A Man of Forty

by Gerald Bullet

  “Radnage?” Adam wondered if she could possibly have guessed what had been half in his mind only an hour ago.

  “Radnage Hollow. Dr. Hinksey’s place. I’m sure you’d like him. When you first meet him he seems too good to be true. But he is true, and he gets better and better the more you know him.”

  He looked at her and smiled, in a special way he had.

  “You’re laughing at me,” she said, unoffended.

  “No, I’m looking at you,” he answered. “ It’s not the same thing at all I was thinking how glad I am that I came down this week-end. And how glad that I plucked up courage to come and talk to you.”

  He met her glance of surprise with a look that seemed more than kind. Her eyes faltered at sight of it, and a kind of terror seized her. She dared not believe the implication his words seemed to hold, did not suppose it possible that he could have the smallest interest in her. Yet why should Adam, whose candour was three parts of his famous charm, take the trouble to flatter her? Not, surely, for the sake of being liked; for he was liked already, and must know it.

  She forced herself to say : “ Now you are laughing at me.”

  The hint of sadness in her voice was not lost on him : he felt it as a challenge to his gallantry.

  “Why did you say that, Eleanor?”

  “Oh I don’t mean anything unkind,” she said quickly, thinking she had detected hurt feelings in his tone. “ But for you to be afraid of anyone! Afraid of anyone, let alone a nonentity like me! You can’t expect me to believe that.”

  “I didn’t mean quite that,” he conceded. “ I won’t say I was afraid of you. Who could be afraid of anyone so… so gentle? But there was something so detached about you, so aloof. Your soul is like a star and dwells apart.”

  He had used the line before, in a piece of copy advertising finger-nail varnish; and it came in quite nicely again. He did not feel able, however, to go on in this style : the hour was too bright and warm, and he was beginning to want his tea.

  § 5

  The return of Paul, with a new Odyssey on his lips, created a welcome diversion for everyone. Eleanor thought it might be nice to have tea in the garden, and with Adam gallantly hovering, pretending to help and sometimes actually helping, she began making the necessary preparations. Lydia, because only by refusing to forget her unhappiness could she punish herself for David’s sins, and because she feared that a tea-party in the sunlit garden might tempt her to such forgetfulness, declared first that she did not want any tea, and then that she would have it by herself in the house. To please Paul, however, who would not listen to her excuses,_she allowed herself to be persuaded. She brought her embroidery into the garden and sat in a straight-backed chair at a little distance from the table. Eleanor shall pour out the tea, she thought, and David will know why. She resolved that not even Paul’s importunities should make her eat anything : even to seem to enjoy a piece of cake would look like moral surrender. She sat bent over her work, silently rehearsing this refusal, while the table was being laid; and she did not look up when David came diffidently into view. Paul, meanwhile, ran from group to group, talking at the top of his shrill young voice about his afternoon’s adventure. Sunday School had been an unqualified success from his point of view. He had been made much of by everybody; had conceived a violent liking for his “ teacher,” Miss Gladding, thereby putting poor Flora’s nose out of joint; and was now in retrospect, greatly excited about some children who had called after an old gentleman in the street, and a friend of the old gentleman, named God, had let loose two she-bears out of a wood, to tear them to pieces.

  “You know it’s only a story, Paul, don’t you?” said Eleanor earnestly.

  “Yes, like William the Conqueror,” said Paul.

  Catching Adam’s satirical eye, Eleanor shrugged her shoulders and said : “ Oh, if you like.” She smiled at Adam over the child’s head, warmed and excited by the feeling of sharing a point of view with him.

  With an answering smile the more prompt and brilliant because he was thinking of someone else, Adam said : “ What else did you do this afternoon, Paul?”

  Flattered and very friendly, Paul answered : “ Let’s walk round the garden, Adam, just you and me. And I’ll tell you about the hymns and prayers and things.”

  “That’ll be fine,” said Adam, taking the child’s outstretched hand. “ See you later, people!”

  There was more than amusement in Eleanor’s soft eyes as she watched them go off together, Adam enjoying his good nature, Paul confiding and important. The look was not lost on Adam, and it occurred to him to wish that another person had been present, to see him in this attractive light, the circuitous approach being sometimes the more effective. For nearly five minutes he was able to listen with lazy pleasure to Paul’s animated discursion. He liked Paul, and enjoyed making himself agreeable to him, and on rejoining the group at the tea-table he enjoyed the unspoken approval that rewarded him. Even Lydia gave him a wan smile.

  The mysterious happiness of the afternoon, a happiness which she tried in vain to dissociate from Adam, stayed with Eleanor into the evening. When Paul’s bedtime arrived, Adam was again in request : nothing would satisfy the child but that Adam should come and talk to him while he undressed, and it was taken for granted that Eleanor, the indispensable companion, should also be of the party. It was queer to Eleanor, and queerly happy, to be sharing with this debonair young man, whom she had only just begun to know, the amusing fuss and palaver of getting Paul to bed : her dreaming fancy, despite the stern judgment of common sense, could not altogether evade the implications of the scene. At the moment she had little thought to spare for the further queerness, the aloofness of the parents from these domestic sociabilities. Both, however, were in due course summoned to the nursery, for Paul was in an imperious mood, gaily resolved to have his own way in everything while the good time lasted. So David and Lydia came to pay their good-night devoirs, each glad that Adam was present to blunt the occasion’s awkwardness.

  When the ceremony was over, Adam followed the parents out of the room, leaving Eleanor to outstay them all and do the final tucking-up. What a commotion about one seven-year-old child, he thought, going into his room. He lingered at the dressing-table for a few moments, and by chance, or perhaps not entirely by chance, came out of the room just as Eleanor was passing it, on her way downstairs. His head was full of a bright new motion. He saw Eleanor half-turn at the sound of his door opening. She gave him a quick shy smile and continued on her way. A faint suggestion of flight in her attitude provoked him to pursue. He overtook her in five strides and put an arm round her slim drooping shoulders. Making no effort to elude him she turned her face to him in a gesture at once questioning and trustful. He kissed her; and, because in the dim light it was easy to fancy her someone else, kissed her again, surprised by the warmth of her response.

  She stood beside him in the half-darkness, waiting for him to speak; then slipped out of his embrace, leaving him to wonder. By the time her retreating footsteps had died away, however, he had dismissed her from his mind, which had more ambitious things to occupy it. In pursuance of his new little plan he turned back into his bedroom. Having there made sure that he had brought a supply of his own admirably printed notepaper with him, he brushed his hair for a third time and went downstairs to drink sherry with David and await suppertime.

  Adam had begun his visit with the intention of returning to town on Sunday night, and it did flash across his mind that perhaps in the present uncomfortable state of affairs between them neither host nor hostess would be sorry to be rid of him. But, since on the whole it suited his convenience to stay till Monday morning, he went to bed with a light heart, giving no second thought to the matter. Before getting between the sheets he roughed out a letter to Dr. Hinksey at Radnage Hollow, near Chiselbrook, which, with the name of the county, he judged would be sufficient address. One hoped, he said, that Dr. Hinksey would forgive a comparative stranger—a total stranger, indeed, until that h
appy but (for one’s own part) all-too-brief encounter on the downs—for troubling a busy man with reminiscences of one unimportant infancy. But he did feel that the question Dr. Hinksey had propounded, the question about one’s earliest memory, deserved far more serious and unsentimental consideration than it usually (didn’t he find?) received. And so, at the risk of being tedious…

  It was a long letter, and it contained not the smallest reference to Mary Wilton.

  § 6

  Lily’s six o’clock appointment was a fiction. She only wished it were not, provided she could have had the arranging of everything, according to her fancy. If she had been meeting Adam Swinford, for example. Not Adam as he was; but an Adam, simple-hearted, eager, crazy with love of her; love, not just—well, love, you know, so that you do care a bit what happens to a person; an Adam who would hang about, jumpy with impatience and anxiety, and then, when at last she came, his face would break into a wide grin of happiness. There was at least one young man among Lily’s acquaintances who would behave like that, but what would have enchanted her in Adam did not advance Bert Vines in her favour; and it was not until the street bell rang, at ten past eight, that she remembered having promised to let Bert take her to the pictures tonight. Lily lived in one of the top rooms of a large tall ugly house which thirty years before had figured in house-agents’ lists as a desirable residence but was now let off in bits and pieces by a tight-lipped elderly woman who called every Saturday to collect her rents. That double ring, from the bell on the landing just outside her door, meant that someone standing on the doorstep, three floors down, had pressed the button labelled Marchmont 1 Elver 2. The someone would be Bert Vines, whom she’d forgotten all about. And me not ready, she said, jumping out of a dream.

  Ten seconds with the lipstick put everything right, or right enough. Now where’d I leave my gloves? There was no need to doll up seeing it was only Bert Vines. But a girl can’t go out looking dowdy, specially Sundays.

  “Hullo, Bert!”

  “Hullo, Lil!”

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Bert.”

  “Don’t mind waiting,” said Bert, “ for you” He grinned, showing all his teeth. “ Sworth it,” he said.

  “Fancy that!” said Lily, with a disdainful grimace. “ Compliments flying around!”

  It was routine stuff, so far. And Lily was already bored. She felt bad about Bert Vines, and was irritated with him for making her feel so. He was the son of the newsagent and stationer at the end of the road, and an eminently suitable young man to be walking out with Miss Lily Elver. She didn’t question that. A respectable, steady chap, on the right side of his father, and with every prospect of coming into a nice little business : that was Bert Vines. But he wasn’t Lily’s fancy; and she hoped he wasn’t serious about her, and she knew he was; and she wished she hadn’t promised to go out with him tonight.

  “Where we going?” she asked.

  “What say to the Paramount? There’s a Gary Cooper on.”

  “Suit me all right.”

  “You can look at Gary Cooper while I look at you. Fair division, eh?”

  “Do you think ’em up,” Lily asked, “ or does it come natural?”

  “Eh?” said Bert. He gave her a puzzled glance. “ Oh, I get you!” He laughed goodhumouredly. “ That’s one to you all right.”

  Lily liked Bert Vines well enough. He was dependable and good-tempered. In the ordinary way she was at home with him. But his gallantries were a nuisance, and when in the darkness of the cinema he got hold of her hand it cost her an effort not to snatch it away at once. But you couldn’t do that. Not, with Bert you couldn’t. Rather than, hurt his feelings that much, you had to be civil. So she waited till the lights came on, at the end of the News Reel, and after that she was busy with her handkerchief a good deal, and Bert couldn’t get her settled down again. She felt mean, for what was a bit of hand-holding after all? To her, nothing. But to Bert it wasn’t nothing : she was pretty sure of that. She was being unfair to him either way, but on the whole it was best to put a stop to things now, before they got warmer. She hated having to pretend to like him less than she did : especially during the Silly Symphony, which made her feel so happy for the moment that she could have hugged anybody. But there was no help for it; and she reflected, with bitter amusement, that he didn’t know what she was saving him from.

  During the long picture he began fumbling for her hand again, only to be frustrated by her passiveness.

  He leaned towards her, till she could feel his breath warm on her cheek. “ Anything wrong, Lil?”

  She shook her head without answering, pretending to be intent on the picture; and very soon the pretence became a reality, so that she forgot Bert and his admiring glances altogether, and was almost surprised, when they came to God save the King, to find him still at her side, still watchful.

  Outside in the street, she offered a second dose of discouragement. “ Don’t bother to see me home, Bert.”

  It was a false step, for it gave him an opening to ask again what was the matter.

  “Matter? Nothing,” she said. “ What should be the matter?”

  With his hand on her arm he piloted her along the street in silence for a while. Then he said, half-bantering : “ You’ve been a bit queer all the evening, now I come to think of it.”

  “Very likely,” she said. “ I’m a queer person, I daresay.”

  “Oh, come off it, Lil. You know I didn’t mean it like that. I meant sort of quiet, that’s all.”

  “We can’t all be noisy,” said Lily.

  “Meaning?”

  “Some people make enough noise for two.”

  “Who? Me?”

  “I didn’t say you, did I?”

  “Do you mean when I laughed?”

  “Oh, I don’t mean anything,” said Lily. “ It was just something to say, that’s all.”

  “You are a rum one,” said Bert.

  “I told you I was,” retorted Lily.

  Presently Bert began a line of talk about the picture they had just seen. Lily answered in monosyllables except when she said, in a flat tired tone : “ Thanks ever so much for the pleasant evening, Bert.” Despite her conscientious wish to discourage him, not to say thank-you would be plain rude, she felt.

  “What about Wednesday?” said Bert, when they reached her door.

  Lateness and silence gave the moment an intimate quality. The gaunt grey street was empty; the footsteps of a retreating pedestrian made a small diminishing sound in the distance; and, after a day of unexpected heat, the cool of evening was delicious. The time, the place, the opportunity, all were here. Nothing was lacking to foster Bert’s persuasion that tantrums in a girl as pretty as Lil were all part of the game, and she’d think the worse of him if he let her get away with it.

  “ Good night, Bert,” she said, latchkey in hand.

  “What about Wednesday?” he repeated. “ You doing anything?”

  “Yes, I am,” said Lily. “ Thanks all the same.”

  “Thursday then. Call for you, shall I?”

  “I’m doing something Thursday too,” said Lily. She turned het back on him and inserted her key in the lock.

  “That’s a pity, isn’t it?” said Bert sardonically. “ Look, Lil Don’t go in yet, there’s a sport. I want to talk to you.”

  Lily had already opened the door and crossed the threshold. She turned round, to repeat her good night.

  “Oh, not now, Bert. I’m nearly asleep.”

  “Are you?” said Bert. He grinned. He made it clear that he didn’t believe her. “ Just five minutes,” he said, in a wheedling tone.

  His apparent change of mood, from solemn to cheerful, made her think it safe to relent.

  “Oh, all right.” She left the door ajar and came out on the top step. He stood beside her in the window of the dingy-ornate pillared porch. “ Only five minutes, though. Some people have to get up in the morning.”

  “Look, Lil,” he began. Shyness came upon him and he se
ized her hand. “ There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you. I didn’t mean to tell you tonight, but somehow——”

  “Well, don’t then,” said Lily, twisting her hand away.

  He reddened. His eyes flashed angrily. “ Don’t what? Not breakable, are you?”

  “Don’t tell me tonight. Don’t ever tell me.” In hurting him she had hurt herself. Her voice was urgent, almost pleading. “ I’m not the sort of girl you think me, Bert. I’m a bad lot.”

  His eyes softened in gentleness and widened in disbelief. “ Don’t say things like that, Lil. I know better.”

  “You don’t know anything,” said Lily earnestly. “ Some day p’raps you will.”

  “What are you getting at, Lil? Everybody makes mistakes, so they say. Why not tell me what’s on your mind, and have done with it?”

  “I almost would, Bert. Tell you, I mean. Sooner you as anyone. And that’s a compliment, if you only knew.”

  A sombre look came into Bert’s eyes. “ Is there someone else?” he asked.

  “Someone else?” She tried to retreat.

  “A bit late in the day, am I? Is that it?”

  Lily shrugged her shoulders and turned into the house. “ Put it that way if you like, Bert.”

  He stood very still, staring at his boots. She began slowly shutting the door against him.

  “Tell you what,” he said hoarsely. “ Doing anything Saturday?”

  She shook her head miserably. “ It’s no good, Bert.”

  He straightened himself and gave her a level look. “ Please yourself,” he said.

  “That’s right,” said Lily. In that moment she admired him : it was almost like the pictures. “ There’s plenty more about.”

  He turned on his heel and said, staring at distance : “ Not like you, there aren’t. Well ... I hope he treats you right, that’s all. He better had.”

  She was silent.

  “Well,” he said again, “ so long then.”

  “So long, Bert.”