling a little, Anna strolled slowly into the Park and sat down under the trees. There were other children there, tearing about and playing and quarrelling with the intense concentration of the very young. Anna looked at them and thought: “It must be beautiful to have children who love you and want to be loved.”

  Children were so blessedly uncritical. They accepted you without question, and you didn’t have to pretend with them. And then if you had children of your own they began by loving you. You didn’t have to struggle wearily for their love and approval, wondering frightenedly all the time if you were on quite the wrong lines.

  Suppose she completely ignored that terrible idea at the back of her mind about leaving Tony—determined to start again—persuaded herself that she might not be hopelessly bad for him, after all?

  Then they could begin to make something of life together. And by and by they too would have children, and that would give some permanent foundation to their world. And because her children would love her, and not criticise her, she would gather a little feeling of confidence again and she wouldn’t keep on doing the wrong things out of sheer fear and bewilderment.

  She would feel that she had given Tony something really worth while—not that he always had to give her everything.

  That terrible, heavy weight seemed to be rolling away from her heart. It had been silly to feel so lost and despairing because there hadn’t appeared to be any roots to this new life of hers. Of course not. She must grow them for herself. It might hurt a bit at first, but then most worthwhile things did hurt.

  She got up suddenly, deciding to go home. Perhaps Miss Roone would know where she could telephone to Tony. He must be feeling very worried after the chilly way she had behaved this morning. But she would put that right now. She would make him understand.

  She was almost running by the time she reached the house, and she let herself in quietly with the key that Tony had given her. Miss Roone was almost sure to be in the library, because it was nearly tea-time, and Tony had said that she liked tea served in there.

  But, as Anna reached the half-open door, it was Katherine’s voice which she heard. That gave her a disagreeable pause for a moment, and then she gathered all her resolution. After all, even if Katherine had been unkind last night, she herself had been abominably rude. There was an apology owing and, on a quick impulse, Anna decided to make it.

  It would be horribly difficult of course, but that didn’t matter if it were the beginning of better things.

  And then there was a most peculiar sound—a quite incredible sound, really, in that household. Someone was crying; and the next moment Katherine’s voice said:

  “Really, Aunt, it isn’t any good distressing yourself like this!” Miss Roone crying! Anna stood there petrified. She couldn’t possibly had imagined such a thing happening, and she felt sure that the last thing she would want would be for her to know about it. She was turning away when Miss Roone herself spoke, in a voice not easily recognisable because of her tears.

  “But Tony is like my own son,” she exclaimed. “It’s so awful that this should have happened.”

  Anna suddenly felt terribly sick. She leant against the wall, and wondered numbly if her face had gone as white as it felt.

  “I know, I know.” Katherine sounded impatient. “But he isn’t the first man to make a fool of himself over a girl, and there’s usually a way out. At least he realises now what he’s taken on. I never saw anything so illuminating as his face last night when that tipsy creature stumbled in.”

  “Oh, Kate, don’t remind me of that scene again!” Her aunt’s voice rose plaintively. “Suppose he routs out Tony at his office when there’s an important client there? It’s perfectly possible. And then the girl herself! Quarrelling with your friends, making herself cheap with Mario Frayne, and then slapping your face—actually slapping your face, in our own drawingroom.”

  “All right, Aunt Charlotte.” Katherine’s tone was grim. “It was worth it in a sense, for the way it opened Tony’s eyes.”

  “Do you think she should take money to go quietly, and let Tony divorce her?” The momentary hope in Miss Roone’s voice was like acid on Anna’s shrinking soul.

  “Later on she might.” Katherine answered her aunt’s question—cool and positive in her estimate of her brother’s wife. “The danger is that it might be too late.”

  “What do you mean?” Apprehension trembled in Miss Roone’s voice again.

  “Well, so often in these cases, before the man has time and sense to struggle free, there’s a child.”

  “Katherine!” Miss Roone’s exclamation drowned the terrible little sound that Anna made. “When I think how much I’d hoped from darling Tony’s marriage. After all—the only boy—and even nowadays there is some sort of duty to one’s family.” Miss Roone sounded rather as though she were going to weep again. “And now here he is married to this common little good-for-nothing, and the best we can hope is that she won’t saddle him with a lot of common babies too!”

  It was that which moved Anna at last.

  She went slowly back towards the front door, walking as though she were carrying a heavy load. Very quietly she let herself out again, shutting the door behind her as softly as possible. And then she walked up the road, with no idea at all of where she was going.

  It was strange, she thought painfully, that
she felt so utterly bruised and insulted not only for herself, but for children who had never existed—and now never would.

  So that, at last, was what they really thought of her marriage to Tony. It hadn’t been said for effect. It hadn’t been said with any special intention of hurting her. It was their honest opinion—that she could bring nothing but disgrace and unhappiness to Tony.

  And, after all, they should know. Tony was theirs. He had lived their life and seen things with their eyes for thirty years—and now he had done something so silly and so disastrous that Miss Roone had wept for him.

  It was no good pretending any longer. They knew—and Katherine had spoken of Tony’s disillusionment last night—had even thought it was worth the indignity of being struck if it meant that Tony saw something at last of his danger.

  She walked and walked without knowing or caring where she went. All she knew was that she could never go back to that house. One could not just walk out and disappear, of course. She was not so crazy as to think that.

  But tomorrow—some time—when Tony came back, she must see him and convince him that it was all a mistake; make him believe that she had no wish to go on; that she had no use for him. That though for a while he might wish to come, she would never call.

  “Call and I’ll come!”

  She heard a funny little high laugh, and was shocked the next moment to realise that it was she herself who had made the sound.

  It was stupid of her. There was no need to be hysterical. She just needed something to pull herself together—a cup of strong coffee, perhaps. There was some strange refuge in having even such a small thing to occupy her mind. She must find somewhere where she could get a cup of coffee.

  There was a large crowded teashop on the corner of the next street. That would do. It was almost a relief to be among so many people—even though not one of them cared an atom about her.

  She ordered her coffee, and drank it eagerly when it came. It made her feel a little less ghastly, and she opened her bag to take out her mirror and see if she looked all right now. Subconsciously she noticed again the big roll of notes, and thought: “At least I have money.”