I'll Never Be Young Again

by Daphne Du Maurier

  ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Why are we changed?’ I couldn’t believe the truth of what she was saying. I thought she must be following some silly idea in her mind.

  ‘You see, you don’t mean what you did to me any more,’ she said; ‘once you were everything, and now I’ve lost it, the thing that was you. Since you’ve been away I’ve been with someone else.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘no.’

  ‘Yes. I had to, I wanted to. You know what I was like, you know. You shouldn’t have gone.’

  I did not listen to all that. I only had before me the vision of her with some man, doing our things.

  ‘You didn’t let someone, Hesta,’ I said, ‘you didn’t, not with you?’

  ‘Yes—’ she said.

  I went on staring at her.

  ‘No,’ I said,‘no - it isn’t true.You’re not like that, cheap, stupid, giving yourself to anyone.’

  ‘It is true,’ she said.

  I sat down on the arm of the chair with my head in my hands trying to think some way out of all this.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s not true, you’re lying. It’s too filthy, too bloody filthy.’ I went on repeating this to her in an effort at persuasion.

  ‘Too filthy, too bloody filthy.’

  She did not seem to see.

  ‘You told me once it didn’t mean a thing,’ she said. ‘Those were your words: “It doesn’t mean a thing.” In here, in this room. The first time it happened with us.’

  ‘That was different,’ I said; ‘you can’t go by that, you don’t know what you’re saying.’

  ‘You can’t get out of it,’ she said. ‘You can’t prevent what has been with me, with us, with other people. You made me in the beginning and now it’s too late to alter things. I have to go on now - I can’t go back to where I was.’

  ‘Is it Julio?’ I said, ‘that fellow . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It didn’t seem to matter once you had gone.’

  She told me this gravely and calmly with her hands clasped in front of her. She was cool, unperturbed.

  ‘Oh! darling . . .’ I said. ‘Oh! darling, darling . . . what have I done . . . ?’

  ‘You mustn’t mind,’ she said. ‘I felt rather awful at first, too. And then it was so natural, so inevitable, and I wanted to, anyway.’

  She did not realize, she was only a child.

  ‘You can’t,’ I said; ‘Hesta, my Hesta, you don’t understand. It isn’t a little thing, it’s the beginning of degradation, the loss of everything that’s lovely and perfect in you, it’s the start of a life that leads to nothing but misery and humiliation . . .’

  ‘Why?’ she said. ‘I don’t see that. Besides, what does it matter?’

  ‘It does, darling, it does matter.’

  ‘I don’t look upon it in that way,’ she said. ‘I want it, that’s all, and it doesn’t matter who.’

  ‘No, no, Hesta . . .’

  ‘It’s too late, Dick, to go on in this way now. Too late. It’s my own life, and I shall live in the way that’s easiest for me. Once there was music, and then there was you, and now there’s this. It can’t be helped.’

  ‘We’ve got to fight this together, Hesta, we’ve got to get out of it. We’re going to be married, darling; do you understand? We’re going to be married.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, darling.’

  ‘No, Dick, you’re being ridiculous, you don’t seem to follow what I’ve been telling you. We’ve finished, you and I; it’s over. I can’t go on with our life. I want new things . . .’

  ‘Hesta, sweetheart, what you’ve been telling me is something that hurts more than I believed it possible to be hurt, but we can get over it, we can, if we try together. I want to look after you, to take you from this. We’ve got to start again, we’ve got to. We’re going to be married . . .’

  ‘No, I don’t want to be married. Once, yes, last year, but you didn’t listen then, you said marriage was old-fashioned and absurd. I agree with you now, too. It is absurd. I wasn’t made for that. I’m going away - I want to be gay, to have fun. I’m going with Julio.’

  My horror for her future was blinded by my loathing at what she had done, and I could see nothing but pictures in my mind, evil and distorted.

  ‘You’re not going away with him,’ I said. ‘He can’t have what I have had, not you, Hesta, he can’t . . .’

  ‘What’s the use of all this?’ she said. ‘You should have thought of it before, months ago.You didn’t bother, you’ve never thought of anything or anyone but yourself.’

  ‘Hesta . . .’

  ‘No - never, for one moment. It was you, you, all the time. Nothing mattered except what affected you. Loving, living, going away, it was you who came first. You did not think of me, and how I felt. I did not count. What’s the good of trying to look after me now?’

  As she spoke it seemed to me I was not there listening to her, but standing beneath a lamp-post in a dark London street, and the light of the lamp cast a shadow on the face of Jake beside me.And I leant forward, ashamed of my curiosity, saying:‘Anyway, what had he done?’ and Jake turned his eyes upon me, gentle, strange. ‘Just been selfish,’ he said, ‘and thinking about his body.’ And then far away, the whisper of a voice, remote, and distant from me.

  ‘I killed him because he’d spoilt the life of some woman I’d never even met.’

  Then I was in a circus tent, stretched upon the ground, the life ebbing from me, the life that I loved - so painful now, so dim, and Jake looking down upon me, Jake’s eyes that would not leave me . . .

  ‘You didn’t bother to think,’ said Hesta, ‘that was all, you just didn’t bother. P’raps it’s not your fault, p’raps it’s just something to do with us both being young.’

  Only I didn’t die, it was Jake who had died. Jake had been drowned in the Baie des Trépassés, and I was here, alone, and listening to Hesta.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I asked her, and I looked up at her as though she were strange to me now, some other woman, in some other life.

  ‘I’m going away with Julio,’ she said.

  I was calm and indifferent, all feelings seemed to have gone from me.

  ‘That won’t last,’ I said.‘You won’t stay together for long.What will you do then?’

  ‘I don’t make plans ahead,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait and see. I’ll enjoy myself; somebody will turn up.’

  ‘I want you to stay with me,’ I told her, but my voice was toneless somehow, lacking conviction.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘that’s over, you and I.You only ask me because you have to, because you feel responsible.You want to save your own conscience.We could never be the same together.You know that. Not after the other thing. You’d always be thinking of it. Even now, when I’ve only just told you, you feel different to me, quite different.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘no.’

  But I knew she was speaking the truth. Already I was another man and she was another woman.

  ‘You don’t need me either,’ she said. ‘Why, I’ve realized that for a long time.You have your writing, that’s the only thing that counts with you.’

  ‘My writing?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. You’d give up the world for that. You gave up me.’

  I looked at her, not saying anything.

  ‘You’ll go on as you’ve been doing all the autumn,’ she said. ‘I can’t stand that any longer. You’ll soon forget all this, us, and what we’ve been.You’ll be successful, with your book published and your play produced, and people talking about you. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s what you set out for?’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she said, ‘I’ve known always, in the back of my mind, it would end like this. Last spring I wanted to be married, I wanted to have a baby, and a home, and to look after you, us being together always - like ordinary people. But you told me not to think like that, you told me it was worthless and absurd. And now you’ll be free
, on your own, famous soon with your books and happy; and I’m going to be happy too, in my way, in the way you taught me.’

  She picked up her bag and her hat from the chair. She began to powder her nose.

  ‘You used to say: “Don’t let’s ever be serious”, didn’t you? I always think of that now. I’m never serious. I laugh at people and things. It’s the only way. So I shall say that to you, now - don’t let’s ever be serious, Dick - life’s too short.’

  She laughed, cramming on her hat. ‘I don’t think there’s anything I want to take. I’ve moved everything I needed last week. Do you suppose you’ll go on living here?’

  I didn’t think it could be true, somehow, the strange normality, her voice, natural and calm.

  ‘I thought Julio and I might go down to the South,’ she said; ‘I long to be all day in the sun. He’s got a little money, I believe. I don’t know how. Probably sponges on vague relations. As a matter of fact, he’s quite nice, Dick.’

  Was she saying all this to me? We were like two people meeting over tea. I tried to bring myself down to reality.

  ‘You’re not happy,’ I said.

  She stared at me blankly. ‘I?’ she said. ‘My dear, I’m terribly happy. It’s such fun, feeling that nothing matters.’ She looked at me, smiling, a new Hesta, confident, strangely self-possessed.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing more to say, is there?’ she said. ‘I’m glad I’ve told you, and you’ve been sensible. Not like men in books, murdering women. We had a good time in a way, didn’t we? I’ve got a wretched taxi ticking away in the street.’

  ‘You’re not going?’ I said.

  Still I wasn’t quite sure, still I would not believe the truth.

  ‘Yes. There’s no point in staying here. I only came to write the letter, you know. It was a shock, seeing you in the doorway. That’s why I was stupid at first.’

  She looked round her, smiling vaguely. ‘Funny old room,’ she said;‘there have been nice times here. Lately, I’ve hated it, though. It’s been different for so long.You had better go and dress, Dick. You haven’t finished shaving, have you?’ She stood by the door, holding on to the handle.

  ‘How funny if we meet in a few years, and you’re terribly famous,’ she said. ‘I shall come up and speak to you, and you won’t recognize me.You’ll say: “Who on earth is this little creature?” and you’ll peer down at me over the heads of publishers. I wonder whom I shall be with then. Be happy, Dick, with your writing and vague women who come along. You mustn’t mind about me. I shall have fun, you know . . .’

  She gave me a flash of a smile and was gone. I heard her footsteps down the stairs, and then out in the street, and the slam of the taxi door. It was the same as when she had come, only the sounds were reversed. The taxi started with a grinding of gears and went away up the street, hooting, the sound becoming faint as it merged into the traffic of the Boulevard Montparnasse.

  I stood still, as I had before, and I picked up the shaving-brush that was lying on the table.

  10

  If this had been a year ago I should have gone out and got drunk. I should have gone on drinking until there were no thoughts left in my head, until I was stupefied and senseless,> and then I would have returned to my room and lain face downwards on the bed to sleep for three days. Then when I woke up, hard and sober, I would have gone out and got drunk again. I did not do this now. I went back to the glass in the bedroom and finished shaving. I think I shaved with greater care. And I went on dressing. And I sat down and began to sort my things. And I was hungry, and I had lunch somewhere in Paris. I walked over to the other side. I crossed a bridge that spanned the Seine, but I did not pause to lean against the bridge and to look down upon the water. That belonged to another phase, even more distant, which I had almost forgotten. I came back in the evening and had a long conversation with the woman who lived on the ground floor, and from whom I had rented the rooms.

  I told her we should not be living there any longer. I told her we were going away, very shortly, possibly within the week. She said she was very sorry. I said I was sorry, too. She said we had always been ‘très gentils’ and that we had never caused her ‘des soucis’.

  I told her it was very nice of her to say that. She said she would always remember us. I said we should always remember, too. She asked me what were our plans, and where were we going. I said the plans were not very definite yet. It was all a little difficult, a little sudden. She told me she quite understood. Life was like that, she said. ‘On ne sait jamais’ . . . from day to day. It was the same for everybody. I said: ‘Yes,’ many times, and we sighed and we shrugged our shoulders.

  I told her that Mademoiselle had left one or two things she did not want to take away. Would she care to have them, or her daughter perhaps? She clasped her hands and the tears came in her eyes, and she said we were too good to her, much too good. I said: ‘No, no, not at all,’ and she came upstairs with me, and I let her rummage about in the bedroom and find what she thought would be useful to her, amongst the remnants of the bare drawers and shelves. She made a little bundle. There was an old coat, I believe, and a blouse, and checked skirt, and an ugly red dress I had never liked. She said she would be able to do something with this, even if it was a little too small. She thanked me again and again with the tears in her eyes. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I said: ‘Ça va. Ça va . . .’ but I felt that these were not the right words. As she left the room I saw that on the top of the bundle was an orange béret, very dusty and worn.

  After that I went across to the Dôme and had a drink.

  In the evening I brought the divan into the sitting-room and made up a bed for myself, quite comfortable, in the corner. I did not want to use the two rooms. I had all my things in my bag, leaving the lid open, so that I could pull out anything at any time. The other room was quite empty now. It looked as if nobody had been there. I had the door shut, like it had been when I first came, and had only rented one room.

  It seemed quite all right like this. I was out most of the day too, coming back in the evenings to sleep. I spent most of my time looking in the windows of the various travel bureaux, gazing at the highly-coloured posters which served as advertisements for different places in France, in Europe, in the world in general.

  I remembered my old job in one of these bureaux, and my familiarity with the express routes across the Continent. I was trying to decide where I should go.There seemed to be so many places. I could not believe in them, somehow, not the truth of those posters. They appeared to be false and unlike anything in life. I could not believe in the height of those mountains, nor the depth of those forests.The seas were a little foolish, too calm, too blue. The ships were painted ships. The islands were dream islands, and the sun in Africa was a great round ball of a sun that could not possibly exist, and the natives were only ordinary men and women, who had put feathers in their hair for fun. I was not deceived by them. I was not taken in by the glittering domes of a white city, nor the waving green branches of a tree, nor the gold of scattering sand, nor the deep blue of the sea.

  Once I would have wanted to explore these places, but now I did not care to; now I knew they were not so beautiful as they seemed.

  People were so wise who stayed at home and read - people in arm-chairs, with their feet in a fender. They ate, and they worked, and they slept, and they died. Those were their lives, I envied them.

  Still, I was not sure where I would go. Whether East or West, whether China or Peru. Probably they both looked alike. The thought of the discomfort of the journey bored me this time. I had very little money left; it would mean roughing it again. I did not fancy a steerage passage, poverty and squalor. Sailing ships were cramped and dirty. I did not care to wear myself out, working before the mast. There was no excitement in rough seas, only danger, and danger was an uncomfortable thing. I might travel across country, huddled in a train, but this would mean hanging about frontiers, questions, the monotony of language which I should not und
erstand. Going from one town to another, not minding whether I saw them or not. Adventure had lost its glamour for me.

  I realized that I would have to decide upon some course, because I had told the woman I should be leaving the room in the Rue du Cherche-Midi in three days’ time. I would have to turn out, anyway. And I had done with Paris. I went back then one evening after dinner with a map in my pocket, and I was determined to resolve upon some destination, even though it should be the South Pole. I would be a child again, and spread out the map upon the table, and close my eyes, and point blindly to an unknown spot, and, whatever it should be, that would be my place. It would be quite a little amusement in its way. I hurried my steps in the direction of Montparnasse.When I went into my room I saw that there was a wire lying on the table. I went over and took it in my hands. I could not open it at first. It seemed too much like a miracle, too much like waking from a dream. I wondered what Hesta’s words would be, and whether she would say the time of coming back. I wondered if he had left her without money, and if she now asked me to go to her. I wondered if it had hurt her to send this wire, I wondered if she was sorry for what she had done. I tore open the envelope, and took out the slip of paper.

  It was not from Hesta, though. The wire was from Grey, saying that my father was dead.

  When I came to Lessington the sun was setting behind the church tower and a little cloud hovered high in the air above the spire, caught in a shaft of light. The station-master touched his hat when he saw who I was. I shook hands with him, and he was suitably grave and solemn.

  ‘This is a great loss to the country, sir,’ he said, ‘and a great loss to us. People are deeply grieved in Lessington, sir.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  He looked at me uncertainly, as though he had not expected me to speak.

  ‘You’ve been away a long time, sir, haven’t you?’ he said.