Encounters: stories (4 page)

She had unlocked a drawer and held a stiff-backed photograph up beneath the light, scrutinising it. Lydia listened to a distant surge of movement in the house beneath her; steps across the oil-cloth, windows shutting, voices cut off by the swinging of a door. She felt, revoltedly, as though Mrs. Tottenham were stepping out of her clothes.

"He says he's hardly changed at all.

Seventeen years—they go past you like a flash, he says, when you're working."

"Seventeen years,"said Lydia deHber-ately,"are bound to make a diiTerence to a woman. Did you care for him?"

Mrs. Tottenham made no answer; she was staring at the photograph. Her eyes dilated, and she licked her lips.

"I suppose you'll be glad to see him again?"suggested Lydia. She felt suddenly alert and interested, as though she were watching through the lens of a microscope some tortured insect twirling on a pin.

Mrs. Tottenham sat down stiffly on the sofa, and laid the photo on her lap. Suddenly she clasped her hands and put them up before her eyes.

"I couldn't,"she gasped."Not after all these years I couldn't. Not like this. O Lord, I've got so ugly! I can't pretend—I haven't got the heart to risk it. It's been so real to me, I couldn't bear to lose him.

"It's all gone, it's all gone. I've been pretendmg. I used to be a fine figure of a woman. How can I have the heart to care when I couldn't keep him caring?"

"You broke it off. It was all over and done with, you told me so. It was wrong, besides. Why should either of you want to rake it up when it was all past and done with seventeen years ago?"

"Because it was wrong. It's this awful rightness that's killing me. My husband's been a bad man, too, but here we both are, smirking and grinning at each other, just to keep hold of something we neither of us want.''

Lydia was terrified by the dry, swift sobbing. She felt suddenly hard and priggish and immature. All her stresses, her fears and passions, were such twilight things.

Mrs. Tottenham stood upright and held the photograph in the flame of the gas jet, watching the ends curl upwards. For all her frizzled hair and jingling ornaments and smudgy tentative cosmetics she was suddenly elemental and heroic.

It was over.

Lydia went quietly out of the room and shut the door behind her.

The place was vibrant with the humanity of Mrs. Tottenham. It was as though a child had been born in the house.

YOU are losing your imagination,"cried Maurice. It was a bitter reproach. He stood over her, rumpHng up his hair, and the wiry-tufts sprung upright, quivering from his scalp.

Penelope gulped, then sat for a moment in a silence full of the consciousness of her brutality. She had never dreamed that her secret preoccupation would be so perceptible to Maurice. Unconsciously she had been drawing her imaginations in upon herself like the petals of a flower, and her emotions buzzed and throbbed within them like a pent-up bee.

The room was dark with rain, and they heard the drip and rustle of leaves in the drinking garden Through the open window the warm, wet air blew in on them, and a shimmer of rain was visible against the trees beyond.

"I never meant"began Penelope.

"I beg your pardon,"said Maurice stiffly.

"I suppose I am becoming quite insufferable. I have been making perfectly unjustifiable demands on your sympathy and patience and—imagination. I am an egotistical brute, I daresay. Of course there is

not the slightest reason why you"His

indulgence intimated that there was, on the contrary, every reason why she should.... "I felt a bit jarred just now,"he excused himself, with simple pathos.

"I never meant, a bit"resumed

Penelope.

"I know, I know,"said Maurice, all magnanimity. The sickly sweetness of this reconciliation overpowered her.

"What a pair of fools we are!"she cried hysterically."Maurice, dear, we're wearing this thing thin. I'm afraid I've been doing gallery to you and Veronica for the last six months, and you've both played up to me magnificently. But"

"Veronica"protested Maurice.

"Oh, yes, Veronica comes here too. She comes and sits for hours over there, just where you are now. There's not an aspect of your emotional relationship that we've not

discussed. Veronica's coming here this afternoon,"she said abruptly."She's a chilly person. I'd better light the fire."

"God!"said Maurice.

Penelope was on her knees before the fireplace, her head almost inside the grate. Her voice came hollowly from the dark recess.

"I thought you'd be surprised,"she said. ("Damn, it will not light!")

"Surprised!"said Maurice."Penelope,"—his tone had the deadly reasonableness of a driven man's—"I think you hardly realise what you're doing. I know

you meant well, my good girl, but really

It puts us in such an impossible position. Surely you must see."

"I see quite well,"she assured him."You and she both breathe and have your being in an atmosphere of conspiracy; it's your natural element, of course. To force you into the straighter, broader courses of the uncomplex would be as cruel as to upset a bowl with gold-fish in it and leave them gasping on the tablecloth. Ooh!"She sat back on her heels and ruefully beheld her grimy fingers.

Maurice tried his hardest to endure her. She heard him breathing heavily.

"It's really quite unnecessary to have a fire,"she soliloquised."But it makes a point in a room, I always think. Keeps one in countenance. Humanises things a bit. Makes a centre point for"

She became incoherent. Maurice's irritation audibly increased. They were both conscious of the oppression of the darkening, rain-loud room.

"You're forcing our hands rather,"said Maurice.

"Forcing you into the banality of meeting each other sanely and normally in my drawing-room, with no necessity to converse in allusions, insinuations, and doubles-entendres? With me blessing you both and beaming sympathetically on you from afar? Bullying you into that?...

''I'm sorry!"she flashed round on him, impenitently.

"You don't understand,"he winced, and looked round him for his hat."I think it would be best for me to go."

"I suppose I mustn't keep you,"she

conceded widi polite reluctance."But I think you really ought to see Veronica. She has—she will have something of particular importance to say to you. I shall go, of course."

"Oh, don't!"

"But surely?"

"There's nothing we can keep from you. And it makes it easier for both of us—as things are."

"But do you never want to be alone with her?"

Maurice considered.

"I don't believe,"said Penelope, swiftly,"that you two have ever been alone together for a second since your—acquaintanceship —began."

"No,"said Maurice, sombrely."There have always been outsiders."

"Audiences,"murmured Penelope.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, nothing. Well, you'll be alone this afternoon. I'm going out,"she said with firmness.

"But don't you understand?"

"Oh, I understand the strain will be

colossal—would have been. But thereVe been developments—suddenly. Veronica'll have a great deal to tell you. Has it never occurred to you she might get free after all? There'll be heaps to say,"she said, significantly.

"For heaven's sake!"He threw up

his hands again and paced the room in agitation, stumbling over stools.

"That was why I pulled up just now,"she continued."Seemed hard, perhaps, apathetic and unsympathetic when you were talking all that about awfulness, refined irony, frustration, and things. I was thinking how soon you'd—if you only knew—— And then you told me I was losing my imagination."

"For which I have already begged your pardon,"said Maurice, patiently.

Penelope rose from the hearthrug and threw herself on to the Chesterfield. Maurice turned to her with a goaded expression, and she regarded him with shining eyes. Then the door opened with a jerk, and Veronica entered stiffly, with a rustle of agitation.

Maurice drew back into the shadow, and

Veronica hesitated for a moment in the centre of the room, then groped out her hands towards Penelope, as though she could see little in this sudden gloom.

"Tell me,"she cried, without preliminaries,"you, you heard from Victor?"

Penelope, who had risen, glanced across at Maurice. He took his cue.

"Veronica!"he quavered huskily.

Veronica's shoulders twitched. She turned on him in the dusk like a wild thing, with an expression that was almost baleful.

"You!"she said.

"Er—yes,"admitted Maurice."I'd simply no idea that I should... I just came in. By chance, you know."

"It's just as well, isn't it?"interposed Penelope."We've—you've simply got to talk things out, Veronica; tell him. Show him Victor's letter."She moved towards the door.

"Don't go!"shrieked Veronica."You've got to explain to him. I can't,"she said, with the finality of helplessness.

The rain had stopped, and through a sudden break in the clouds the watery

sunshine streamed across the garden. Veronica sat down on an ottoman facing the window, and Penelope knelt beside her, looking at her pitifully.

The long, pale oval of her face was maried and puckered by emotion, fair hair lay in streaks across her forehead, her clothes were glistening from the rain. Many tears had worn their mournful rivulets through the lavish powder on her nose. Her gloved hands lay across her lap, in one was clutched a sheet of blue-grey notepaper. She would not look at Maurice, but turned pathetic eyes on Penelope and made appeal with soundless moving lips.

"Veronica has had a letter from Victor,"said Penelope, slowly and distinctly."He releases her from her engagement. He says... he explains... He is not so blind as you both seem to have thought, and he has seen for some time that Veronica was not happy. He has noticed that she has been listless and preoccupied, and has interpreted her unhappiness—rightly! He is convinced, he says, that Veronica has ceased to care for him, but that she is too scrupulous, or not

quite brave enough perhaps, to speak out and make an end of things herself. He knows that her affections are elsewhere, and he believes that he is doing the best thing he can for her by setting her free."

Veronica had turned a little, and sat facing Maurice. Penelope saw the golden flicker of her lashes; the blue letter fluttered to the ground from between her writhing fingers.

"The trousseau was all bought,"she faltered."The going-away dress came from Pam's this morning, just before I got that letter."

Penelope could not speak; she felt utterly inadequate. Maurice shifted his position; and stood leaning up against the window-frame; with intensity of interest he turned his head and looked into the garden.

"It's stopped raining,"he observed. Veronica did not move; but Penelope saw her eyes slide sideways; following his movements under drooping lids.

"How do you know all this,"Maurice asked abruptly,"what Victor says and that, when you've had no time to read his letter?"

"He wrote to me, too,"said Penelope.

She heard her own voice, self-conscious and defiant.

"To you! Why you?"

"But we know each other—rather well. Since much longer than he's known Veronica. And, well, you see I'm her cousin. He thought I'd make things easier for her. Do the explaining as far as possible. Probably he thought I'd speak to you."

She stealthily touched her pocket and smiled to feel the crisp thick letter-paper crackle beneath her hand. Then she wondered if the sound were audible to the others, and glanced guiltily from one to the other of them. But they sat there silent, embarrassed, heavily preoccupied, one on either side of her.

"So now ,"she said with bright

aggressiveness. She could have shaken them.

"I do not think,"said Veronica, in a small determined voice,"that I am justified in accepting Victor's sacrifice."

"He is extraordinarily generous,"said Maurice, without enthusiasm.

"The loneliness,"went on Veronica, gazing wide-eyed down some terrible vista.

"Picture it, Penelope, the disappointment and the blankness for him. I could never have loved him, but I would have been a good wife to him."(Her voice rose in a crescendo of surprise. She thought"How genuine I am!")"We—we had made so many plans,"she faltered; fumbled, found no handkerchief, and spread her hands before her face.

Penelope gave a little gasp, half sympathetic. She was praying hard for tact.

"Veronica,"she said,"I don't think you should let that stand between you and Maurice. You mustn't be too soft-hearted, dear. I don't thmk Victor's altogether unhappy. He's relieved, I know. You see, the last few weeks have been an awful strain for him, as well as—other people."

"How do you know?"

"He told me."

"You've been discussing me. Oh, Penelope, this is intolerable!"

"He had been talking to me; he had no one else. For a long time, I suppose, he put me in the position of a sister-in-law."

"That was going too far!"cried Maurice.

"Had you neither of you the sightest idea of loyalty to Veronica?"

Penelope ignored him. She leant suddenly forward, crimson-cheeked, and kissed Veronica.

"Oh, my dear,"she said,"did you think that because you couldn't care about Victor nobody else could? Do you expect him to go on giving you everything when you've got nothing to give him?"

They looked at her, dazzled by a flash of comprehension. When she rose from between them she left a gap, a gap she knew to be unbridgeable for both. They were face to face with the hideous simplicity of life. She had upset their bowl and left the two poor gold-fish gasping in an inclement air.

"Now at last you two have got each other,"she cried, smiling at them from the threshold."Nothing more to bother or disturb you. Just be as happy and as thankful as you can!"

They sat in silence till the last ironical echo died away. Then"Don't go I"they cried in unison.

But she was gone.

MAJENDIE had bought the villa on his honeymoon, and in April, three months after his death, his widow went out there alone to spend the spring and early summer. Stuart, who had been in India at the time of Howard Majendies death, wrote to Mrs. Majendie before starting for home and her reply awaited him at his club; he re-read it several times, looking curiously at her writing which he had never seen before. The name of the villa was familiar to him, Majendie had been speaking of it the last time they dined together; he said it had a garden full of lemon trees and big cypresses, and more fountains than you could imagine—it was these that Ellaline had loved. Stuart pictured Mrs. Majendie walking about among the lemon-trees in her widow's black.

In her letter she expressed a wish to see him—in a little while."I shall be returning to England at the end of June; there is a good deal of business to go through, and

there are several things that Howard wished me to discuss with you. He said you would be wilhng to advise and help me. I do not feel that I can face England before then; I have seen nobody yet, and it is difficult to make a beginning. You understand that I feel differently about meeting you; Howard wished it, and I think that is enough for both of us. If you were to be in Italy I should ask you to come and see me here, but as I know that you will be going straight to Ireland I will keep the papers until June, all except the very important ones, which I must sign without quite understanding, I suppose."In concluding, she touched on his friendship with Howard as for her alone it was permissible to touch. Stuart wired his apologies to Ireland and planned a visit to the Italian lakes.

Three wrecks afterwards found him in the prow of a motor-boat, furrowing Lake Como as he sped towards the villa. The sky was cloudless, the hills to the right rose sheer above him, casting the lengthening shadows of the afternoon across the luminous and oily water; to the left were brilliant and rugged

above the clustered villages. The boat shot closely under Cadenabbia and set the orange-hooded craft bobbing; the reflected houses rocked and quivered in her wake, colours flecked the broken water.

"Subito, subito!"said the boatman reassuringly and Stuart started; he did not know that his impatience was so evident. The man shut off his engines, let the boat slide further into the shore, and displacing Stuart from the prow, crouched forward with a ready boat-hook. They were approaching the water-stairway of the villa.

For a few moments after he had landed, while the motor-boat went chuffing out again into the sunshine, Stuart stood at the top of the stairway looking irresolutely through the iron gates. He was wondering why he had come to Italy, and whether he even cared at all for Mrs. Majendie. He felt incapable of making his way towards her under the clustered branches of those trees. If there had been a little side-gate it would have been easier to go in; it would not have been so difficult, either, if he had ever been here with Howard Majendie. But this was

Her place; she had loved it because of the fountains.

He pushed open the big gate, already cold in the shadow, and followed the upward curve of the avenue among the lemon trees. Beyond the villa disclosed itself, unhke all that he had expected; he was surprised at his own surprise and did not realise till then how clearly he must have visualised it. There was a wide loggia, a flight of steps, a terrace on a level with the loggia running along the side of the hill. Cypress trees rose everywhere, breaking up the view. He passed under the windows, climbed the steps and crossed the loggia, not looking to left or right for fear that he might see her suddenly, or even one of her books. The loggia had an air of occupation; it was probable that on any of those tables, or among the cushions, he might see her book, half open, or the long-handled lorgnettes that Majendie had given her in France.

The servant said that Mrs. Majendie was in the garden. She showed Stuart into a tall, cool parlour and disappeared to find her mistress. Stuart, distracted by a scent of

heliotrope, made an unseeing circle of the room; he was standing before a Florentine chest when the girl came back with a message. Mrs. Majendie would see him in the garden. It would have been easier to meet her here; he had pictured them sitting opposite to one another in these high-backed chairs. He followed the girl obediently out of the house, along the terrace, and down a long alley between hedges of yew. The white plume of a fountain quivered at the end, other fountains were audible in the garden below. He could hear footsteps, too; someone was approaching by another alley that converged with his beyond the fountain. Here they met.

She was less beautiful than he had remembered her, and very tall and thin in her black dress. Her composure did not astonish him; her smile, undimmed, and the sound of her voice recalled to him the poignancy of his feelings when he had first known her, his resentment and sense of defeat—she had possessed herself of Howard so entirely. She was shortsighted, there was always a look of uncertainty in her eyes until she

came quite near one, her big pupils seemed to see too much at once and nothing very plainly.

"I never knew you were in Italy,"she said.

He realised that it would have been more considerate to have written to prepare her for his visit.

"I came out,"he said,"quite suddenly. I had always wanted to see the Lakes. And I wanted to see you, but perhaps I should have written. I—I never thought... It would have been better."

"It doesn't matter. It was very good of you to come. I am glad that you should see the villa. Are you staying near?"

"Over at Varenna. How beautiful this is!"

"The lake?"

"I meant your garden."They turned and walked slowly back towards the house. "I hope I didn't take you too much by surprise?"

"Oh no,"she said. It almost seemed as though she had expected him."Yes, it is beautiful, isn't it; I have done nothing to it, it is exactly as we found it,"

They sat down on a stone bench on the terrace, looking a Httle away from one another; their minds were full of the essential things impossible to be said. Sitting there with her face turned away from him, every inch of her had that similitude of repose which covers tension. His lowered eyes took in her hands and long, thin fingers lying against the blackness of her dress. He remembered Howard telling him (among those confidences which had later ceased) how though he had fallen in love with the whole of her it was her hands that he first noticed when details began to detach themselves. Now they looked bewildered, helpless hands.

"I took you at your word,"he said;"I wanted to help; I hoped there might be something I could do, and in your letter"

"I took you at your word in asking for help. There is a great deal I must do, and you could make things easier for me, if you will. I shall be very grateful for your help about some business; there are papers I must sign and I don't understand them quite. There were things that Howard had 66

never explained."She looked full at him for a moment and he knew that this was the first time she had uttered her husband's name. It would be easier now.

"He had told me everything,"he said quickly, as though to intercept the shutting of a door."I was always to be there if you should need me—I had promised him."She must realise that she owed him nothing for the fulfilment of a duty. He thought she did, for she was silent, uttering no word of thanks.

"Why did you so seldom come and see us?"she asked suddenly."Howard had begun to notice lately, and he wondered."

"I was in India."

"Before you went to India."A little inflection in her voice made him despise his evasion.

"There is a time for all things, and that was a time for keeping away."

"Because he was married:"

Stuart did not answer.

"We wanted you,"she said, "but you didn't understand, did you?"

She did not understand, how could she?

She must have discussed it all, those evenings, with the Majendie that belonged to her; he had not understood either.

"I was mistaken, I suppose,"he said."I—I should have learnt later."

There was a slight contraction of her fingers, and Stuart knew that he had hurt her. If he hurt her like this a little more, it would probably be possible to kill her; she was very defenceless here in the garden that Majendie had bought her, looking out at the unmeaning lake. He had crowded out all tenderness for her, and her loneliness was nothing but a fact to him.

"There were messages for you,"she said, turning her head again.

"Were there?"

"He said ,"her lips moved, she

glanced at him a little apprehensively and was silent."I have written down everything that he said for you. And I believe he left you a letter."

"Can you remember the messages?"he asked curiously.

"I wrote them down; I have them in the house."She looked at him again with 68

that shortsighted intensity; she knew every word of the messages, and with an effort he could almost have read them from her eyes.

"Did he expect to see me?"

"Yes, once he knew that he was ill. He knew that you could not possibly leave India before April, but he kept on—expecting. I wanted to cable to you and he wouldn't let me. But I know he still believed, above all reason, that you'd come."

"If I'd known, if"

"You think I should have cabled without telling him?"She thought he blamed her and she evidently feared his anger. Curious... He had been so conscious of her indifference, before; he had been a person who did not matter, the nice friend, the family dog—relegated. It was that that had stung and stung. After all he need never have gone to India, it had been a resource of panic. It had saved him nothing, and there had been no question of saving her. He wondered why she had not cabled; it was nothing to her whether he went or came, and Howard's happiness was everything.

"Yes, I wonder you didn't cable."

"I am sorry; I was incapable of anything. My resource was—sapped."

He looked at her keenly; it was a doctor's look.

"What have you been doing since."he asked (as the medical man, to whom no ground was sacred)."What are you going to do?"

"I was writing letters, shutting up the house. And here I'm trying to realise that there's nothing more to do, that matters. And afterwards"

"Well?"

"I don't know,"she said wearily;"I'd rather not, please... Afterwards will come of itself."

He smiled as now he took upon himself the brother-in-law, the nice, kind, doggy person."You should have somebody with you, Ellaline. You should, you owe it to yourself, you owe it to—"—he realised there was no one else to whom she owed it—"to yourself,"he repeated."You must think, you must be wise for yourself now."

She looked, half-smiling, at him while he 70

counselled. He had never achieved the fraternal so completely.

"It's not that I don't think,"she said."I think a great deal. And as for wisdom— there is not much more to learn once one has grown up. I am as wise as I need be— 'for myself.'"

"When are you going back to England?"

"If you would do one or two things for me I needn't go back until the autumn."

"You can't stay here all the summer."

"No,"she said, looking round at the cypresses—how pitiful she was, in Howard's garden."They say I couldn't, it would be too hot; I must go somewhere else. But if you could help me a little this autumn I could finish up the business then."

"I may have to be in Ireland then."He tore himself away from something brutally, and the brutality sounded in his voice.

She retreated.

"Of course,"she said,"I know you ought to be there now—I was forgetting."

Because he was a person who barely existed for her (probably) she had always been gentle with him, almost propitiatory.

One must be gentle with the nice old dog. It was not in her nature to be always gentle, perhaps she had said bitter things to Howard who mattered to her; there was a hint of bitterness about her mouth. At himself she was always looking in that vague, half-startled way, as though she had forgotten who he was. Sometimes when he made a third he had found her very silent, still with boredom; once or twice he had felt with gratification that she almost disliked him. He wondered what she thought he thought of her.

Now it was the time of the Angelus, and bells answered one another from the campaniles of the clustered villages across the lake. A steamer, still gold in the sun, cleft a long bright furrow in the shadowy water. The scene had all the passionless clarity of a Victorian water-colour.

"It is very peaceful,"Stuart said appropriately.

"Peaceful?"she echoed with a start."Yes, it's very peaceful... David"(she had caUed him this),"will you forgive me?"

"Forgive you?"

"I think you could understand me if you wished to. Forgive me the harm I've done you. Don't, don't hate me."

How weak she was now, how she had come down!"What harm have you done to me?"he asked, unmoved.

"You should know better than I do. I suppose I must have hurt you, and through you, Howard. An—an intrusion isn't a happy thing. You didn't give me a chance to make it happy. You came at first, but there was always a cloud. I didn't want to interfere, I tried to play the game. Now that we've both lost him, couldn't you forgive?"

"I'm sorry I should have given you the impression that I resented anything—that there was anything to resent. I didn't know that you were thinking that. Perhaps you rather ran away with a preconceived idea that because you married Howard I was bound to be unfriendly to you. If you did, you never showed it. I never imagined that I had disappointed you by anything I did or didn't do."

"It was not what you didn't do, it was what you weren't that made me feel I was a

failure."(So that was the matter, he had hurt her vanity!)

"A failure,"he said, laughing a little;"I thought you were making a success. If I didn't come oftener it was not because I did not think you wanted me."

"But you said just now"

"A third is never really wanted. I had set my heart on seeing Howard happy, and when I had, I went away to think about it."