A Man of Forty

by Gerald Bullet

  Stopping at Lily’s table, she stood for a second or two waiting for the girl’s attention. But Lily, fully conscious of the shadow that had fallen across her work, had her own reasons for not looking up. She was fully conscious indeed, even painfully so, of the tall slim figure, the sensitive hands, the searching eyes; but she was feverishly trying to decide, in the seconds that remained to her, how much Miss Camshaw knew, or had guessed, and holding at bay the unreasoning fear that perhaps she knew everything. Nor was her fear entirely self-regarding; for Miss Camshaw, though she carried her forty-five years with an almost military assurance, had proved herself to be a woman very vulnerable in her feelings.

  In a low voice, harsh with an agitation she could not quite suppress, Miss Camshaw said : “ What happened last night, Lily?”

  My word, thought Lily, if I was to tell you that! If I just was to!

  “Nothing, Miss Camshaw,” she said quickly.

  More gently, but in the same hurried undertone, Miss Camshaw said : “ I looked for you everywhere.”

  I know you did, thought Lily. And wasn’t it a job giving you the slip! Lily felt a twinge of self-reproach, but defended herself by asking what was the good of taking a person out and then not letting them have a bit of fun.

  “I’m ever so sorry, Miss Camshaw.”

  Beginning to be conscious of a stir of curiosity among the other girls, Miss Camshaw said lightly : “ Nonsense, child! What is there to be sorry about? You won’t forget our little plan for to-morrow? They say it’s the best film he’s made.”

  “No, Miss Camshaw. It’s ever so kind of you.”

  Miss Camshaw passed on to her own room, leaving Lily to her thoughts, and to the comments of her next neighbour.

  “Quite the lady, aren’t you? Hobnobbing with Miss Camshaw!”

  “Well,” said Lily, “ if she doesn’t put on airs, why should I?”

  “Everyone to their taste, I’m sure,” said the commentator. “ She’s not a bad old thing, anyhow. Going to the pictures, are you?”

  “Sharp ears some people have got, haven’t they? Did you ever notice?” said Lily with a sweet bright smile.

  She half-wanted to get out of to-morrow evening’s engagement. But only half, because after all a film was a film, and you could depend on Miss Camshaw to do the thing in style. She wished it were Adam that was taking her, and she wished Adam had asked her where she lived (but perhaps he forgot), and she wished she could believe that she would soon see Adam again. But she had worldly wisdom enough not to take wishing as an index of probability. Besides, you can’t have fun like that every day. It wouldn’t be the same if you did. And there was something terribly romantic, when you came to think of it, in the sort of ships that pass in the night kind of adventure. Romantic, but a bit sort of sad. Well, but that was why, wasn’t it? Dancing with tears in your eyes and all that. Do you remember my kisses, dear? You it was taught me what bliss is, dear. My wonder man, how ever can… It was wonderful, really, the way the song-writers described a person’s feelings.

  Lily hoped Miss Camshaw wouldn’t ask any more questions about last night’s party, but in this she was disappointed. Before the film Miss Camshaw took her out to tea, and they had a quiet corner to themselves where they could talk freely. Too freely for Lily’s comfort : every remark that reminded her of Adam, however indirectly, made her feel as though the whole story of last night could be read in her eyes.

  “Didn’t I see you talking to Adam Swinford?” said Miss Camshaw suddenly.

  “Which one was that?” answered Lily, wrinkling her brow. “ Such a lot of men talked to me last night. I’ve never seen so many people all at once. Well, not at a party, I mean.”

  “I hope you remembered what I said, dear?”

  “What you said, Miss Camshaw?”

  “About being careful with strangers. About people taking advantage.”

  “Yes, Miss Camshaw.”

  “Lily, I wish you could remember to call me Edith, when we’re away from business.”

  “I’m ever so sorry,” said Lily.

  She meant what she said. She meant, indeed, rather more than she said. She found it impossible to dislike a woman who had gone out of her way to be nice to her; nor could she help being a little sorry for Miss Camshaw. “ We’re both alone in the world,” Miss Camshaw had said, “ so perhaps we can cheer each other up a bit.” Lily had not felt equal to retorting that she did not need cheering up, though the idea made her laugh when she thought of it, cheerfulness being her strong suit : she was a girl who liked fun, and seldom lacked for it, despite her orphaned condition. Equally comic was Miss Camshaw’s earnest resolve to protect her innocence against the wicked designs of men. As if I couldn’t look after myself, thought Lily, at my age! Lily’s age was twenty-one, no less; she knew a thing or two, as was only to be expected; and among the things she knew was how to tell a young man where he got off—or an old man, either, for that matter, for they were as bad, if not worse. Old-fashioned, that was Miss Camshaw. I reckon I’ve done the Unhand Me act and meant it, with more fellows than she’s ever said how d’you do to, said Lily. But Miss Camshaw, it was evident, had a down on men, though she’d never have admitted it. Lily was sorry for her on every count, concluding, since no other conclusion was possible, that years ago, when she was young, some man had treated her badly. Crossed in love, that was it. Jilted. The day before her wedding-day, very likely. Or perhaps left waiting at the church, like in the comic song Dad used to sing. Yes, that was it : she’d loved but once and loved in vain. Some deceiver. Some married man. There was that much about Adam : pretty certain he wasn’t married. There was every other disadvantage : class and that, though that did make it more exciting and like the films : but at least he hadn’t a wife to mix things up.

  “How did you get home, Lily?”

  “Oh, quite all right. Really. As a matter of fact I took a taxi.”

  It was easier to mix a little truth with the invention; it made it sound more believable to oneself. But Lily saw at once that mentioning the taxi had been a mistake.

  “But, my dear!” Miss Camshaw exclaimed. “ Surely,” she presently ventured, “ that must have been terribly expensive.”

  “Oh, not very,” said Lily.

  “Well, as you were my guest,” said Miss Camshaw, with an assumption of heartiness designed to help her across an awkward moment, “ I shall naturally insist on paying it, whatever it was.”

  “Oh, no, Miss Camshaw!”

  “Please, Lily! You did very right to take a taxi. At that time of night it was very wise indeed. But you must let me pay the fare It’s only reasonable. What was it—ten shillings?”

  “Oh, no! Nothing like that!” Lily was horrified at the thought of being forced to receive money on false pretences : it was like being a thief, she thought. “ I forget what it was now. But it wasn’t more than … well… about a shilling, I should think.” And she needn’t keep the shilling : plenty of people in the street would be glad of it : singers and such.

  “A shilling!”

  “I didn’t go all the way in a taxi, you know,” said Lily, in a panic, seeing a light of something like suspicion in Miss Camshaw’s eye. “ Only as far as the underground.”

  Miss Camshaw was still unsatisfied. “ Were the trains running as late as that?”

  “They must have been,” said Lily stubbornly. “ Else I couldn’t have gone home in one, could I?”

  There was silence for a while. Miss Camshaw, whatever her thoughts, decided to pursue the matter no further.

  “I blame myself very much for losing sight of you,” she said. “ A young girl like you.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t your fault, Miss Camshaw,” said Lily. “ Really it wasn’t!”

  There was a sudden warmth in the girl’s voice. She found it a comfort to be speaking at least some of the truth.

  § 5

  “ You remember Dr. Hinksey, Lydia,” said David.

  “Do I?” answered Lydia. “ Tiresome of Adam
not to come.”

  But, my dear Lydia, we’ve dealt with that, said David : not aloud. Adam’s unreliability, rudeness, lack of consideration, forgetfulness, impudence, charm, youth, silliness, talent. We’ve had it all, Lydia, and now it’s Tom Hinksey’s turn. We had it for supper. We had it after supper. Must we have it for breakfast, too? I prefer coffee and fried bacon and Dr. Hinksey. Not a real doctor, of course. And not a quack. Doctor of divinity, according to his own account. So perhaps a kind of quack after all.

  “He called on us, years ago,” said David. “ When we were week-enders here.”

  “Who did, David? Eat your nice breakfast, Paul.”

  “This Dr. Hinksey. And we called back. At least, I did. Were you with me?”

  “Oh, Dr. Hinksey! I thought you meant that man in Harley Street we took Eleanor to. When she was so bad. What a terrible time that was! I was so frightened.”

  Now why, asked David of himself, does Lydia refuse to talk about Hinksey? An already guilty conscience told him that she was deliberately stalling him. Though he knew this to be nonsense, the nonsense infected his imagination and filled him with the beginnings of nervous fury. But his manner betrayed nothing : he had learnt, in fifteen years, to consume his own steam. Unpalatable meal.

  “He’s got that great rambling place they call Radnage Hollow, if you remember. Not a big house, but twenty or thirty acres of land. Woodland and grass. Very attractive. I called there last night.”

  Lydia stared. A stranger would have supposed her to be astonished beyond measure, but in fact, as David knew, she was only mildly surprised.

  “Last night, David? You never told me!”

  “I’m telling you now, my dear. I met his. niece at the station. I mean his granddaughter. They’d made a muddle about her train, so I had to drive her home. Mary Wilton.” He hurried past this point, anxious to minimize it. “ He must be getting on for seventy, the old man. Ruddy-faced old chap with a grey beard. Beard’s the only grey thing about him. His wife,” David went on, “ is about ten years younger than his daughter.”

  “What daughter?”

  “Mary’s mother. Mary Wilton. She’s marrying again, Mary tells me. In America. That’s why the girl’s come home.”

  “To live with her young stepmother?” said Lydia. “ I wonder if that’ll work.”

  “Why not?” said David. “ Eleanor lives with her stepmother. Don’t you, Eleanor?”

  “Oh,” said Lydia, “ that’s different.”

  David laughed and said in surprise : “ And with her stepfather, too, by Jove. I’d almost forgotten.”

  Lydia’s face closed up. She vaguely disliked being reminded of her first marriage, which had been marriage in name only, a strange, romantic, faintly ridiculous affair. She had married Eleanor’s father when he was already an invalid at the point of death. The wedding took place in his sickroom, and he died under the surgeon’s knife the next day, leaving Lydia his name, a hundred and fifty a year, and a two-year-old child. She had not precisely loved George Rook, but her parents thought well of him and she could not find it in her girlish heart to refuse the whim of a man whose life hung in the balance and who declared that she was all he had to live for. Besides, it was flattering to a girl of nineteen to suppose that by her mere love she might save a man’s life. So here she was, she and Eleanor : both David’s. She could not be glad of anyone’s death, but she had been guiltily conscious of relief at having been let off a doubtful bargain. But at intervals in the years that had followed, especially when David seemed restive, and still more when a dangerous new delight possessed him (the Lucy episode for instance), she was at pains to falsify her memory, saying to herself : “ If only poor George bad lived!—he knew what love was!”

  Eleanor was so entirely attached to Lydia (and to them all) that David fell easily into the way of forgetting that they were not mother and daughter; when he remembered it he remembered it almost with surprise, as now. He looked at the girl herself, to see how she was taking this conversation. The chief thing about Eleanor, on a first impression, was her dimness : it was so easy to forget she was there. But young Paul’s presence was indubitable, and where Paul was, there nearly always, was Eleanor : a thin, quiet, colourless girl, just turned twenty. She asked nothing better, it seemed, than to help her stepmother with the cooking and be nursemaid, governess, devoted slave, to her stepmother’s only son. And this, at the moment, was her only imaginable destiny.

  “What have you to say about it, Eleanor?” asked David, halfirritated by her apathetic silence.

  “Nothing, David,” said Eleanor, with a wan smile.

  “That’s not much, is it?”

  “I don’t think I was really listening,” said Eleanor, defending herself. “ Look, Paul. It’s getting cold and tired with waiting.” The allusion was to Paul’s porridge, which he had divided into a system of islands in an ocean of sugar-brown milk. “ There’s Auntie Fanshaw,” said Eleanor, pointing. “ Won’t you eat her up?”

  “Nonsense,” said Paul. “ It’s the Isle of Wight, as it happens.”

  “Would he come for a meal one day, do you think?” said Lydia. “ How old is she, the granddaughter? So nice for Eleanor to have a friend. You don’t see enough of young people, Eleanor dear.”

  “Paul’s not so very old, Mother,” said Eleanor.

  Lydia pursued her theme unchecked. “ I often think it must be dull for you, with only us. When I was your age I was always out and about. Wasn’t I, David?”

  “Were you, my dear? I’ll take your word for it.”

  Mary Wilton here! No, that wouldn’t do.

  “Why not ring him up, David, and ask them to lunch tomorrow?”

  “ Rather a houseful,” said David. “ There’ll be two women, remember.”

  “That doesn’t matter. So nice for Paul?”

  Nice for Eleanor. Nice for Paul. “ Besides he’ll forget all about it, like Adam,” said David. Why must I be bothered with this girl? he thought resentfully. Let her marry and have children : that’s what she’s for. Get her safely under lock and key, with a jealous young man for proprietor.

  The telephone rang.

  “Will you answer it, David, or s’all I?”

  The question was rhetorical. David answered the telephone. and came back presently to say that Adam, with profuse apologies, was arriving in time for lunch.

  “We’ll ask the Hinkseys another time,” said David firmly. “ I’ve lots to talk about to Adam.”

  § 6

  It was not true. David had almost nothing he wished to say to Adam. But before we go into that we must take a look at David’s house and garden : a much-altered, rather straggling seventeenth-century house in rural Oxfordshire, with ample modern windows, no main water, no gas, a private electricity plant which David looks after and Lydia thinks he doesn’t; and the garden—well, it’s something more or less than a garden, for it amounts to three and a half acres of which a third is meadowland somewhat rank and neglected, a sixth the prim cultivated garden, and the rest the scene of a very tentative experiment in market gardening.

  Here we find him, digging or hoeing (which he does with a great deal of rather sheepish enjoyment, hoping people won’t think it an affectation, and knowing that it’s good for his figure); or maybe cleaning his spade, slicing mud off his boots, wheeling stuff in a barrow to the rubbish-heap, or coming into the scullery in search of hot water, his soiled hands held out at a distance as though they didn’t belong to him, as though he had caught them hiding in the fields and disapproved of their condition. Most days, when the weather makes it possible, David Brome is to be seen in such attitudes. These rural engagements superimposed on a long habit of urbanism still have novelty for him and he takes kindly to them, though sometimes he is afflicted with a sense of its all being aimless, all make-believe. But it’s only in the garden proper that he is definitely ill at ease. The heavy work, the rough digging, the mowing, the hedge-cuttine. this he doesn’t mind; but the flowers (which, for all their b
eauty, are a source of as much anxiety and disappointment as pleasure) he has learnt to leave to Lydia’s management.

  David Brome has a feeling for the place, if only because it was his country resort during his last few years at the office; but it has for him nothing of the extraordinary romantic appeal of Radnage Hollow, where Dr. Hinksey lives. And this isn’t entirely Mary Wilton’s doing. Hinksey himself is a queer, attractive, untamed, ageless creature, with mephistophelian features half-hidden under a grey beard. He is generally to be seen in riding breeches and yellow waistcoats. Radnage Hollow is a pastoral valley surrounded on three sides by wooded hills that slope gently away to the horizon, and Hinksey’s house, a straggling two-storied building, attended by three or four outhouses. Theres’ an agreeable loneliness about the place : it has an air of remoteness from the world, or at any rate from the world of today, though Hinksey himself—friendly, talkative, intellectually excitable—is no period piece.

  Then there’s Mary Wilton : I haven’t done her properly. That encounter at the station. A terrific moment, but only for me : I didn’t get it on to paper. The beauty of woman sounds insipid if you try to describe it. Like the sentimental song-writers, you can only say her lips, her eyes, her hair, her darkness, her this and her that, and hope that the reader, from the store of his romantic sexuality, I will supply the rest. Mary is beautiful. She has that which makes you say “ beautiful” not “ pretty.” She has, for a man like David Brome, an absolute physical perfection : a perfection so heavenly, a sensual effect so subtle and delicate, yet overwhelming, that you feel she can’t really exist, in time, as a mortal woman; and the fact that she obviously does so exist is precisely the miracle. Yes, it is precisely Mary’s quality that she does excite in mature men—or at any rate in David Brome—the extravagant, worshipful feeling characteristic of first love. David, though in some sense curiously virginal, is not inexperienced. He has been through the mill more than once, and has learnt the trick of arguing himself out of emotions, the self-protective trick of trying to explain away in terms of sexual mechanics, emotions which in his heart of hearts he believes to be grounded in reality. Beauty—what is it? Only bawdy old Nature at her tricks again. So says David, and more to the same purpose. But in Mary’s presence he is carried beyond thought. His belly turns to water. His chattering rationalism becomes meaningless. He can do nothing but look, nothing but listen, nothing but bathe his spirit at this fountain. In intervals of absence the conscientious belittlement of the affair goes on, but without effect.