Sir!' She Said Page 15

  When they were in the drawing-room afterwards she found it almost impossible to be polite to Julia. Julia was conscious of this hostility: a hostility that was shared, it seemed to her, by the other women. They were justified, she thought. She had no right here: she was accepting hospitality on false pretences. These other women suspected what they did not know. They resented her presence amongst them. They were not actually rude to her. But she found herself left out of conversation. Her remarks were listened to and answered, but the trains of discussion she started were not followed up. No attempts were made to lead her into the conversation. In the end she subsided into silence. By the time the men joined them, she was fretful and impatient. She beckoned Leon across to her. “It’s no good,” she said. “I’m not coming here again.”

  A pained, worried look came into his face.

  “My dearest, why?”

  Julia shrugged her shoulders. “You must surely see that. The situation’s just not possible.”

  “You’re going to let me down, then?”

  “Of course I’m not.”

  “It will amount to that.”

  “Why?”

  “Unless you come here I won’t be able to see you away from here.”

  “What nonsense, Leon.”

  “It isn’t nonsense. You can’t be treated like some girl in an East End hat shop that is taken to places where she won’t be seen. A girl in your position has to be friends with the wives of her men friends. It’s not fair to her otherwise.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters. I tell Mabel that you’re one of my best friends. The natural answer is, ‘Oh, well, then let’s have her to our parties.’ If you don’t come she’s suspicious.”

  Wearily Julia listened. Yes, she knew these arguments: she had heard them so many times; during the months since she had let herself drift into this intolerable situation. How essential it was to maintain appearances. How to the world and Mabel it must be made to appear that they were no more than friends.

  “Don’t make things harder for me than you need,” he said. “Things are so difficult for me here and at the office. You can’t think what the strain of it is. I don’t know sometimes how I can stand it.”

  Julia made no reply. He would get round her in the end, of course, as he always had, as he always would. His weakness was his strength. One hadn’t the heart to hurt him. But she was weary, so completely weary of everything the situation involved: the deceit: the strain: the obligations. Anything would have been better than that: anything. To be the plaything of a cad: to be bullied, deceived, exploited: anything would be better than the endless series of complications that a weak man involved you in. You became a part of his insufficiencies.

  “It’s only a question of time,” he was insisting. “It can’t be more than that: when I’m a partner, when the future is safe, I’ll be able to arrange for a divorce, and we’ll get married.”

  The old familiar words. How often she had listened to them. And with what changes of attitude. In the beginning she had listened with a fond, indulgent smile. She had not taken seriously that easy talk of marriage. She had not wanted to marry anyone. She had been young. Life was new and Leon had attracted her.

  The setting had been romantic: Villefranche in August. The little fishing village cut back in the cliff’s solid rock, with its narrow climbing streets, its rue obscure, its archways; its green, flower-hung balconies, with pretty Italian children tumbling in the gutter: and pretty Italian women sitting on their doorsteps, sewing: and sunburnt fishermen with brown muscled arms, in sleeveless tricots: and the market, the fruit and flower stalls, and the boats anchored in the harbour.

  Across the bay was the headland of Cap Ferrat: and all day the sun had shone out of a blue sky. You had woken at six o’clock with the sea a quivering carpet. You had bathed in the cool grey water. You had breakfasted on the hotel terrace off coffee, figs and crisp French rolls. After breakfast you had rowed over to the yellow sands of Lutetia. You had swum and sun-bathed there, lying on your face with the sun beating through your back. And in the afternoon you had strolled into the hills among the grey-green, olive planted terraces; returning hot and dusty, for your evening bathe. You had felt lazy, happy and at ease. Every one was happy. Nobody had a care. The children smiled at you in the streets, there were smiles on the faces of the market women with whom you bargained every morning for an extra fig. As you watched the blue train curving along the hill on its way to Cannes, you could not believe that civilisation was an hour distant. And after dinner when on moonless nights you rowed out into the bay the phosphorus was incredible. You swam under water and your body was clothed in fire like a Blake drawing. On moonlit nights you sat on your balcony watching the great copper shield lift slowly over the headland and Cap Ferrat. You forgot London; you forgot the future; you forgot the responsibilities that were waiting you. You lived in a spaceless, timeless universe.

  It had been a dream, and Leon away from his family, on a holiday, had been so fresh, so youthful, so charming a companion. They had walked, laughed, swum and danced together. A balcony had run the length of the hotel. His room had been next to hers. At night they had sat side by side looking out over the slate grey water at the pale still blue sky, at the soft silvered hills, their hearts open, defenceless in the face of beauty. It was the kind of romance one’s girlhood dreamed of. It had been easy to believe then in the “forever” quality of love. It had been lovely to hear Leon speak of marriage to her. Lovely to feel that she mattered to him so much that for her sake he would be ready to break up his marriage and the fabric of his life. She had not wanted him to. But it was lovely that he should want to.

  And later when they were back in London it was the excitement of a new relationship and the thrill of secrecy that had led her to combat the difficulties of meetings, that had made her decide to work in Brooke Street, and on the proceeds of that work to furnish the flat in Paddington. She had not looked ahead. She had not visualised the complications that would arise: nor had she realised how Leon himself would change; that his gaiety and laughter had been a reaction, a relief from the cares of a wife and the office; and that the eager, romantic lover would become the petulant exacting suppliant who appealed not to her youth but to her pity. She knew now, and it was because she knew that she was so desperately anxious to preserve Melanie from a similar experience. If only she could do that, it might be that she would be able to see as justified all these months of strain.

  Two years back she had smiled on Leon’s protestations. Now she saw marriage not as a romantic adventure but as the one outlet from an intolerable situation. It was no good being bitter. One just had to wait.

  It was difficult, though, that waiting, and it was difficult not to feel bitter as Leon’s car drew up a couple of hours later outside the pyjama party on the “Friendship.” It was the kind of party that three years ago she would have enjoyed. In an hour of novelties the “Friendship” was the season’s novelty. The best freak parties of the summer had been held there. There had been a tropical party at which the women had appeared as Hawaiians in grass skirts and the men as planters in pith helmets and duck suits. There had been a Venetian party, a Regency party and a Robot party. It was the first time that Julia had been to a party there, and as the car drew up under Charing Cross Bridge, she felt exhilarated and curious as she walked on Leon’s arm in her green silk pyjamas, across the Embankment towards the pier, through the knot of inquisitive idlers who had collected at the gangway. On the upper deck chairs and cushions were set about the hatches. Lying back there in the stern, looking up at the sky, violet and star-studded against the black irregular outline of wharves and chimney stacks, with the sound of the water lapping against the ship, you might have fancied yourself moored many miles away in the bay of a tropic port, had there not been the Embankment on the other side, with its great, double-decked cars swinging between Blackfriars and Kennington, the knot of people grouped on the bridge, looking down upon you
; and beyond, like some fantastic moon, the red vast circle of Big Ben.

  Below deck there was the bar. Behind stacks of savoury sandwiches; foie gras, anchovy, caviare, smilingly harassed waiters, dressed as stewards, were serving champagne, cocktails, gin fizzes, and cold rum punch. At one end of the long low room, which had been divided once into the innumerable small compartments of cabins, storerooms and messrooms, was a nigger band. Lighthearted in their Lido silk pyjamas, a couple of hundred people were dancing or sitting on the settees along the wall, or standing in knots around the bar, chattering noisily.

  Champagne corks were popping with hospitable regularity. A face or two was looking a little flushed. Here and there fingers were intertwining. It was the kind of party that it would be well, no doubt, to leave fairly early. But it was still, and would remain for a couple of hours, jolly and fresh and open-hearted. It was the kind of party Julia ought to have enjoyed. There were the kind of people there, too, that Julia liked, that she would have been happy to meet again and talk to. But she could not help remembering that this was the kind of party that had led her into the mess in which she now found herself.

  She knew what the party would have developed into by five o’clock. There would be drunks propped up in corners: drunks being helped to taxis: drunks being encouraged to be sick. Those who were sober enough would be petting openly. A grubby business: a symbol of the life it typified. It looked gay enough to begin with, this world of broken conventions and free love: as gay as this party was looking; but it would end as this party would end—squalidly.

  It was this knowledge that stood as a barrier between her and her enjoyment, and it was with a feeling of irritation that across the room, through the haze of smoke, she saw Melanie dancing with young Savile. With protecting fondness she watched her dance.

  Melanie was such a child, a year younger than she herself had been when she met Leon Carstairs, with none of the attitude of modish boredom that so many of her contemporaries affected. Her lips were laughing and her eyes alight. She was enjoying the party right enough, just as she herself would have enjoyed it three years ago. Just as Melanie’s partner was enjoying it. Young Savile was dancing with the slow easy indolent sway of youth, and his cheeks were glowing, his lips were parted in a smile over his white even teeth. He was enjoying himself just as Melanie was. But then he was a babe himself, in the early twenties, with life in front of him. The sort of man that young girls in the movies fell for instantly. As in real life they ought to; youth to youth. But as somehow in real life they didn’t. It was the older, sophisticated women that fell for boys like Savile; and it was to men like Mander that girls like Melanie turned. Youth went to experience, it seemed, to be grounded, strengthened, reassured: to have its wings singed ultimately.

  And there was the music stopping, and Mander coming up to Melanie, claiming her for a dance. And young Savile was turning round slowly, looking about the room, his eyes lighting upon Julia, a sudden gleam coming into them as he walked across to her.

  “Why, there you are,” he said. “I knew you were somewhere here, but I couldn’t find you, you’ve been so quiet.”

  “I’m a quiet person.”

  “So quiet,” he said, “that you’ve come to disapprove of parties.”

  There was a twinkle in his eye which she met and answered.

  “Is Melanie telling every one?” she asked.

  “Scarcely; only a friend or two.”

  “And is she angry?”

  “Heavens, no; she was amused if anything.”

  “Amused?”

  “It seemed to her a bit ridiculous that she couldn’t be trusted to look after herself at her age.”

  At her age. The old argument that she herself would have used three years ago. But now that she knew better. . . Julia shrugged her shoulders. Folk talked about the value of experience. But what was its value? It was of no use to anybody else, since no one else would listen to you; and to yourself it was of no use since the situations in which it would have been of aid were at the back of you. It lighted the road that you had travelled. Not that which lay ahead.

  You were faced by new situations for which you were without experience. What was the use of knowing that there was danger for Melanie at her age in this kind of life?

  For there was danger; it was idle to deny it. With keen and thoughtful eyes she watched Melanie as she danced, silent, with head averted, listening while Mander, a half smile playing behind his short, dark moustache, whispered wooingly in her ear. The nymph and satyr, with the nymph half snared, maybe. Suave, assured, youthfully middle-aged, dark, with the pale thin face that does not alter appreciably between the ages of twenty-three and fifty, Mander was the prototype of a Menjou part. He knew the ropes so well. And Julia, as she watched him dancing with her sister, was overwhelmed by her own impotence to forestall imminent disaster.

  “Well, and you, what do you think?” she asked of Savile.

  He smiled; one of the most charming smiles Julia had ever seen. A smile that was compounded of affection and generosity and a sense of honourable conduct: a smile that assumed the inherent decency of life.

  “I think,” he said, “that with a girl like Melanie there’s no need for anyone to feel afraid.”

  And to his words went the same quality of simple faith; a faith so touching that Julia felt that it would have been difficult for her to have spoken had she had need to then. If only she herself could feel like that?

  “Maybe I’m wrong and they’re right,” she told herself. “Maybe I’m seeing things awry, just because things have gone awry with me.” Perhaps after all things weren’t like that, and life wasn’t just a preying and being preyed on. If only she could believe it wasn’t.

  But there, as the proof was the whole of her life behind her, and as a further proof Leon Carstairs coming across the room to her to dance; and in spite of her weariness, her unhappiness, her unrest, back it came to her, that old quivering of the pulse because he was near her. How, in the face of that, could she argue with young Savile about danger?

  For Leon was bending forward and that flicker of a smile was upon his lips, and her heart was thudding in response to his murmur: “Isn’t it nearly time we danced?”

  “Yes,” she wanted to cry out. “Let’s dance; let’s dance, and let’s forget!”

  Even so she hesitated. There was Melanie across the room, silent, her head averted, her eyes closed, with Mander hovering above her, whispering, whispering. She could not so lightly rid herself of that responsibility.

  “I’m tired,” she said, turning almost desperately to young Savile, “I may go back early. Melanie’ll want to stay, probably. You’ll see that she gets back all right?”

  The slow smile flickered back over the clean boyish features.

  “You needn’t worry.” he said. “I’ll look after Melanie all right.”

  Chapter XVI

  Freedom

  Julia had said she would be returning early, but it was in point of fact well after two that Leon Carstairs’ car drew up outside her flat in Bayswater. Her earlier mood of lassitude had returned, so that she hesitated when he asked if he might come in with her. It was late. She was tired, and her alarm clock was set for eight o’clock.

  “Only for a second,” he pleaded. “Just for a nightcap.”

  “Very well, just for a minute, then.”

  Wearily she climbed the stairs. Wearily looked round the flat. Three years ago she had been very proud of it. It had been the symbol of her independence. It had looked very fresh and jolly with its new paint and its bright chair covers and curtains. That was three years ago, however, and the paint had cracked and grown discoloured, the curtains had been bleached by sunlight, the chair covers stained by cocktail juice, the edge of the mantelpiece browned by cigarette ends. It wore now a draggled and dreary air; like the emotions that it had housed, thought Julia.

  “There is whisky in the cupboard,” she said, as she knelt down to put a match to the gas fire.

&n
bsp; “One for you, too?” he asked.

  She shook her head, and, flinging herself in an arm-chair, watched Carstairs as he mixed himself a drink. At this late hour, with the dark shadow of growing hair upon his chin, he made a forlorn, pathetic picture in his over-bright mauve and grey pyjamas.

  In silence, through half-closed eyes she lay back watching him.

  “Tired?” he asked.

  “Naturally.”

  She answered wearily, and he looked at her quickly and unhappily.

  “I know,” he said, “I know. But, darling, don’t you think I realise that it’s just as much a strain for you as it is for me?”

  She had it on the tip of her tongue to retort bitterly: as much of a strain for him as it was for her! Yes, that was all very well, but the strain was of his making. It was his life that was in a mess, not hers. It was he, not she, that was not free. She had it on the tip of her tongue to answer bitterly. She bit the words back, however. What purpose would it serve? He was hurt so easily. Better sit still and listen while the flood of self-pity took its course.

  She knew so well how it would go. It was such an impossible situation, he would tell her. And his wife was such a fine person. He owed so much to her. He could not bear the idea of hurting her. But he was going to, oh, yes, he was resolved on that. He would induce her to divorce him the moment this business of the partnership went through. But till then, how could he ...? And for the thousandth time he would explain that he would never be able to arrange to be made a partner in his firm under the shadow of such a scandal as this divorce would be. The senior partner was an old Victorian. He would never believe in the financial integrity of a man whose emotional life was muddled. If he was to suspect Carstairs, he would get rid of him at once.