The Balliols Read online

  “Our pension was near the lake. It was one of those summer evenings when everything is calm and the air warm. The lake really did look a mirror, with the hills reflected in it, and the roofs of houses. No one was within sight. I took the brooch from my pocket. It lay in the palm of my hand. I stared at it. It was the symbol of my unhappiness. Tears came into my eyes. I clenched my fist over it. ‘If she can’t have it, then no one shall.’ I swung my arm back. I flung it from me. The sun caught it as it curved, turning towards the water, gilding it with fire. There was a splash, a ripple. Then the lake was a mirror once again. I stood staring at its smooth surface. ‘Love’s drowned,’ I thought.”

  It was a story that he had told many times, and always with considerable success. But never in quite that way. He had told it cynically with a shrugged shoulder, an attitude of “How ridiculous one can be at twenty.” Now, however, with this intent blue-grey gaze fixed on him, he told the story simply, sentimentally.

  He paused, waiting with the raconteur’s sense of an audience, for the comment which would give him the clue to what his own next remark should be. It was a very simple comment.

  “That’s rather beautiful,” she said. There was a tender interest in her eyes.

  Rather beautiful. No one had ever thought it that before. Yet perhaps that was what it was, since the mood in which he had flung the jewel into the lake had been poetic; had not been a piece of rhodomontade; had been an act of self-expression.

  He was so touched that he did something by which he was himself surprised.

  He fumbled in his breast pocket; he produced a wad of letters and sheets of paper, glanced through it, extracted a sheet, handed it to her with a blush.

  “It’s a thing I wrote the other evening: a sonnet. It’s nothing, I mean. I dashed it off. When I got back after your party. I don’t know if you’ll think it silly. I thought I’d show it you. It’s… well, I mean, because of you.”

  He was blushing fiercely. It was not true that he had dashed it off; or that he had even begun to write it on the evening of the party. It was the result of a fortnight’s burnishing. The blush was not, however, inspired by the untruth, but by a very genuine shyness about his verses. He was always writing poetry; always sonnets. But he would have died sooner than confess it to his friends.

  “Of course, I know it isn’t anything. I just.…”

  She interrupted him.

  “Please,” she said.

  The handwriting was small, but very clear. The handwriting of a man who has learnt Greek. She read the lines, without focusing their meaning. It was not what his poem said, but that a poem was written. No one had ever written a poem to her before.

  The telegram announcing her father-in-law’s death reached Jane Balliol at lunch-time on the following day. The funeral, it said, would be on the Monday. There was no need for her to come down. He himself would be returning late that afternoon. He would be home by dinner-time.

  He entered the house as calmly as though he were returning from a week-end visit of a business nature. He discussed the plans for the disposal of his father’s property as though it belonged to someone else.

  “It should realize about ten thousand pounds. That’ll make a big difference to Stella. If she invests her share wisely it’ll bring her in very nearly three hundred a year. She’ll be independent now.”

  His wife’s eyes had remained fixed on him while he talked, in a look of the most fixed attention. It was her habit to look straight at the person who was addressing her, as though she were absorbing every word. But whenever a pause came in the talk, she would open so completely different a subject that her husband never knew whether she had been listening to one word that he had been saying.

  She waited till he had finished talking; then, as though the last word had been said on that topic, “You remember that young man who came to dinner with us when Stella came? He called on Friday. I’ve asked him to dine with us to-morrow.”

  VIII

  Stella Balliol sat before the mirror, arranging the pad over which her back-drawn hair was puffed forward on to her forehead, above a short curled fringe. She was to dine that night with Alan Cheyne. On the evening’s course would depend her answer to his proposal. “In four hours I may be an engaged girl.” In four hours Alan might be preparing The Times announcement that would vindicate her in the eyes of women like Mrs. Shirley. He might be. But she did not know. She was undecided. It would depend on the way things happened during the next three hours. She had answered Alan’s letter with the briefest of notes:

  “DEAR ALAN,

  “I was touched by your letter, naturally. Could we not dine together one day next week? Monday would be the best for me.”

  She did not tell him about her father’s death. She did not use the excuse for delay it would have given her. It would have been an excuse, she knew that. And she had no use for excuses, for the avoidance of straight issues. Her father’s death did not affect her as regarded Alan. It did, as regarded Beccles, financially. With an independent income, she could face a row with him; which she had never been able to before. Emotionally, too, there was a difference. There was no one in the world now she mattered to. If she chose to throw herself into the militant suffrage movement, she would be hurting nobody except herself.

  When she had considered Alan Cheyne’s proposal from the purely utilitarian point of view, and it was hard to consider such a proposal in any other light, she had thought of it not in the light of finance, as many girls would have done; as an opportunity to give up work that worried her; but as a platform from which she could deliver unconventional opinions. The only emotional pull that the proposal had made was in point of fact in relation to her father—the knowledge that her marriage would have made him happy. But that consideration would not have decided her. She would have refrained from doing things she wanted to do because the doing of them could cause her father pain; but she would not do things she did not want, to please him. She would have despised herself if she had made her father’s death an excuse for indecision.

  Her fingers trembled as they smoothed her hair over the pad. She was excited. It would be absurd for her to pretend that she was not excited. It was not only the first proposal of her life, but it was likely to be her last. On her reply depended her whole life’s future. Yet her excitement was not that of a girl standing on the threshold of enchantment, but of a man on the eve of a business interview that might mean promotion.

  It was not in that mood that she had pictured herself at such a moment.

  She closed her eyes. How was it that she would have pictured it? How, if this was to be a romantic, not a practical decision, would she arrange the setting? How did the outline run? She could not see distinctly the features of the young man who had proposed by letter. He would be young; as young as herself, or younger. He would be in love with her; very much in love with her; timid in the expression of his love. He would look at her with wide eyes. He would begin to speak, and be afraid to speak. She would glow happily. Ordinarily he was effective and talkative. But now through love for her he was silent, stammering. It would amuse her for a little to keep him in suspense; to make bright conversation, giving the impression that she was really interested in the issues raised by a leader in that morning’s Times. Then she would relent. She would pause, she would meet his glance, her eyes would soften. “It’s all right. Don’t worry, silly, it’s going to be ‘yes’.” And the whole expression of his face would change; like a garden when the sun comes behind a cloud and shines on it. In his face there would be nothing but happiness, excitement, relief, love for her. It was in that way she had pictured it.

  With a blink, a shake of the shoulders, she opened her eyes, saw her reflection in the glass.

  “Don’t be a fool. That isn’t the way it is. That isn’t the way it’s going to be. You’ve not been proposed to by a young man who’s tongue-tied with adoration. You’ve been proposed to by Alan Cheyne, who’s got as much red blood in him as a grey mullet; who wi
ll spend his wedding-night discussing indented labour in the New Hebrides. Don’t be a fool. Pull yourself together.”

  Her prophecy proved unsurprisingly correct. Alan called for her, as she had expected, exactly one minute after he had announced his intention of arriving. His attire was pedantically correct, even to the mathematically exact knot of his shoe-laces. His clothes had, however, the same featureless expression as his face. There was nothing about him by which a stranger would be likely to remember him. In a way he reminded her of her brother: a drained version of her brother. He had the slow voice, the precise articulation, the impersonal address; without the fresh colouring, the vitality, the mental agility of Edward. During the weeks while their acquaintance was ripening into friendship this was the reason she had given herself for liking him. Even now she was not sure that her feelings for him were not mainly sisterly. She was never thrilled by his company, but she enjoyed it.

  Just as she found herself enjoying now, in a jolly, impersonal kind of way, even though she was in mourning, the fun of dressing up, the drive in the hansom through the thronged, brightly lighted streets, the glitter of a restaurant; the ritual of the head waiter’s oriental deference; the second waiter’s bowing of them to their table; the presentation of the large embossed menu-card; the deliberation as to their choice of dishes; and Alan was a good person to be taken out by. He neither handed you a large menu and left you in embarrassed contemplation of it; nor again did he take all the initiative out of your hand, by saying “We’ll have this, and this, and this.” He combined the two. He made a précis of that vast list. In each course he offered you a couple of choices, or three choices, say; so that you were only left with the pleasant part of the selection. She always enjoyed being taken out by Alan.

  She enjoyed, too, the freedom of their discussions. He had a fresh, informed mind. They could follow each other’s allusions. They would talk in shorthand. She could never imagine herself being bored by Alan. Yet marriage… and what marriage stood for.… She could not picture Alan making love to her.

  She looked closely, inquiringly at him, as he developed the theory that after the next general election the labour party, though small, might, by holding the balance of power, become the key to the political situation. What women had there been in his life, she wondered. He was thirty-five. Had he ever been in love? Had he ever had an intrigue: a real intrigue? Did that side of life mean anything to him? One was always told that men were “like that.” But they needn’t be. There were men, as there were women, who were congenitally cold, to whom there was no question of inhibited impulses, who were incapable of warmth. Very likely Alan was like that. He had proposed to her because he had reached the marrying age; perhaps because he wanted children; but more probably because he needed the background of a home and hostess.

  “And I’m the kind of woman he thinks would make him a good wife. And I would, if I were only that part of me he sees. If I were content to argue, to talk, to do nothing. But if I were to join Miss Draft, if I were to throw my whole self into this movement, would I be the kind of wife he’d need? Probably not. If I’m not going to be the kind of wife he needs I’ve no right to say ‘yes.’ I’d be a cheat. I’d be taking and not giving. That’s the kind of thing Miss Draft can’t see. But it’s true. You’ve got to keep to your bargain. If a man marries you, expecting a specific thing, it’s your duty as a wife to try and give it him. Otherwise you cheat.”

  There are certain passages in life when a person sees as under a hard white light, the course his life must follow; recognizes the limitations imposed on him by heredity, environment, education; knowing what things are outside his scope; when he almost foresees the future. Such a passage may be of an instant’s length; or a year’s slow growth. During the few seconds while Alan Cheyne was explaining his views on the composition of the next parliament Stella saw in one glance, as one sees set up on a printed page, a detailed array of arguments. She and Alan might think alike. But they didn’t feel alike. And marriage was a question of feeling, not of thinking. If she could take the same impersonal interest in affairs that Alan did, then they could be happy. For if you took an impersonal interest in affairs, you never felt any urge to get things done. You stood aside, a spectator, watching the current of events. As her brother had. That had been enough for him. But for her it was not enough. And because it was not enough sooner or later she knew well she would take up a line of action opposed diametrically to Alan’s picture of the behaviour proper to his wife. Stella did not hold Miss Draft’s opinions on a married woman’s right to her own career. You owed loyalty of that kind if of no other to the husband whose name you bore, and whose means supported you.

  There was no chance of her making Alan Cheyne his kind of wife.

  There he was, setting out his belief in Ramsay Macdonald’s future. “He always plays for safety. He’s not like Keir Hardie. He looks dangerous, but he isn’t really. He goes no further than he knows is safe.” In another moment or so, feeling that he had spoken enough, he would invite her opinion. He would listen carefully to what she said, amplifying it, interpolating comments, building up her ideas for her, stimulating her imagination so that she saw her own arguments in a clearer, better light; so that she could be able to follow her arguments a step further than she had of herself been able. And it would go on like that till they had reached the coffee stage; just as business men did, when they wanted to put a deal through. Then in the same tone of voice that he had said, “I wonder if you read that third note of Massingham’s in this week’s Nation?” he would ask: “You got my letter, Stella?”

  And she couldn’t, she could not, wait for that. She could not sit under the shadow of that certain prospect. It had to be settled, to be got over, done with.…

  She interrupted him in the middle of a sentence.

  “I’m sorry, Alan. But I’ve got to tell you. About your letter. It wouldn’t work. I know it. I don’t want to discuss it. I was proud and touched. I’ll never forget it. But it wouldn’t work. I don’t want you to mention it again. Never refer to it in any way. I think I missed your last point about Keir Hardie. What, exactly, did you mean when you said.…”

  Through the remainder of the evening she kept the flow of talk bright and friendly. She even managed to enjoy herself. But it was wearily that she climbed the stairs to her bedroom at the evening’s end. She sat before her mirror and leant forward, her elbows rested on the table, her chin supported on her hands; staring at her reflection; remembering in what spirit she had sat there four hours earlier. “That’s that.”

  She had done more in that interval than refuse a man. She had accepted a destiny. She had turned her back on personal happiness; or rather, on what for most women constituted personal happiness: a husband, a home, children; the things that with a part of herself she intensely needed. She wasn’t a fish, like Alan. She was capable of passion. She knew that. She needed to love and to be loved. Looking at her reflection in the mirror she knew beyond cavilling that happiness of that kind would pass her by. She wasn’t the type that men fell in love with; not in the way she wanted to be loved. Somewhere beneath the sun there must exist the mate for whose nature her own was destined; but she would never meet him. Or if she did, it would be too late. She would have so arranged her life that it would have no place for him. You couldn’t just sit and wait on the off-chance of the one person turning up. You had to take up what lay to hand.

  “I’ve got to go forward now.”

  On the following morning, during her luncheon hour she called at the offices of the W.S.M. It was the first time she had been there. Miss Draft was seated in the front office. She looked up quickly as Stella came towards her. Her face wore an expression of, “I’m really very busy. You shouldn’t bother me with personal things at a time like this.” There was a telephone at her side. Three large books of reference, a calendar, a clock were set along the back of the desk. One of the drawers was drawn half out, revealing a card index. The front of the desk was covered with
little piles of correspondence. The current issue of The Times was neatly folded beside the blotter. Miss Draft looked like one of the fixtures at her desk.

  “Well?” Her voice was abrupt, with a “No social chatter here, please” note about it.

  “I want to know if I can be of any use here?”

  “How do you mean—of any use? We’ve no room for anybody extra in this office.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that. I meant work outside.”

  “You mean active work?”

  “Yes.”

  “Militant?”

  “Yes.”

  Miss Draft eyed her cautiously; with a self-questioning suspicion.

  “It won’t be all jam and honey. It won’t be what you’re accustomed to. Do you realize what you are letting yourself in for?”

  Stella smiled to herself, at Miss Draft’s picture of her life of jam and honey: that small club-sitting-room; long hours in the Teach-Yourself-by-Post Institute.

  “I know what I’m in for,” she replied.

  “It’s not just that you’ll be shocking your friends. There is danger; real danger, you understand?”

  “I’m prepared for that.”

  “Very well. How much time can you give to the Cause?”

  “As much as I’m needed.”

  “What about your work?”

  “I’m going to give that up.”

  “Oh.…” Miss Draft opened her mouth wide, in surprise; paused; then a flush came into her cheeks; the first flush that Stella had ever seen there. She rose to her feet, took Stella’s hand between both of hers, pressed it firmly. “I’m proud of you. I did not know you had it in you. I thought you wanted to play at being a suffragist. There are so many of your class who do. We hate that. It’s a game to them. It’s real to us. They lose interest in it the moment they find it is real. But you, you are fine.”