by E. F. Benson
“Yes, my dear. How lucky I am to catch you. You’re in town, then?”
“At the moment,” said he. “I’m going back to Howes in half an hour.”
“Oh, what a pity! You won’t be in town tonight, then?”
“Why?” asked Peter.
“Only that Philip and I were going to the play, and Philip’s got a cold and thinks it wiser not to go out. I thought perhaps — just a lovely off-chance — that you might come instead. Oh, do, Peter.”
“Hold on. Wait half a minute,” said he.
He put the receiver down on the table, seating himself on the edge of it. Here in excelsis was precisely what he longed for. Dinner, a theatre, a talk, all with Nellie, who represented to him (though in excelsis) the ideal epitome of the world of humanity. He had thought a moment before, with the sense of anticipating a “break,” the mere walk through crowded streets. She would in this programme give him all that intimately, she would give also the sense of intimate friendship without effort.
They would jabber and enjoy —
He took up the receiver again.
“Yes, all quite easy,” he said. “It’s late already, and when it’s late and I can’t get down there, I can always sleep in town. Silvia and I settled that when I began work again in this doleful office.” Nellie appeared to laugh at that.
“Silvia evidently spoils you,” she said. “But it’s too lovely to catch you like this. Will you dine with me at the Ritz? Seven? The play — can’t remember what it is — begins at eight. So we shan’t have to hurry, and can sit with our elbows on the table for a bit and talk.”
“Sit with what?” asked he.
“Elbows on the table,” said Nellie with elaborate distinctness. “No hurry — talk.”
This time he laughed.
“Oh, don’t let’s go to the Ritz,” he said. “Come and have elbows at my great house. I’ll go back there now and order dinner. It’ll probably be beastly, but it’s more private. Shall we do that?”
“Much nicer,” said Nellie. “How are you, Peter? Oh, I can ask that afterwards. Seven, then. Wardour House?”
“Yes. Give condolences to Philip. Not congratulations, mind.”
Peter hung up the receiver, and then took it off again at once in order not to give himself time to think. There would be clamour and argument if he thought, and he wanted nothing of that sort. Ten minutes afterwards he left the office, haying telephoned to the Jackdaw that he was detained here and would be obliged to sleep in London.
Two months had passed since Nellie and he had met, but whatever frontier-change of limitation or expansion had been decreed for each severally since then, their meeting to-night had the power to put such aside, and they hailed each other without the embarrassment of altered circumstances. Their compasses were rigidly in accord, and as the excellent impromptu meal proceeded the talk sailed towards northern lights, so to speak, in the direction of their steadfast needles. Soon they were sitting (at the elbow stage) with their coffee and cigarettes, with a quiet quarter of an hour in front of them before they need start.
“Motor at ten minutes to eight,” said Peter to the servant, glancing at the clock. “Tell me when it comes round.”
He shifted his chair a little sideways towards her. “Oh, this is jolly,” he said, “for we’ve gone on just where we left off. You’re just the same. It’s two months, you know, since I set eyes on you. Do say you’ve missed me.”
“What else did you expect?” said she. “Marriage isn’t — Oh, Peter, what’s the name of that river?”
“Thames?” asked Peter.
“No, the forgetting one — Lethe. Because I’m married to Philip I don’t forget — other people. But tell me, has Silvia been giving you Lethe to drink instead of early morning tea?”
“Not a drop. She’s given, me everything else in the world.”
Nellie still had that habit of plaiting her fingers together.
“You ought to be very grateful to me,” she said. “It was I, after all, one night at my mother’s flat, do you remember?”
“I was Jacob that night,” remarked Peter. Nellie frowned.
“Don’t tell me how,” she said. “I want to see if we think side by side still. Ah, I’ve got it! Philip was Esau — isn’t that clever? — and I told him I was tired, and so you supplanted him.”
“Right. Get on,” said Peter.
“Yes, about your gratitude. It was that night that I told you to ask Silvia to marry you. Didn’t I?”
“Yes. Thank you, dear Mrs. Beaumont,” said Peter effusively. “So good of you to tell me.”
“It was a good idea, wasn’t it?”
Nellie’s mind stiffened itself to “attention” at that moment. Before, it had been standing very much at ease.
“The best idea in the world,” he said.
“I’m awfully glad,” said she. “What you say, too, makes it all the more delightful of you to stop up in town to-night, instead of going back to her.”
Though up till now they had fitted into each other with all the old familiar smoothness, it appeared now, when they got near, in their conversation, to what had happened to each of them (not, so he still felt, altering them, but putting them into new cases) that there was fresh ground to be broken; hitherto they had only picked their way over the old ground. Nellie felt this even more imperatively than he. They had got to run the plough (so why not at once on this admirable opportunity?) through the unturned land.... Peter’s servant had already appeared in the doorway, announcing the motor, and she had noticed that, but Peter had not. She concluded from that, that he, easy as their intercourse had up till now been, was feeling some pre-occupation. His hesitation in answering her last acknowledgment of his amiability in remaining in town instead of going back to Howes, confirmed that impression. Then, before the pause was unduly prolonged, so as to amount to embarrassment, she put her word in again.
“I appreciate that,” she said, “because it shows that the new ties haven’t demolished the old. And on my side I admit, far more definitely than you, that if my poor Philip must have a cold, I am glad — ever so glad — it visited him to-night, so as to give me an evening with you.”
She swept her plate and coffee-cup aside, to make room for an advance of the elbows.
“Oh, my dear, I have missed you,” she Said. “Naturally, however perfectly Philip is himself, he couldn’t be you. My mind — perhaps you haven’t noticed it — has wonderfully improved these last months — I am learning Italian, and we read Dante — but it needs just a little holiday. And I’ve found out such a lot of things about Philip, and all of them are good, worse luck.”
Peter looked up at her with that liquid seriousness of eye which to her meant that he was walking in the wet woods.
“Oh, poor thing,” he said.
For some reason which she did not choose to investigate, Nellie found that remark immensely encouraging. Certainly, a few minutes ago, she had tried to provoke him to talk — really talk, but the ironical perfection of his condolence, which, so she felt, saw all round what she was saying, made her more than acquiesce in his listening instead of talking. She felt sure that this beloved Peter understood —
“I knew you would sympathize,” she said; “but there’s my tragic prosperity. My Philip isn’t lazy or spiteful and inconsiderate or selfish, or bad-tempered or greedy or — or anything at all, except that he knows so much about birds. He has taught me a lot, and he’s quite absolutely devoted to me. He never liked anybody so much as me. But do you know, darling, to a woman, at any rate, having a good, nice man quite devoted to her, as far as his affections go, gives her, once in a way, a little sense of strain. She has to find her hymn-book and sing.”
“I’ll lend you mine,” said Peter, speaking without thought, but only by instinct.
“Thanks. When will you want it back? No; I won’t borrow it. But the fact is, that an undilutedly good man wants something to make him fizz. You must have humour or a vile temper or cynicism or gree
diness, or something to make you drinkable.... My dear, what am I saying?”
The clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour at which the curtain of their play rose; but the chimes, eight sonorous thumps, preceded by the quarters, penetrated Peter’s brain no more than the announcement of the motor ten minutes ago had done.
“You’re talking awfully good sense,” he said. “At any rate, you’re talking a language I can understand. You always did; we quarrelled and wrangled, but we were on the same plane.”
“So we are now, thank heaven,” said she. “It’s time you gave me some news, you know.”
Whatever pre-occupation it was that held Peter, he seemed to shake himself free of it.
“Yes, I’ve got news all right,” he said. “Domestic tragedy.”
“Oh, my dear, what?” asked she. “Nothing awful?”
He seemed to know for certain that she was figuring in her mind something about himself and Silvia. So, in the upshot, the sequel, the development, he was. But he tested her, so to speak, over the domestic tragedy itself.
“My mother has run away from home,” he began.
Nellie did not laugh. She only bit her tongue with firm purpose.
“Dear Peter!” she said, when she released it.
“She has simply gone,” he said. “Round about ten days ago, when father arrived to study his first cartoon, with a view to the rest of the series — Mrs. Wardour bought it, by the way — gracious me, what a lot we have got to talk about.”
“Never mind the cartoon,” said Nellie with thrilled interest. “Get on with the tragedy.”
Quite uncontrollably Peter’s mouth began to lengthen itself. He did not quite smile, but the promise of a smile was there.
“Tragedy, then,” he said. “My mother sent me a long — oh, such a priceless letter, to say that when my father came home again — his home, I mean — he would find she had gone.”
The Dryad, the gay conscienceless Nellie, could not, in spite of her improved mind, quite contain herself.
“But your mother?” she asked. “At her age? How absolutely wonderful of her! Do you know who he is?”
Peter tried not to laugh, and completely failed in that dutiful endeavour. She could but follow his lead, and the two, drawing psychically nearer to each other every moment, abandoned themselves, just for natural relief, to this irrepressible mirth.
“You are such a damned fool, Nellie,” he said at length. “Do listen: don’t be funny. It’s quite different.”
“‘Pologies,” said she, rather shakily.
“It wasn’t anything so romantic, but it was just as human,” said Peter. “You know how my mother was hammered into herself — that phrase came in her letter, by the way: it’s not original.”
“But I never guessed there was anything to hammer,” said Nellie.
“Nor did I; at least, I only half guessed. But there was. A breaking point came, and she couldn’t stick to my father any longer. She has just gone away. Do you remember how she used always to be looking up hotels in railway guides?”
“I remember that most of all,” said she. “Well?”
“She’s gone to one of them. She’s just gone away to be free, not to lead somebody else’s life any more. When she has got a good breath of air, she may, apparently, come back. But she doesn’t promise.” Nellie had grown quite serious again.
“That’s even more wonderful of her,” she said. “She just went away because she wanted to be herself. My dear, what a mother! And waiting till you were married! And your father? Go on.”
This time Peter’s mouth strayed beyond the limits of mere reflective meditation, and smiled broadly.
“He has discovered, to his complete satisfaction, why she left him,” he said. “He knows — as if Gabriel had told him — that his tremendous personality, his devotion to Art, all that sort of thing, was too much for her. He reproaches himself bitterly — and oh, my dear, how he enjoys it — with having failed to realise the frailty — not moral — the weakness, the ordinariness of other people. She was scorched in his magnificent flames, and escaped from that furnace with her life.”
“But how lovely for him!” said Nellie. “Lovely for her, too. But why tragedy? You said it was a tragedy?”
His whole body gave a jubilant jerk. If he had been standing up he must have jumped.
“Ah, you do see that, don’t you?” he cried. “I just rejoice in her! At least, I would—”
Nellie divined perfectly well that “if Silvia understood” really completed the sentence. But if Peter wished, for the present anyhow, to leave that unspoken, loyalty to their comradeship prevented her from suggesting it. Another motive, not less potent than that, dictated her silence on the point, for she infinitely preferred that he should volunteer some such information concerning himself and Silvia than that she should give away her knowledge of it. Certainly she longed to know in what real relation he and Silvia stood to each other, but it would be a tactical error (tactical was too businesslike) to let him know that his incomplete sentence gave her so certain a hint.
“I see,” she said quickly. “You would rejoice in her if it wasn’t for your father.”
Until the two ultimate words of that were spoken Peter’s eyes had been bright and expectant. He evidently waited for the termination which she had refused to utter. When her sentence was complete she saw, unmistakably again, that his eyes accepted and acquiesced in her conclusion.
“Quite,” he said in a level voice. “So for the present my father is consumed with remorse, and is occupying the state-rooms — you’ve never seen them; gorgeous tapestry and Lincrusta Walton ceilings — till we come up lo town. He is painting away at the series of cartoons.”
Peter poured himself out a second cup of coffee from the tray that had been left between them half an hour or more before.
“Aunt Joanna!” he said. “You never heard such ft plot or saw such a person. She’s my mother-in-law’s sister, you know. She’s ‘got at’ my father, there’s no doubt of it, and she’s secured all the cartoons by bribery and corruption, instead of their being painted for the gallery — the Art Gallery, I should say — at Howes. Aunt Eleanor — she’s my father-in-law’s brother’s wife — has secured the sketches for the cartoons. They’ve been to Howes once, but my father quite dominated them. That was before the crash, so you may judge how much more, with that added string of tragedy to his bow, he would dominate them now. They are more priceless than words can say. There will be a family gathering at Christmas, I understand. Nellie, do come. We would have such a gorgeous time if you were there. We would sit quiet and notice and drink in, and then we would sit over the fire together when Uncle John and Uncle Abe—”
“Uncle Abe?” asked Nellie in an awed voice. “Yes. Sir Abel Darley, K.B.E., husband to Aunt Joanna. Don’t interrupt. When Uncle John and Uncle Abe and Aunt Eleanor and Aunt Joanna have gone, not staggering at all, but ‘full up,’ to bed, we would have such holy convocations about them.” Nellie had inferred a little more information about Silvia by this time, but what occupied her most was not what she was inferring about anybody. It was quite enough for her to realize that for the duration, anyhow, of the first act of the play which they had meant to see she was in the old full enjoyment of Peter again. They had stepped back into the candour and closeness of their friendship, and though he had not, as she had, confessed that he was having a holiday, it was transparently clear that this was the case. But just there the candour was clouded; she guessed that, even as she was having a holiday from Philip (God bless him), so Peter was having a holiday from Silvia. Only — here was the difference — he did not or would not own up to that. Even in the projected scheme of Christmas-hilariousness at the uncles and aunts, Silvia did not appear as ever so faintly ridiculous, or as ever so faintly partaking in the midnight merriment. Throughout their talk Peter had kept her hermetically apart. Once or twice, Nellie conjectured, he had pointedly enough refrained from introducing her. She could visualize the rest of them do
wn at Howes, but the part that to Peter Silvia played was mysteriously shrouded. When you were laughing at everybody all round, why should you except one person from the compliment of amused criticism? It was clear that Silvia had no applause for the comedy of Peter’s parents, for he had so cordially welcomed her — Nellie’s — appreciation of it. What, then, was Silvia’s line, what was her relation, above all, to Peter?
She decided not to burn all her boats, but to set fire to just a little one.
“Won’t Silvia enjoy them too?” she asked.
“Can’t tell,” said Peter.
If there was a lapse of loyalty there, if, in a minor degree, there was a sense conveyed of disappointment, though of accepting that disappointment without comment, Nellie decided that Peter was not intending to enlarge on it. She still (after that small burned boat) clung to the chance of Peter’s volunteering information, but clearly she would not get that just now; and another heavy booming of quarters from the dock gave her an excellent opportunity of abandoning that which, after all, had never been a discussion on her own initiative.
“Good gracious, it’s a quarter to nine,” she said. “You wretch, Peter! We’ve missed one act, if not two.”
“Let’s miss them all,” he said, “and have an evening.”
That made her pause, but only for a moment. Peter had consistently shied away from that one topic she wanted to hear about, and a break of some sort was much more likely to produce in him the pressure that would eventually “go pop” than if they remained just sizzling here.
“But we absolutely must go,” she said. “Philip will ask me about the play, and I couldn’t tell him that you and I simply sat talking till it was over.”
“Why not?” said Peter.
“Because it isn’t done. My dear, you and I have signed on to the conventionalities of life. Come along. A bore, but there it is. Besides, how would you account for your evening to Silvia? Dining at seven, you know. That requires a theatrical explanation.”
“Oh, don’t be vulgar,” said Peter. “As if Silvia wouldn’t delight in my spending an evening with you.”