The Well of Loneliness (25 page)

She said: ‘Make him sit down, I don’t want him to stand.’ And she got up and pushed her own chair towards him.

But old Mrs. Williams shook her white head slowly: ‘No, Miss Stephen, ‘e wouldn’t sit down in your presence. Beggin’ your pardon, it would ‘urt Arth-thur’s feelin’s to be made to sit down; it would make ‘im feel as ‘is days of service was really over.’

‘I don’t need to sit down,’ declared Williams.

So Stephen wished them both a good night, promising to come again very soon; and Williams hobbled out to the path which was now quite golden from border to border, for the door of the cottage was standing wide open and the glow from the lamp streamed over the path. Once more she found herself walking on lamplight, while Williams, bareheaded, stood and watched her departure. Then her feet were caught up and entangled in shadows again, as she made her way under the trees.

But presently came a familiar fragrance—logs burning on the wide, friendly hearths of Morton. Logs burning—quite soon the lakes would be frozen—‘and the ice looks like slabs of gold in the sunset, when you and I come and stand here in the winter…and as we walk back we can smell the log fires long before we can see them, and we love that good smell because it means home, and our home is Morton…because it means home and our home is Morton…

Oh, intolerable fragrance of log fires burning!

Angela did not return in a week, she had decided to remain another fortnight in Scotland. She was staying now with the Peacocks, it seemed, and would not get back until after her birthday. Stephen looked at the beautiful ring as it gleamed in its little white velvet box, and her disappointment and chagrin were childish.

But Violet Antrim, who had also been staying with the Peacocks, had arrived home full of importance. She walked in on Stephen one afternoon to announce her engagement to young Alec Peacock. She was so much engaged and so haughty about it that Stephen, whose nerves were already on edge, was very soon literally itching to slap her. Violet was now able to look down on Stephen from the height of her newly gained knowledge of men—knowing Alec she felt that she knew the whole species.

‘It’s a terrible pity you dress as you do, my dear,’ she remarked, with the manner of sixty, ‘a young girl’s so much more attractive when she’s soft—don’t you think you could soften your clothes just a little? I mean you do want to get married, don’t you! No woman’s complete until she is married. After all, no woman can really stand alone, she always needs a man to protect her.’

Stephen said: ‘I’m all right—getting on nicely, thank you!’

‘Oh, no, but you can’t be!’ Violet insisted. ‘I was talking to Alec and Roger about you, and Roger was saying it’s an awful mistake for women to get false ideas into their heads. He thinks you’ve got rather a bee in your bonnet; he told Alec that you’d be quite a womanly woman if you’d only stop trying to ape what you’re not.’ Presently she said, staring rather hard: ‘That Mrs. Crossby—do you really like her? Of course I know you’re friends and all that—But why are you friends? You’ve got nothing in common. She’s what Roger calls a thorough man’s woman. I think myself she’s a bit of a climber. Do you want to be used as a scaling ladder for storming the fortifications of the county? The Peacocks have known old Crossby for years, he’s a wonderful shot for an ironmonger, but they don’t care for her very much I believe—Alec says she’s man-mad, whatever that means, anyhow she seems desperately keen about Roger.’

Stephen said: ‘I’d rather we didn’t discuss Mrs. Crossby, because, you see, she’s my friend.’ And her voice was as icy cold as her hands.

‘Oh, of course if you’re feeling like that about it—’ laughed Violet, ‘no, but honest, she is keen on Roger.’

When Violet had gone, Stephen sprang to her feet, but her sense of direction seemed to have left her, for she struck her head a pretty sharp blow against the side of a heavy bookcase. She stood swaying with her hands pressed against her temples. Angela and Roger Antrim—those two—but it couldn’t be, Violet had been purposely lying. She loved to torment, she was like her brother, a bully, a devil who loved to torment—it couldn’t be—Violet had been lying.

She steadied herself and leaving the room and the house, went and fetched her car from the stables. She drove to the telegraph office at Upton: ‘Come back, I must see you at once,’ she wired, taking great care to prepay the reply, lest Angela should find an excuse for not answering.

The clerk counted the words with her stump of a pencil, then she looked at Stephen rather strangely.

2

The next morning came Angela’s frigid answer: ‘Coming home Monday fortnight not one day sooner please no more wires Ralph very much upset.’

Stephen tore the thing into a hundred fragments and then hurled it away. She was suddenly shaking all over with uncontrollable anger.

3

Right up to the moment of Angela’s return that hot anger supported Stephen. It was like a flame that leapt through her veins, a flame that consumed and yet stimulated, so that she purposely fanned the fire from a sense of self-preservation.

Then came the actual day of arrival. Angela must be in London by now, she would certainly have travelled by the night express. She would catch the 12.47 to Malvern and then motor to Upton—it was nearly twelve. It was afternoon. At 3.17 Angela’s train would arrive at Great Malvern—it had arrived now—in about twenty minutes she would drive past the very gates of Morton. Half-past four. Angela must have got home; she was probably having tea in the parlour—in the little oak parlour with its piping bullfinch whose cage always stood near the casement window. A long time ago, a lifetime ago, Stephen had blundered into that parlour, and Tony had barked, and the bullfinch had piped a sentimental old German tune—but that was surely a lifetime ago. Five o’clock. Violet Antrim had obviously lied; she had lied on purpose to torment Stephen—Angela and Roger—it couldn’t be; Violet had lied because she liked to torment. A quarter-past five. What was Angela doing now? She was near, just a few miles away—perhaps she was ill, as she had not written; yes, that must be it, of course Angela was ill. The persistent, aching hunger of the eyes. Anger, what was it? A folly, a delusion, a weakness that crumbled before that hunger. And Angela was only a few miles away.

She went up to her room and unlocked a drawer from which she took the little white case. Then she slipped the case into her jacket pocket.

4

Sim found Angela helping her maid to unpack; they appeared to be all but snowed under by masses of soft, inadequate garments. The bedroom smelt strongly of Angela’s scent, which was heavy yet slightly pungent.

She glanced up from a tumbled heap of silk stockings: ‘Hallo, Stephen!’ Her greeting was casually friendly.

Stephen said: ‘Well, how are you after all these weeks? Did you have a good journey down from Scotland?’

The maid said: ‘Shall I wash your new crepe de Chine nightgowns, ma’am? Or ought they to go to the cleaners?’

Then, somehow, they all fell silent.

To break this suggestive and awkward silence, Stephen inquired politely after Ralph.

‘He’s in London on business for a couple of days; he’s all right, thanks,’ Angela answered briefly, and she turned once more to sorting her stockings.

Stephen studied her. Angela was not looking well, her mouth had a childish droop at the corners; there were quite new shadows, too, under her eyes, and these shadows accentuated her pallor. And as though that earnest gaze made her nervous, she suddenly bundled the stockings together with a little sound of impatience.

‘Come on, let’s go down to my room!’ And turning to her maid: ‘I’d rather you washed the new nightgowns, please.’

They went down the wide oak stairs without speaking, and into the little oak-panelled parlour. Stephen closed the door; then they faced each other.

‘Well, Angela?’

‘Well, Stephen?’ And after a pause: ‘What on earth made you send that absurd telegram? Ralph got hold of the thing and began to ask questions. You are such an almighty fool sometimes—you knew perfectly well that I couldn’t come back. Why will you behave as though you were six, have you no common sense? What’s it all about? Your methods are not only infantile—they’re dangerous.’

Then taking Angela firmly by the shoulders, Stephen turned her so that she faced the light. She put her question with youthful crudeness: ‘Do you find Roger Antrim physically attractive—do you find that he attracts you that way more than I do?’ She waited calmly, it seemed, for her answer.

And because of that distinctly ominous calm, Angela was scared, so she blustered a little: ‘Of course I don’t! I resent such questions; I won’t allow them even from you, Stephen. God knows where you get your fantastic ideas! Have you been discussing me with that girl Violet? If you have, I think it’s simply outrageous! She’s quite the most evil-minded prig in the county. It was not very gentlemanly of you, my dear, to discuss my affairs with our neighbours, was it?’

‘I refused to discuss you with Violet Antrim,’ Stephen told her, still speaking quite calmly. But she clung to her point: ‘Was it all a mistake? Is there no one between us except your husband? Angela, look at me—I will have the truth.’

For answer Angela kissed her.

Stephen’s strong but unhappy arms went round her, and suddenly stretching out her hand she switched off the little lamp on the table, so that the room was lit only by firelight. They could not see each other’s faces very clearly any more, because there was only firelight. And Stephen spoke such words as a lover will speak when his heart is burdened to breaking; when his doubts must bow down and be swept away before the unruly flood of his passion. There in that shadowy, firelit room, she spoke such words as lovers have spoken ever since the divine, sweet madness of God flung the thought of love into Creation.

But Angela suddenly pushed her away: ‘Don’t, don’t—I can’t bear it—it’s too much, Stephen. It hurts me—I can’t bear this thing—for you. It’s all wrong, I’m not worth it, anyhow it’s all wrong. Stephen, it’s making me—can’t you understand? It’s too much—’ She could not, she dared not explain. ‘If you were a man—’ She stopped abruptly, and burst into uncontrollable weeping.

And somehow this weeping was different from any that had gone before, so that Stephen trembled. There was something frightened and desolate about it; it was like the sobbing of a terrified child. The girl forgot her own desolation in her pity and the need that she felt to comfort. More strongly than ever before she felt the need to protect this woman, and to comfort.

She said, grown suddenly passionless and gentle: ‘Tell me—try to tell me what’s wrong, beloved. Don’t be afraid of making me angry—we love each other, and that’s all that matters. Try to tell me what’s wrong, and then let me help you; only don’t cry like this—I can’t endure it.’

But Angela hid her face in her hands: ‘No, no, it’s nothing; I’m only so tired. It’s been a fearful strain these last months. I’m just a weak, human creature, Stephen—sometimes I think we’ve been worse than mad. I must have been mad to have allowed you to love me like this—one day you’ll despise and hate me. It’s my fault, but I was so terribly lonely that I let you come into my life, and now—oh, I can’t explain, you wouldn’t understand; how could you understand, Stephen?’

And so strangely complex is poor human nature, that Angela really believed in her feelings. At that moment of sudden fear and remorse, remembering those guilty weeks in Scotland, she believed that she felt compassion and regret for this creature who loved her, and whose ardent loving had paved the way for another. In her weakness she could not part from the girl, not yet—there was something so strong about her. She seemed to combine the strength of a man with the gentler and more subtle strength of a woman. And thinking of the crude young animal Roger, with his brusque, rather brutal appeal to the senses, she was filled with a kind of regretful shame, and she hated herself for what she had done, and for what she well knew she would do again, because of that urge to passion.

Feeling humble, she groped for the girl’s kind hand; then she tried to speak lightly: ‘Would you always forgive this very miserable sinner, Stephen?’

Stephen said, not apprehending her meaning, ‘If our love is a sin, then heaven must be full of such tender and selfless sinning as ours.’

They sat down close together.

They were weary unto death, and Angela whispered: ‘Put your arms around me again—but gently, because I’m so tired. You’re a kind lover, Stephen—sometimes I think you’re almost too kind.’

And Stephen answered: ‘It’s not kindness that makes me unwilling to force you—I can’t conceive of that sort of love.’

Angela Crossby was silent.

But now she was longing for the subtle easement of confession, so dear to the soul of woman. Her self-pity was augmented by her sense of wrong-doing—she was thoroughly unstrung, almost ill with self pity—so that lacking the courage to confess the present, she let her thoughts dwell on the past. Stephen had always forborne to question, and therefore that past had never been discussed, but now Angela felt a great need to discuss it. She did not analyse her feelings; she only knew that she longed intensely to humble herself, to plead for compassion, to wring from the queer, strong, sensitive being who loved her, some hope of ultimate forgiveness. At that moment, as she lay there in Stephen’s arms, the girl assumed an enormous importance. It was strange, but the very fact of betrayal appeared to have strengthened her will to hold her, and Angela stirred, so that Stephen said softly:

‘Lie still—I thought you were fast asleep.’

And Angela answered: ‘No, I’m not asleep, dearest. I’ve been thinking. There arc some things I ought to tell you. You’ve never asked me about my past life—why haven’t you, Stephen?’

‘Because,’ said Stephen, ‘I knew that some day you’d tell me.’ Then Angela began at the very beginning. She described a Colonial home in Virginia. A grave, grey house, with a columned entrance, and a garden that looked down on deep, running water, and that water had rather a beautiful name—it was called the Potomac River. Up the side of the house grew magnolia blossoms, and many old trees gave their shade to its garden. In summer the fire-flies lit lamps on those trees, shifting lamps that moved swiftly among the branches. And the hot summer darkness was splashed with lightning, and the hot summer air was heavy with sweetness.