The Passionate Year (18 page)

Replying to the last of her queries, he said: “Oh yes, I don’t think it’s
quite bad enough to stop them altogether.”

Then after a pause she went on: “Clare’s just putting her things on, and I
told her to meet you here. You’ll see her home, won’t you?”

He wondered in a vague kind of way why Helen was so desperately anxious
that he should take Clare on her way home, but he was far too exhausted
mentally to give the matter sustained excogitation. It seemed to him that
Helen suddenly vanished, that he waited hours in the fog, and that Clare
appeared mysteriously by his side, speak, ing to him in a voice that was full
of sharp, recuperative magic. “My dear man, aren’t you going to put your coat
on?” Then he deliberately laughed and said: “Heavens, yes, I’d
forgotten—just a minute if you don’t mind waiting!”

He groped his way back into the hall and to the alcove where he had laid
his coat and hat. The yellow light blurred his eyes with a film of
half-blindness; phantasies of doubt and dread enveloped him; he felt, with
that almost barometric instinct that he possessed, that things momentous and
incalculable were looming in the future. This Millstead that had seemed to
him so bright and lovely was now heavy with dark mysterious menace; as he
walked back across the hall through the long avenues of disturbed chairs it
occurred to him suddenly that perhaps this foreboding that was hovering about
him was not mental at all, but physical; that he had overworked himself and
was going to be ill. Perhaps, even, he was ill already. He had a curious
desire that someone should confirm him in this supposition; when Clare,
meeting him at the doorway, said: “You’re looking thoroughly tired out Mr.
Speed,” he smiled and answered, with a touch of thankfulness: “I’m feeling,
perhaps, a little that way.”

“Then,” said Clare, immediately, “please don’t trouble to see me home. I
can quite easily find my own way, I assure you. You go back to Lavery’s and
get straight off to bed.”

The thought, thus presented to him, of forgoing this walk into the town
with her, sent a sharp flush into his cheeks and pulled down the hovering
gloom almost on to his eyes; he knew then, more acutely than he had ever
guessed before, that he was desiring Clare’s company in a way that was a good
deal more than casual. The realisation surprised him just a little at first,
and then surprised him a great deal because at first it had surprised him
only a little.

“I’d rather come with you if you don’t mind,” he said. “The walk will do
me good.”

“What,
this
weather!” she exclaimed softly, and then laughed a
sharp, instant laugh.

That laugh galvanised him into determination. “I’m coming anyway,” he said
quietly, and took her arm and led her away into the fog.

Out in the high road it was blacker and denser; the school railings,
dripping with grimy moisture, provided the only sure clue to position. Half,
at least, of Speed’s energies were devoted to the task of not losing the way;
with the other half he was unable to carry out much of the strange programme
of conversation that had been gathering in his mind. For many days past he
had been accumulating a store of things to say to her upon this memorable
walk which, so far as he could judge, was bound to be the last; now, with the
opportunity arrived, he said hardly anything at all. She chattered to him
about music and Millstead and odd topics of slight importance; she pressed
her scarf to her lips and the words came out curiously muffled and
deep-toned, with the air of having incalculable issues depending on them. But
he hardly answered her at all. And at last they reached Harrington’s shop in
the High Street, and she shook hands with him and told him to get back as
quickly as he could and be off to bed. “And don’t work so hard,” were her
last words to him, “or you’ll be ill.”

Thicker and blacker than ever was the fog on the way back to the school,
and somehow, through what error he never discovered, he lost himself amongst
the narrow, old-fashioned streets in the centre of the town. He wandered
about, as it seemed to him, for hours, creeping along walls and hoping to
meet some passer-by who could direct him Once he heard Millstead Parish
Church beginning the chime of midnight, but it was from the direction he
least expected. At last, after devious manoeuvring, he discovered himself
again on the main road up to the school, and this time with great care he
managed to keep to the route. As he entered the main gateway he heard the
school clock sounding the three-quarters. A quarter to one! All was silent at
Lavery’s. He rang the bell timorously. After a pause he heard footsteps
approaching on the other side, but they seemed to him light and airy; the
bolts were pushed back, not with Burton’s customary noise, but softly, almost
frightenedly.

He could see that it was Helen standing there in the porch, not Burton.
She flashed an electric torch in his face and then at his feet so that he
should see the step.

She said: “Come in quickly-don’t let the fog in. You’re awfully late,
aren’t you? I told Burton to go to bed. I didn’t know you were going to stay
at Clare’s.”

He answered: “I didn’t stay at Clare’s. I got lost in the fog on the way
back.”

“Lost!” she echoed, walking ahead of him down the corridor towards his
sitting-room. The word echoed weirdly in the silence. “
Lost
, were
you?—So that’s why you were late?”

“That’s why,” he said.

He followed her into the tiny lamp-lit room, full of flrelight that was
somehow melancholy and not cheerful.

She was silent. She sat in one of the chairs with her eyes
looking straight into the fire; while he took off his coat and hat and drew
up his own chair opposite to hers she neither moved nor spoke. It seemed to
him as he watched her that the room grew redder and warmer and more
melancholy; the flames lapped so noisily in the silence that he had for an
instant the absurd fear that the scores of sleepers in the dormitories would
be awakened. Then he heard, very faintly from above, what he imagined must be
an especially loud snore; it made him smile. As he smiled he saw Helen’s eyes
turned suddenly upon him; he blushed as if caught in some guilty act. He
said: “Can you hear somebody snoring up in the Senior dormitory?”

She stared at him curiously for a moment and then replied: “No, and
neither can you. You said that to make conversation.”

“I didn’t!” he cried, with genuine indignation. “I distinctly heard it.
That’s what made me smile.”

“And do yon really think that the sound of anybody snoring in the Senior
dormitory would reach us in here? Why, we never hear the maids in a morning
and they make ever such a noise!”

“Yes, but then there are so many other noises to drown it. However, it may
have been my imagination.”

“Or it may have been your invention, eh?”

“I tell you, Helen, I
did
think that I heard it! It
wasn’t
my invention. What reason on earth should I have for inventing it? Oh, well,
anyway, it’s such a trifling matter—it’s not worth arguing about.”

“Then let’s stop arguing. You started it.”

Silence again. The melancholy in the atmosphere was charged now with an
added quality, something that weighed and threatened and was dangerous. He
knew that Helen had something pressing on her mind, and that until she flung
it off there would be no friendliness with her. And he wanted friendliness.
He could not endure the torture of her bitter silences.

“Helen,” he said, nervously eager, “Helen, there’s something the matter.
Tell me what it is.”

“There’s nothing the matter.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.”

“Then why are you so silent?”

“Because I would rather be silent than
make
conversation.”

“That’s sarcastic.”

“Is it? If you think it is—”

“Helen,
please
be kind to me. If you go on as you are doing I’m
sure I shall either cry or lose my temper. I’m tired to death after all the
work of the concert and I simply can’t bear this attitude of yours.”

“Well, I can’t change my attitude to please you.”

“Apparently not.”

“
Now
who’s sarcastic? Good heavens, do you think I’ve nothing to do
but suit your mood when you come home tired at one o’clock in the morning-You
spend half the night with some other woman and then when you come home, tired
out, you expect me to soothe and make a fuss of you!”

“Helen, that’s a lie! I walked straight home with Clare. You specially
asked me to do that.”

“I didn’t specially ask you to stay out with her till one o’clock in the
morning.”

“I didn’t stay with her till then. To begin with, it isn’t one o’clock
even yet…Remember that the concert was over about eleven. I took Clare
straight home and left her long before midnight. It wasn’t my fault I lost my
way in the fog.”

“Nor mine either. But perhaps it was Clare’s, eh?”

“Helen, I can’t bear you to insinuate like that! Tell me frankly what you
suspect, and then I’ll answer frankly!”

“You wouldn’t answer frankly. And that’s why I. can’t tell you
frankly.”

“Well, I think it’s scandalous—”

She interrupted him fiercely with: “Oh, yes, it’s scandalous that I should
dare to be annoyed when you give all your friendship to another woman and
none to me, isn’t it? It’s scandalous that when you come home after seeing
this other woman I shouldn’t be perfectly happy and bright and ready to kiss
and comfort you and wheedle you out of the misery you’re in at having to
leave her! You only want me for a comforter, and it’s so scandalous when I
don’t feel in the humour to oblige, isn’t it?”

“Helen, it’s not true! My friendship belongs to you more than
to—”

“Don’t tell me lies just to calm me into suiting your mood. Do you think I
haven’t noticed that we haven’t anything in common except that we love each
other? We don’t know what on earth to talk about when we’re alone together.
We just know how to bore each other and to torture each other with our love.
Don’t you realise the truth of that? Don’t you find yourself eagerly looking
forward to seeing Clare; Clare whom you can talk to and be friendly with;
Clare who’s your equal, perhaps your superior, in intellect? Lately, I’ve
given you as many chances to see her as I could, because if you’re going to
tire of me I’d rather you do it quickly. But I’m sorry I can’t promise to be
always gay and amusing while it’s going on. It may be scandalous that I
can’t, but it’s the truth, anyway!”

“But, my dear Helen, what an extraordinary bundle of misunderstandings
you’ve got hold of! Why—”

“Oh, yes, you’d like to smooth me down and persuade me it’s all my own
misunderstanding, I daresay, as you’ve always been able to do! But the effect
doesn’t last for very long; sooner or later it all crops up again. It’s no
use, Kenneth. I’m not letting myself be angry, but I tell you it’s not a bit
of use. I’m sick to death of wanting from you what I can’t get. I’ve tried
hard to educate myself into being your equal, but it doesn’t seem to make you
value me any more. Possibly you like me best as a child; perhaps you wouldn’t
have married me if you’d known I was really a woman. Anyway, Kenneth, I can’t
help it. And there’s another thing-I’m miserably jealous—of Clare. If
you’d had a grain of ordinary sense you might have guessed it before
now.”

“My dear Helen—”

Then he stopped, seeing that she was staring at him fearlessly. She was
different, somehow, from what she had ever been before; and this quarrel, if
it could be called a quarrel, was also different both in size and texture.
There was no anger in her; nothing but stormy sincerity and passionate
outpouring of the truth. A new sensation overspread him; a thrill of
surprised and detached admiration for her. If she were always like this, he
thought—if she were always proud, passionate, and sincere—how
splendidly she would take possession of him! For he wanted to belong to her,
finally and utterly; he was anxious for any enslavement that should give him
calm and absolute anchorage.

His admiration was quickly superseded by astonishment at her
self-revelation.

“But Helen—” he gasped, leaning over the arm of his chair and
putting his hand on her wrist, “Helen, I’d no idea!
Jealous
! You
jealous of Clare! What on earth for? Clare’s only an acquaintance! Why,
you’re a thousand times more to me than Clare ever is or could be!”

“Kenneth!” She drew her arm away from the touch of his hand with a gesture
that was determined but not contemptuous. “Kenneth, I don’t believe it.
Perhaps you’re not trying to deceive me; probably you’re trying to deceive
yourself and succeeding. Tell me, Kenneth, truthfully, don’t you sometimes
wish I were Clare when you’re talking to me? When we’re both alone together,
when we’re neither doing nor saying anything particular, don’t you wish you
could make me vanish suddenly and have Clare in my place,
and—and”—bitterness crept into her voice here—“and call Me
back when you wanted the only gift of mine which you find satisfactory? You
came back to-night, miserable, because, you’d said goodbye to Clare, and
because you couldn’t see in the future any chances of meeting her as often as
you’ve been able to do lately. You wanted—you’re wanting it
now—Clare’s company and Clare’s conversation and Clare’s friendship.
And because you can’t have it you’re willing to soothe yourself with my
pretty little babyish ways, and when you find you can’t have
them
either you think it’s scandalous! Kenneth, my dear, dear Kenneth, I’m not a
baby any longer, even if I ever was one—I’m a woman now, and you don’t
like me as much. I can’t help it. I can’t help being tortured with jealousy
all the time you’re with Clare. I can’t help wanting what Clare has of you
more than I want what I have of you myself. I can’t
help—sometimes—hating her—loathing her!”