The Dangerous Years

by Richard Church

  “Nonsense, I don’t believe it is lacking!”

  “You wouldn’t know, Mother, you wouldn’t know!” The cry was almost a wail of despair. It turned the girl to anger again. She flashed round on her mother, shaking her fist aloft, as though denouncing all heights, all concerns with height and the effort to rise. “I don’t know, either. That’s the maddening thing. All this cloistered life, all the ignorance! How am I to judge? I can’t believe in any men, now. They are all self-concerned. Look at this man here, this Colonel Batten! I can see what he is after. It’s something discreditable, I’m certain. Why is he hiding over here, with nothing definite to do, except to plot and plan to exploit that child?”

  Both women were now angry, and from a complication of causes that made sympathy impossible.

  “Joan, you are talking hysterical nonsense, quite unlike yourself. Whatever makes you lose control like this? I am sorry for you both, you and John.” She wanted to keep the colonel out of the argument, to shield him, perhaps. Misgivings moved secretly at the back of her mind, but she would not recognise them here. She had enough to do, under the stress of divided allegiance. “I would suggest that you both go off to Switzerland if John comes here after you. At least, it means that he wants you, and is loyal to you.”

  “Wants me! Wants me! What a hollow farce, all this collegiate emotion, if it can be called emotion. I don’t know what to say. I wish I did. I do not accuse you, Mother; but I wish we might have been a little less soulful all the while I was growing up. Now it is impossible for me to break away from that, to make any overture that might wake John, release him from whatever it is that keeps him tied down to the level of a schoolboy. I feel more like a Girl Guide than a wife!”

  Nothing could come of this argument, for neither was capable of being honest about her own feelings. But Mary knew that she must not let Joan see what was happening. The contrast would be too much. Here was the ebb and flow of desire indeed; but at all the wrong times. She must conceal from Joan the fact that something desperate was carrying her outside herself, away from the devoted life of the past fifteen years, the selfless widowhood. Peace was to be expected now, at fifty. But instead! She stared at her daughter, her eyes bright, her face the face of a girl. And Joan, gaunt, haunted, hungry and afraid to touch the fruit, stared back at her.

  Mary saw pain, and distrust, in her daughter’s eyes.

  “What do you mean?” she demanded, with no relevance to Joan’s last words. It was the unspoken accusation to which she referred.

  “I mean that I went out, after finding you gone. And I saw you in the Luxembourg Gardens with those two men and the child.”

  “There’s no need to make a melodrama of it, Joan. Whatever do you suppose I was doing there with them? I met Colonel Batten as I was going out after lunch, and he asked me to go along to collect the boy, and then when we got to the Gardens, we encountered Mr. Sturm, that really rather nice old American. A very kind man, I thought.”

  “As kind as the wolf in Red Riding Hood, I should say.”

  “You’re being romantic and mysterious about that child. I cannot see what …”

  “No, but his father can. That is evident enough. But after all, it is none of my business. Only I think you should keep out of it. One can see that something is going on, though, and I would not trust either of those two.”

  Mary was horrified to find herself about to quarrel again. She turned away, forcing herself to be silent. During this uncertain pause, the house telephone rang. She was grateful for the interruption.

  Joan stood watching her, waiting to see the effect of her words; though she was still without suspicion of her mother’s particular interest in Colonel Batten. Mary turned to her, the telephone held at arm’s-length.

  “You had better come, Joan. It is John. He is downstairs.”

  Joan’s cheeks paled, and she moved her tongue over her lips.

  “I won’t see him,” she whispered. “Say that I am out. I must have time to think it over. He should keep to our agreement. No, I won’t …!”

  Mary held out the telephone.

  “Come, Joan. You cannot refuse. It is quite unfair. He has come all this way. You have a duty to him.…”

  “Well, I suppose I must. He will have heard us, in any case. But what am I to say, what can I do?”

  “I had better leave you together. It is not a moment for three of us, Joan. I want to help you, my darling; but I cannot wholly agree with you. I love John too, and I must leave you together …”

  “Mother, you can’t let me be alone with him.…”

  Mary spoke to John on the telephone, asking him to come up.

  “Well, that decides for me,” said Joan, bitterly. “It’s none of it my fault, Mother. I want to emphasise that.”

  “It never is, darling. You must have learned that, surely. Isn’t that the teaching of history? But I’ll slip out, after I have greeted him. You realise, I’ve not seen him since the summer vacation; and all was well then, or appeared to be.”

  “Yes, appeared to be!”

  A knock at the door. It opened, and a tall figure stooped to enter, though he need not have done so; but Joan saw the characteristic action, and her lips moved in anguish again.

  Mary kissed him, and he stooped over his mother-in-law like a lover, murmuring tenderly to her. Then he looked up, at his wife. His eyes were obstinate, frightened, and he quickly veiled them with sternness, the mask of official male-dom. He drew himself up, and his six-foot-four figure, burly and powerful, was forbidding in its massiveness.

  “I’ll leave you together, John,” said Mary, gently. He nodded, without looking at her again, and she slipped away into the other room, snatched up a coat belonging to Joan, and fled to the lift. She had no idea what to do with herself, and she was cold, for the night had set hard. She went down to the lounge, a draughty place, except for a long glass screen because the hotel doors opened directly into it from the street. She switched on an electric fire, and sat down before it with a pile of thumbed journals, most of them trade papers two or three years old. She was trembling, partly with physical discomfort, and certainly with distress, not only for Joan, but for herself.

  All was quiet, for the hotel was almost empty. One or two people came and went, and Mary sat there, trying to be interested in wood-pulp mills, and cement works, and the building of dams in North Africa. Then once again she felt the rush of icy air from outside as the doors swung open. Looking up and into the mirror-panel before her, she saw Colonel Batten at the desk, taking his key from the hall porter. She knew she ought to shrink into herself, to hide from him. But instead, she looked round, and he saw her. She watched him put the key in his pocket, pause, then approach.

  “We didn’t finish our talk this afternoon,” he said, quietly. “The call of duty, Mary.”

  He took her hand, and held it as he sat down beside her.

  “Mary! I haven’t even been sure I may call you that. But I want to ask you; what has brought us together? The last thing in the world I expected, at my time of life. I’m not a youngster, Mary. And … and … I’m in no position to …”

  “And what about me, Tom?” she said, pressing his hand, turning her own in it to show her surrender, to draw him closer.

  “Does that mean …?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know what anything means,” she answered. “I am utterly at a loss. My world is tumbling about my ears. There is Joan upstairs, quarrelling with her husband, who has just arrived, searching for her, refusing to let her go. And he has every right not to, I suppose, though I can understand her feelings.”

  The colonel leaned towards her, furtively looking round at the man in the desk.

  “That’s her life, Mary. What about yours? Where do you come in? May I ask that; may I, Mary, my dear? How absurd it sounds, after we have known each other for a couple of weeks, is it? Or is it a lifetime? I can’t say. But I love you, and I have no right to, no right to.”

  He touched her face with his
other hand, and she turned to look at him. The boyish bewilderment surely could conceal nothing dishonest. What was all this gossip about him, and his affairs in England? What was Joan’s animosity?”

  “Poor Tom,” she said. “I am sorry for you. Sorry for us both.”

  “Why, Mary, does it affect you too; are your feelings involved. Does that mean you …?”

  “I’m afraid so, Tom. I’m foolish too. I believe I love you, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.”

  “It means trust also, Mary. It must mean that too!”

  “Well, I cannot speak about that, Tom. But love means even more, perhaps. It is quite irrational. I would want to help you, if I could, whatever the world says.”

  “I’ve been a fool; a stupid fool, Mary. If you can help me out of that …”

  He broke off, struggling with something that he could not put into words. “But whatever happens, I love you. It’s not of much use to you, maybe. I’m not a free man. And I am a poor one who has muddled along since the war, making a mess of things, as far as I can see. Trying to be a business man, and completely fooling myself. I doubt even if I am quite straight, so far as that goes. Though I may plead ignorance rather than cunning, Mary.”

  “I don’t feel very learned about life, at least since we came to France, Tom,” said Mary, drawing him to her. They kissed each other sadly, and then again gladly.

  “We can’t stay here in public,” he whispered, after a long and embarrassed silence. “What can we do? I must talk to you. No. Talking is useless. We’re too old for that. There is so little time left, my dear. If we are not reckless now, we shall lose all that remains.”

  He touched her again, incredulously. She felt his fingers through her sleeve. She felt them trembling.

  “Don’t, please. Don’t worry about things. What is the matter? I know nothing about you, Tom. Nothing. We have hardly met. So late in life it takes … it is impossible to do things quickly. Why are you trembling…?”

  She could feel her world crumbling away; a dreadful, but welcome weakness overcoming her. But the emotion was half-recognisable; it recalled a self lost for over a quarter of a century. But such continuity of mood, such a repetition of experience, could not possibly be real! Yet she had to respond to this man pleading silently at her side, to let him know that she understood his appeal, his distress; she did not know what to call it. The fingers so eloquent on her arm!

  “Tom!” she said again. “I wish I could help you. I know you are in trouble.”

  “Let us go up,” he said, tightening his grip on her arm. “We can’t leave things like this. We must talk it out, decide to do something …”

  “We can’t go up,” she whispered, pretending to misunderstand, “Joan and John are up there.…”

  “I know,” he said, ignoring that pretence, and implying by his glance that he knew it was pretence. “But we’ll go up. There’s nowhere else to go. Why not? We are responsible to ourselves. I’ll tell you of that after.”

  “After what?” she said, weakly.

  He drew her up, taking the magazines from her lap and dropping them on the chair. He walked before her to the lift, and she followed. They stood in it facing each other, silent, looking into each others’ eyes, and seeing there, by the flash of light from the first floor, the second floor, the third floor, the plea, the determination, and the passionate welcome.

  “You’ve passed the second floor,” she said, as he opened the lift door and drew her out.

  “Yes, we must not disturb husband and wife.”

  The corridor was empty, and Colonel Batten put his arm round her, an act of possession, or at least a claim. He felt her response, her hand clasping his coat, her face upturned to his.

  They were in his room now. She stood, knowing what she was about to do.

  “Come, Mary,” he said; and she found herself back in the past. But no, this was a timeless experience, the triumph of living, an autumnal fire leaping up suddenly, the fiercer because of the sere fuel. She found his mouth upon hers, and the expert hands fondling her. Her response was complete, fearless.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Husband and Wife

  When Mary left husband and wife alone, they faced each other accusingly, and stood for some moments without a word, or a movement. Joan was pale still; obstinate, a schoolgirl at bay. So she seemed to John Boys, who looked only at her face, and was unaware of the rest of her person, the large hips, the full bust, the turbulent breathing that accentuated her figure.

  “Call it off, Joan,” he said at last. “Look here, old girl…”

  He found it impossible to put his emotions into words. He was not an articulate man, even in the small-talk of life. Now he floundered.

  Joan could not help him; nor did she want to. She was angry, not only with him but with the whole of her world. It was conspiring to humiliate her, to refuse her claim to an adult inheritance. Why was that? If only she knew, she could put up a fight: but here she was only half-aware of what she wanted, clumsy over the cheat, and damning herself for that clumsiness.

  “I’m not to blame,” she stammered. “I’ve tried to explain, but you won’t understand. Mother should not have left us. I begged her not to.”

  “She had to, Joan. We can’t behave like this. It isn’t decent. What on earth would people think if they heard us?”

  “It’s not a matter for public discussion. Teamwork is no use here. That may be what’s wrong. You have no other criterion but that. Everything is teamwork with you. You go through life roped to a party.”

  “Isn’t marriage surely a matter of being roped together?”

  “I can’t argue. Either you keep to our compact, or I have to despise you.”

  This stung him. He started towards her, then drew back angrily. He put a great hand to his moustache, and fumbled at his lips before speaking.

  “That’s going a bit far, Joan. Despise me? What on earth do you mean? That’s a bit too much, old girl. Come now, acknowledge what I say. You’re getting above yourself. It’s a touch of hysteria. Let’s calm down and talk this thing out afresh.…”

  His reasonableness maddened her. She retreated to the door between the rooms.

  “You must go!” she cried. “Go before we say something beastly to each other. I’m sorry I said that. I don’t want to hurt you more than this. I’ve hurt you, but it’s not my fault. I can’t understand. We are unhappy together, John. We are unhappy.” She began to weep, and he crossed the room and pushed his handkerchief into her hand. His voice trembled, as though he too were unmanned.

  “Pull yourself together, Joan. What’s it all about?”

  “You don’t know, do you? You don’t know? And who is to tell you?”

  “Look here, you’re wandering, my dear. I’m not blaming you for anything, Joan. Can’t you see what I’m trying to say? I thought we had parted in one of our usual rows; just a bit of temper, like all the rest of our squabbles. Then I find you gone off like this. I mean, it is hardly civilised. It isn’t the sort of thing one does. We are educated people, Joan. It’s a matter of giving an example in this modern world of loose morals and meaningless promises. I’m not a pi chap; my work prevents me from subscribing to all that sort of thing. But we know what’s what, Joan, surely. Say you agree with me!”

  He tried to touch her, but she backed away, and knocked her elbow against the door-post. Nursing it, she glared at him, her mouth working, and the tears wet on her gaunt cheeks. The parting in her fair, Eton-cropped hair had disappeared, and a strand lay across her forehead, scimitar-wise. John tried again to touch her, but not eagerly enough to succeed. He stood there, as awkward as she. They were both silent again, and desperately miserable.

  “Damn all your ethics,” she said at last, as the significance of his last words sank into her mind, to add to her despair. “It is not a public matter. That is what I try to show you. It is something between us two.”

  He flushed and his mouth set obstinately. His manly appearance was o
nly the more accentuated by this. Dropping his hand, he retreated a little.

  “Oh well,” he said, coldly, like a schoolmaster weary of arguing with a refractory pupil, “you persist in harping on that theme. I’m surprised, Joan. We’ve been at it for years now. This is something that cannot be forced, or done in cold blood. It must come naturally; all the books say so.”

  Joan began to laugh. She laid her head against the door-jamb, turned up her throat and face, and laughed, her breasts shaking with hysteria.

  “Oh, really! You defeat me, John. But for heaven’s sake let’s put a stop to this. We get no farther. What’s the use of your pursuing me? I can’t see the use of it. We might as well live by correspondence. You can tell me all about your work at the laboratory, and your mountaineering. … It can be done just as well by post.” She suddenly determined to be cruel, afraid of her love for this unsatisfactory husband.

  “Now please go away. I am staying here with Mother for a while. You have had your sport during the Christmas holidays. I’m carrying on with mine. You can make what excuses you like in Cambridge. Say I’m unwell! It’s not a lie. I am miserable and degraded. And you are responsible.”

  “Degraded?” he said the word incredulously. “You are mad, Joan. That is what’s wrong. I’d say you were wicked, if I were that sort of chap. But I believe you are ill, nervously ill. True enough, I’ll tell people that, if they want to pry into our affairs. True enough! I had thought our marriage was an ideal one. We have done everything together. No two friends …”

  “Ideal! Ideal indeed! It could not have been purer. It must have begun at Roedean and Rugby, over a hockey match. Oh God, the lovely, wholesome mud on our knees, John! Look at them. Look at them!”

  She held out a long leg, and burst into laughter both harsh and ugly. John winced, and stepped back.

  “I don’t understand you, Joan. You are utterly unlike yourself. I wish your mother had not left us. Look here, you are her daughter, after all. She would be infinitely distressed if she heard all this nonsense, and the innuendo behind it. For don’t think I can’t understand what you are driving at. The humiliation is not all on your side, mind you.”