Nor Many Waters Page 4

  “Marian, my dear,” the man expostulated.

  “Oh yes, you will. The moment you see Gladys you stop seeing anybody else. Which is very nice and pretty for you both. But distressing for your friends. Anyhow, for a few minutes you can see that I’m fed and warmed.”

  And taking him by the arm she had led him away from his group towards the table.

  With charmed senses James Merrick watched. She was all things that one wishes for one’s chosen of Bohemian revelry. She was gay and pretty; wilful and young and sweet. And her lips that were very red were always laughing, and her hands that were small and compact and practical, kept fluttering to rearrange the red-brown hair that was piled in a high waved mass upon her forehead. And her shoulders were very white above the brocaded bodice of her frock. And beneath the bell-shaped skirt, a gold-shod foot shot jauntily. And the odd, half-husky, half-squeaky voice was oddly musical. And “Thank heavens I came this evening,” Merrick thought. “And thank Heaven,” he added, “I had the sense to wait!”

  For he had learnt a good deal in those few minutes; had learnt that this girl who was called ‘Marian’ knew very few people at the party, that her escort had other occupation, as had the Gerry she had welcomed so affectionately. She was, that was to say, momentarily unattached, and he could not believe that a girl who kissed so readily in public would be unapproachable.

  He moved up to the table.

  “I should strongly recommend you,” he said as her hand hovered dubiously between two piles of sandwiches, “to try one of those caviared rolls instead.”

  His manner was light and friendly, and he smiled pleasantly, and there was neither embarrassment nor familiarity in his attitude; nothing in his smile or in his voice to make her feel ill-at-ease. And she smiled back at him with an equal friendliness.

  “That’s very kind of you,” she said. “I’ll try.” And a second later: “How very right you were!” And he laughed and, “Don’t you think it would be very much better accompanied by champagne?” he said. And he sought for a fresh bottle beneath the table. “Though I’m afraid,” he added as he unwrapped the gold foil, “that it’ll be too cold to be much good. That’s the mistake people will make about champagne. They leave it in a basket of ice for hours till you can’t taste the wine and get no more than a prickling sensation of frozen alcohol.”

  “I think you must know a great deal about the pleasures of the table,” was her retort. “I think one day soon I shall have to invite myself to dine with you.” And she smiled entrancingly, and they found themselves talking freely and easily as though they had known each other for a lifetime.

  And when they danced it was as though they had been dance partners since childhood. She was light, exquisitely so, but not so light as to give him the disenchanting impression of dancing by himself. All the time he was conscious of her in his arms; as the music stopped he felt that he had never valsed before.

  “That was heavenly,” he said. “We must have another before the end.” For as a student of the technique of gallantry he knew that it would be a mistake to monopolize her company at the beginning of the evening. He had made his entrance, achieved his effect. He would leave her now among her friends, and later when those friends had begun to weary her he would return and they would dance together, and it would be growing late and there would be a subsidence of noise and there would be less and quieter dancing; there would be an end of general talking and couples would be drifting towards cushioned alcoves, to the shadowed passages and the rooms above. For James Merrick was convinced that it was that sort of party; which very possibly it was. At any rate, he acted on that assumption.

  Not quite whole-heartedly, however. For as he danced and drank and flirted among the others during the hour or so that he thought it would be prudent to let elapse before he began to search for Marian, his emotions were not altogether those of the detached, accomplished, slightly indifferent man of pleasure on the brink of an agreeably diverting but by no means novel or nerve-shattering experience. He felt instead a rather boyish, jollyish elation at having found a friend; a person who talked the same language and laughed at the same things. “She is really frightful fun,” he told him-self. And although the other women he danced and drank and flirted with were lithe and lively and provocative, admirably calculated to disturb the most solemn equanimity, it was without having formed any plans for future meetings, without a single date booked in his pocket diary, that he returned to search for Marian.

  It was close on three o’clock by the time he found her. And by then the gaiety of the party had begun to flag. The interval between the dances had grown long. No one had the energy any longer to strum a piano, and though a gramophone was revolving a wheezy valse James Merrick felt in no particular mood for dancing.

  “It’s tragic,” he said, “I’ve been looking forward to dancing with you all the evening, and now that the time’s come I’m sure that we’re both much too tired.”

  She admitted that it was tragic; admitted it with an enchanting smile. But what, she asked, was to be done about it? “There’s a very comfortable-looking sofa over there.”

  It was comfortable; wide and low, so that you had to lift your feet right up on it with masses of cushions piled behind you; and as you sat there talking it was only natural since it was so much more comfortable for an arm to be about a waist, for a head to sink upon a shoulder, for fingers to intertwine. And they talked in the desultory, contented fashion whose essence is not to be conveyed by any direct transcription. They said nothing that was at all witty or profound or even personal. But words are no more than channels, and down those casual channels, those comments on theatres and books and restaurants, was passing second by second a deliciously intimate sense of harmony, the knowledge of a liking and being liked, of being with a person with whom it was unnecessary to be upon one’s guard, with whom one could show one’s hand. “Here’s someone that I can be really friends with,” Merrick thought.

  So happily, so drowsily contented was he, that when at last she raised herself upon her elbow to murmur with a sleepy smile that really she must be going home, and his offer to see her back had been accepted, and a blear-eyed butler had whistled up a decayed four-wheeler, it was with no little shock that he realized that the time had come for him to be enterprising and audacious. For he was in no mood for audacity and enterprise. He would have preferred infinitely to have driven home quietly through the empty lamplit streets, lulled by the slow jolting of the cab; her hand in his, her head upon his shoulder, her hair and the soft fragrance of her hair against his cheek, talking or not talking as the mood pleased them. He would have much preferred to drive home like that, parting upon a promise to meet again, exchanging perhaps one of those calm kisses that may possibly at some later day be remembered as a prelude to the growth of passion; but express at the actual moment of their giving no more than friendship and affection. That is what he would have preferred. But the manual of a young man’s deportment counselled him against such craven indolence. Women despised the men who did not take advantage of their opportunities. They took care not to give a second chance to the men who had let one pass. It was audacity that was expected of him. Besides, it was his address, not hers, that he had given to the cabman.

  And so resolutely, rather than impulsively, he turned towards her and with his arm cast ardently about her shoulders, “Darling,” he said, “if only you knew how I’ve been waiting for this moment, how I’ve been longing to get away from all those people, to be alone with you! It’s been so marvellous meeting you, so more than marvellous. If you knew how desperately I have been longing for this moment!”

  He spoke rapidly, with an eager emphasis of phrasing, and as he spoke his arm tightened about her shoulder, but even to himself his outburst did not sound particularly convincing. And with so complete a lack of encouragement was it met, that he did not know how he could continue his speech through the series of avowals that must precede his climax. There was upon him that chill misgiving wh
ich the lecturer knows when he realizes ten minutes from his lecture’s start that his audience is not with him, and that because he has the secretary’s cheque in his breast-pocket he is forced to remain in this unwelcome company for another fifty minutes. “Shall I ever get to the end?” he asks himself. And Merrick began to stammer and repeat his phrases, and forget his verbs.

  In chill, inexpressive silence Marian listened till a pause that became longer than a pause gave her safe grounds for assuming that the stream of oratory had run dry.

  “Now that was very jolly,” she said lightly, “and it was very nice of you to have bothered to tell it me, but I’m extremely sleepy and I can’t help feeling that the cab’s going in the wrong direction. Do be a dear and see if he’s got my address right.”

  They did not speak another word on the journey back. And for three months Merrick had tried unavailingly to forget the incident. The accustomed remedies had proved singularly ineffective. He had sought comfort in the smoking-room story of the non-dancing man whose successes compensated him for his rebuffs. Those kick and rush tactics could not always come off, he had told himself. He had reminded himself of the number of occasions on which such evenings had concluded satisfactorily. But the medicine had not taken. The fact remained that he had been guilty of an unpardonable solecism. And it was no use to assure himself that it was a mistake that anyone might have made, that it had come at the end of a party, to which he had every reason, every encouragement, for believing that Marian had been a wisely invited guest. It was useless for him to pretend that he had made himself anything but supremely ridiculous. Nor could he excuse himself on the ground of being drunk. He had been quite sober.

  It was not only his vanity, however, that had been hurt. For that wound he could have found ready balm, found it in the assuagement of some such facile conquest as always lies more or less to hand for a young man in a large city. If it had been merely a matter of making a mistake about a woman, he could have got over it speedily enough. But it was more than that: it had been a matter of making a mistake not about a woman but about Marian. And that was different. He did not want to appear to Marian in that kind of way. Whenever he thought the matter over, whenever he tried to argue himself into a less unsatisfactory position, he returned always to the same conclusion. “The trouble about the whole thing is,” he would say, “that I really liked the girl.” Would say it with a heavy and growing sense of loss. They might have meant much to one another. They might have been friends, even if they had not been lovers. And friendship was a rarer thing than one supposed. There were not so very many people with whom one could be oneself.

  It was not surprising that when the door opened upon Marian Eagar he should have been unable to do more than stammer stupidly:

  “You—you, y-you!”

  §

  Marian Eagar made no sign of embarrassment. She came forward into the room with a merry laugh and her hand held out to him in friendliest greeting.

  “If this isn’t,” she said, “the oddest thing that ever was!”

  And James Merrick, in spite of the unfortunate scene that they had shared, had once again that oddly delightful feeling of being utterly in harmony with her. They understood each other far too well, he felt, to let even so serious a misunderstanding come between them.

  “I hadn’t,” she went on, “the foggiest idea that it was you that I was going to see.”

  “And I’d only heard you spoken of as Marian.”

  “The oddest thing. And you’ll think it odder still when you have heard what it is I’ve come to see you over. You won’t ever guess. I’ve come to ask you about a divorce.”

  “A divorce!”

  At the look of blank astonishment on his face she burst out laughing.

  “I suppose,” she said, “you didn’t even know that I was married.”

  “We-well!”

  “No, of course you didn’t. How were you to know? Even the people who’ve known me all my life don’t believe I am. I’ve never altogether believed I was myself. It’s never been quite real to me. At any rate, it’s over now. At least, I suppose it is. Every one says that it’s perfectly easy to get divorces nowadays. It is, isn’t it?”

  And she paused breathlessly, smiling up at him from beneath the wide brim of a velvet, claret-coloured hat.

  “It is easy, isn’t it?” she repeated.

  “Now and again,” he told her.

  “Anyway, enough of one’s friends seem to find it so!”

  “Hadn’t you better tell me all about it?”

  She began; and it was a garbled narrative, an affair of comment and repetition, an explaining of motives and states of mind from which gradually the one necessary fact emerged; the fact that she was convinced of her husband’s infidelity and that she had proof of her conviction in a letter that she had found in the pocket of his coat.

  “Please don’t imagine that I was spying,” she insisted. “I wasn’t. I was going through his clothes to see which ones could be given away, and which only needed sending to the cleaners; and I was going through the pockets, naturally one would; and when I came across a letter, naturally I had to look at it, to see if it was important, to see if it could be thrown away. And when I had read it, well, I just packed up my things and went straight out of the house, and took a suite at Garland’s; which was the one thing I could do, don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps,” said Merrick, “I’d better see the letter first.”

  The letter was clear enough.

  DARLING (the letter ran),—

  Last week was marvellous. Those three days and nights; the being utterly together. They were so lovely I can hardly believe they happened. And I’m just counting the hours to when we can be again together. Oh, my dear, when can we? I saw a perfectly heavenly Poiret model yesterday. You’ll love me in it. And there was a gem of an evening frock I simply couldn’t resist. You aren’t angry with me?

  Your

  MADGE.

  Its implications were clear enough. And while Merrick read it through, the swift flow of Marian’s talk continued.

  “There’s only one thing that letter can mean,” she said, “and it finished me. I’d stood it as long as I could. I’d known all along really that it couldn’t last; after the first month or so, that’s to say. We had nothing in common; nothing really. I was a child when I married him. I didn’t know my mind. I didn’t know myself. I realized almost at once it was going to be a failure. I saw that we were drifting apart. But I did my best, really I did. I knew it couldn’t last, sooner or later the smash was bound to come, but I swore that it shouldn’t be through me it came. So I just hung on. As long as he really needed me, I thought, it was my duty to stay, and then when I saw that letter, well, it’s pretty clear, isn’t it?”

  “It’s clear enough.”

  “No judge would have any doubt about it?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. The letter’s dated. I suppose your husband was away that week?”

  “For four days. He told me he’d gone to Liverpool. He’s in shipping, with the Armitage people, and he has to go up for board meetings now and then.”

  “Did he tell you where he would be staying?”

  “He nearly always stays at the Grand Central.”

  “Well, we can see if he was there those three days, and I expect we could find out from the Armitage people if he was up there at that time. He probably wasn’t. And that should settle it.”

  “Then that’s everything?”

  “How do you mean, that’s everything?”

  “Well, don’t I just sit down now and wait six months for a decree nisi? and then another six for a decree absolute?”

  It was with a kind smile that James Merrick shook his head.

  “I’m afraid not,” he said.

  “Not?”

  “Unless your husband, that is to say, makes things easy for you! Have you said anything to him about it?”

  “I haven’t seen him since I saw that letter. I hadn’t ima
gined that he had any say in the matter.”

  “I’m afraid he has. It’s one of the anomalies of the divorce law in this country that, although the law is intended to prevent a divorce by mutual consent, it is extremely difficult to get a divorce unless both parties are agreeable. Does your husband want to be divorced?”

  “I don’t know, I… well, I mean, he’s never said so. But even if he doesn’t, what does it matter? I’ve got that letter.”

  “That letter’s not enough.”

  “Not enough!”

  “In England at the present moment, a woman needs two counts before she can divorce her husband. And infidelity is only one. The other one is usually desertion. And because desertion and infidelity amount to the same thing ordinarily when it’s a case of a marriage breaking, and because infidelity on a woman’s side is sufficient cause, women tend to imagine that they have only to find their husbands carrying on with some other woman to get free from them; but in point of fact that isn’t so. So far your husband hasn’t done anything to be divorced for. Do you know the woman, by the way?”

  Marian Eagar shook her head. “I don’t know; the name and the writing are unfamiliar.”

  Merrick pursed his lips. “Then she’s not one of your mutual friends. He’s not met her in any environment that he goes to in your company. Probably that means he’s met her in the sort of world that men frequent among themselves. And from that and from the handwriting and from the actual letter, I can’t help feeling that this Madge is the kind of woman that a man might be very willing to spend a week-end with, but would be very sorry to have as a life’s companion. If your husband is tied up with that kind of woman, I rather imagine that a divorce is about the last thing he’ld be in a hurry for.

  “In which case,” he concluded, “you’ll have to find some count other than desertion.”

  An unhappy and puzzled look came into Marian’s face.