Part 15

“‘There was Roger, now,’ she says. ‘I didn’t care for him a bit at first. I thought he was uncouth and ill-mannered, and he would so pester me to go out with him. And when I did go out I used to be oh! so bored. He never said anything: he just sat opposite, gazing at me with greedy, adoring eyes, and then one day he kissed me. I shall never forget that moment. We were standing, after a game of tennis, in the shade of that big oak tree by the lake at Barolin, leaning against the bridge, and suddenly I felt his fingers on my arms, hard and compelling. I was swung round against him. “You little fool,” he said, “I am sick of this. You have got to love me!” And then he kissed me.’

“Only a week ago she told me that. The wide-set, luminous eyes were dilated and very tender; the lines of the pouted mouth became softer and less sensual. Then she shrugged her shoulders and was once again the petulant, cynical child of pleasure. ‘But afterwards,’ she sighed.

“You had that moment, though,” I said, and I began to quote from Meredith: “‘Love that had robbed us of immortal things.’ But she interrupted me. ‘I know, I know, but I had to pay for it, and I am asking myself whether it was worth the price. Men and women, they are just paths that intersect and then go their own ways. We had a while of perfect harmony; then Roger grew tired of me at the very moment when I had really begun to love him. Although I knew that he didn’t love me, I tried to keep him; and that’s degrading, it hurts one’s self-respect. It’s always like that, or else it’s the other way; one wants a man, one woos him, one makes love to him; and then as soon as one’s got him, one’s tired of him.’

“‘From which,’ I said, ‘one may gather that you are finding Paul a little too exacting.’

“The hazel eyes flashed a look of grateful recognition.

“‘There’s nothing about that man, my dear, that doesn’t absolutely exasperate me, and he won’t let me alone. He rings me up every hour of the day; he sends me letters by special messenger. I can’t get away from him. It seems incredible to me that eighteen months ago I couldn’t be happy away from him; that I could think of nothing but him; that my heart beat every time I heard the postman’s knock, every time the bell of the telephone rang. I don’t know how it happened. His wife, I think, very largely. I hated her, the great fat cow, so domineering and unwomanly. I hated the proprietary way in which she said, “my husband.” I wanted to humble her. There was pity in it, too: Paul looked so forlorn as he sat plucking at his beard while his wife’s voice boomed across the dinner table. But it’s hard enough to know how one felt a year and a half ago, let alone the “why” of it. I wanted him; that’s all that matters. I wanted him. It took a long time: little by little I broke down his reserve. I felt his sympathy, his interest in me, change to tenderness. His voice was like a diffident caress. I longed to throw myself into his arms; to be his utterly; to give him love as no other woman had ever given it him; and, then, within a couple of months he had become as every other man. They are all much the same when the glamour has passed. And, of course, I began to mean more to him every day; an endless flow of telephone calls and special messengers; desperate, imploring notes. He must see me. He couldn’t exist away from me. And all the time I was growing more and more tired of him; he exasperated me with his quiet voice and woman’s hands. I began to hate all the things about him that I had loved before: his weakness, his diffidence, his self-pity, his ceaseless references to his wife: how she bullied him; how he was dependent on her; how it would break his father’s heart were he to leave her; how he could not bear to leave his child. I grew as impatient of those two words “my wife,” as once I had of that proprietary “my husband.” I wanted to scream at him, “For God’s sake, be a man!” I tried to make him jealous by talking to him of earlier love affairs. No one, not even you, Gerald, knows as much about me as he does. I’ve told him all those little intimate things that would have made any other man hate me or hate himself for loving me. But nothing moved him.

“‘I told him once of a quarrel that I had had with Roger. Roger had threatened to leave me, never to see me again. I said nothing. I stood straight up in front of him, looking him in the eyes; then, with a sudden sweep, I tore away from my arms the soft silk of my evening dress, and stood there, my shoulders bare, the white skin stained with the bruises of our love-making. We stood there, we said nothing, but we read in our eyes those things of memory for which there are no words. Then he took a quick step forward, caught me in his arms and kissed away our quarrel. I told Paul that. “There was a man,” I said to him. I flung the words at him as one flings a glove in a challenge. But he didn’t hit back. He said none of the things he might have said. He just took my hand. “Margaret,” he said, “I can’t love you in that way; each man has his own way of loving, and that isn’t mine. But in my own way I love you more than the others have. Do believe that, my dear, I do--I do!”’

“‘What was I to do, Gerald--what was I to say? I was moved. What woman wouldn’t be? I felt a pig, and kissed him, and let him make love to me. That’s the worst of those people--they get under one’s guard; they disarm one; one can’t hurt them; they are too weak; and, oh! Gerald, it’s more than I can stand. It’s hateful to have a coward for a lover: I’d much rather be a strong man’s toy. I keep saying to myself: “Margaret, my girl, you’ve got to make an end of this.” But I can’t. He always gets round me in the end. You can only fight what’s stronger than yourself.’

“She paused, out of breath, flushed, bright-eyed, amazingly attractive. Then, in a sudden, chastened voice, ‘Oh! Gerald, Gerald, why don’t people keep pace with one another in love, why don’t they fall in love at the same time and fall out of love at the same time? Why must it be a race in which everyone is handicapped, and starts at different times and different paces, when it is all a chasing and a being chased, and there is only a few yards of running side by side together?’

“Never before, I think, had she so completely revealed herself to me, or it would, perhaps, be more true to say never before had she revealed that particular facet of her personality. She had become suddenly a woman wistful and self-doubting, frightened of her mortality, saddened by the contrast between the dream and the actuality, by the passage of good things.

“I sat watching her, held silent in the spell of her beauty, wondering what next would come, when, from below, came the faint ring of an electric bell, the sound of an opening door, the soft stir of feet on Axminster.

“‘Mr Paul Johnson, madam!’

“There was a pause. I saw a look, half terror, half relief, pass across Margaret’s face; then she appeared to pull herself together. ‘Very well, Parker,’ she said, ‘show him up.’

“I rose to go. But she stretched out a hand of admonition.

“‘No, please, Gerald, no,’ she said, in a fluttered, nervous voice. ‘It may be--I don’t know--I’d rather you stayed.’

“I had known Paul Johnson for a long time. I had seen him change from a silent youth into a diffident, ineffectual man; I had been present at his wedding; and I had felt vaguely sorry for him as I shook hands with his bride and scanned for a hurried moment the hard-set rigor of her mouth. I had noticed his absence from the club, and learnt later of his resignation. From time to time I had seen him at dinner parties and garden parties, always silent, almost shy, his eyes timidly following his wife. I had not seen him, though, since his romance with Margaret. I was curious to know if it had altered him, whether he was more of a man, more confident, or whether he had been overwhelmed, scorched, shrivelled by the hot flame of her love for him.

“His appearance, as he stood for a moment irresolute in the centre of the room, shifting from one foot to the other, with one finger plucking at the bottom button of his waistcoat and his other hand raised to stroke the curling down of his beard, gave me small guide to whatsoever change the past eighteen months might have worked in him. He was obviously the prey of one emotion, an emotion that obliterated the chance characteristics of environment. He was a man wounded, frightened, desperate. Without acknowledging my presence, without seeming even to notice me he began to pour forth an eager stream of words.

“‘Oh, Margaret, my dear! my dear! I don’t know what to do, it’s terrible after all these months, after all we’ve meant one to another, for this to happen. Oh! my dear! my dear!’

“He stumbled towards her, sat on the edge of the footstool at her feet, and leant his face forward in his hands.

“She rested her hand upon his shoulder.

“‘What is it, Paul, darling?’

“Her voice was soft and caressing: the note of anger and impatience had passed from it utterly. ‘That is how he will always win her back to him,’ I thought. ‘He is weak and makes her pity him, a sort of maternal mistress.’

“And again her voice said gently: ‘What is it, my darling, tell me?’

“For an answer he dived his hand into his breast pocket, withdrew a letter, and handed it to her.

“‘Read that,’ he said. ‘It’ll explain everything. Someone has written to my wife, has told her all about us. You’ll see, it’s there, read it!’

“She took the letter, a short, five-line thing, unsigned, undated. Her cheeks flushed, she turned to him and laid her hand on his. ‘Oh, Paul!’ she said, ‘Paul!’

“There was a poignant, dramatic silence. Then he spoke again in the calm tones of despair.

“‘There’s nothing to be done; you know how things are with me. I am weak, I daresay, but I’ll have to do what my wife wants. There’s my father, you see: it would break his heart, and our child, I can’t leave him with my wife; I can’t, I owe that much to him.’

“‘So it’s over then, Paul?’

“He nodded, and I could see, from the sudden paling of the flesh, how tightly her fingers were pressing upon his. It seemed to me that at the moment of separation they had won back to the ecstasy of their first embraces: that they were nearer now than they had been for many months.

“I rose from my chair.

“‘Good-bye, Margaret, my dear,’ I said. ‘Good-bye!’

“She said nothing, but the eyes that met mine were dim and very tender.

“And as I walked down the street I pondered the contradictions, the inequalities of life. Only a few minutes ago she was praying to be rid of him, and now she could ask for nothing better than to be for all time within his arms.”

* * * * *

He paused; for comment; for encouragement.

“And the sequel?” I said.

He smiled.

“Three days later,” he said, “I met her at a friend’s house.

“‘So it’s over?’ I said to her.

“She nodded.

“‘And have you any idea who wrote the letter?’

“She made no answer, but across her lips and in her eyes flickered a curious smile, a smile that was part cunning, part pride, part triumph.

“‘I wonder,’ I continued, ‘if it was a man or a woman. A woman more likely. Constance, perhaps, or Mrs. Berridge, or Marjorie Godwin--Marjorie was once in love with him, so they said, it might have been she.’

“‘I shouldn’t think so!’ And the curious smile deepened, grew more baffling, more evocative, more triumphant.

“Suddenly I had a wave of intuition; our eyes met in the glance of two conspirators who share a secret.

“‘Margaret,’ I said, ‘you wrote that letter.’

“The curious smile became infinitely suggestive. ‘But, my dear,’ she said, ‘of course.’”

XIV

It must make good drinking, that after-battle wine! We only play football, I sometimes think, for the sake of that hour of indolence and exhaustion, when we lie back in comfort after a hot bath, stiff and tired, to fight the afternoon’s struggle over again. It is good to get our innings over early and sit in the pavilion with a pint pot at the elbow while we watch our successors battle in the sunlight, and if we happen to have made a few, the world is a very companionable spot. It is worth while taking trouble out there in the open if only for that after-sense of security and content. There is no temptation then to grumble and feel jealous of those whose wickets are still intact and whose innings is in front of them. And it is worth our while for the sake of those fifteen years or so, when we shall stand above the battle, to make the most of our youth while it is with us. If we realise ourselves, if we live fully now, we shall be more sociable, more generous, more kindhearted when the arteries begin to thicken. We shall be able to look the younger generation in the face. We shall welcome it as a host should, courteously. If we are wise now, or rather if we make a wisdom of our indifference, we will come to find our last ten years the happiest of all.

There are indeed times when we are inclined to welcome the infirmities and immunities of age.

During the coal strike of 1921 my platoon was protecting the property of the Shell Motor Spirit Company in Newcastle. It was a dismal enough spot, beside the river. There was a long row of miners’ cottages between my billet and the guard-room, and after tea the women would sit upon their doorsteps and talk to one another, while the children played on a strip of grass that ran dingily to the waterside. Beyond a more or less mechanical supervision I had very little work to do, and in the evenings I would stand in the roadway and watch the dusk rise slowly from the river, to soften the harsh outline of chimney stack and factory. I grew lonely and a little wistful as the twilight settled caressingly on the poor houses that the sunlight had made so drab. Evening is always beautiful. And I used to indulge the hour of sentiment with romantic reveries concerning a young and charming girl who would sit evening after evening knitting beside her mother.

I can recall now not a single feature of her; whether she was dark or fair or tall: but I seem to recollect vaguely that she was plump and that the light in her eyes was roguish. I used to think how pleasantly a love affair would enliven the tedium of military routine. I had not, let it be clearly understood, the slightest intention of embarking on such an enterprise. On the lowest grounds, it would have been unsoldierlike behaviour. The preliminaries, at any rate, would have been staged in full view of my platoon. And an officer should not encourage in the private soldier a suspicion that he is a creature of the same clay and of the same instincts. There is much to be said for the Ouida convention of beer in the canteen and champagne in the mess.

But dreams are agreeable things, and my fancy created a number of romantic situations in which that girl and myself might at some later day find ourselves. I never came out of my billet without a slight quickening of the pulses. “Will she be there?” I asked myself. “Will she be as pretty as she was yesterday?” Once she smiled at me, and my vanity began to wonder whether she too was not regretting that there lay between us the barrier of military rank. Perhaps she, too, was musing wistfully in the twilight on the inequalities of time and place. Perhaps she, too, was dreaming of some romantic encounter in a lane in spring-time on the Cornish cliffs.

“You!” I should gasp. And we should stand still, gazing at one another. And then we should both begin to talk eagerly at once. “I so wanted to speak to you,” I should say.

“I, too,” she would reply. And we should walk together arm-in-arm along the lane by the tall cliffs, standing perhaps silent for a while saddened by the permanence of these high cliffs. So were they yesterday, so would they be to-morrow; their silence might well seem a criticism of our enchantment.

But it would pass quickly enough, that fleeting sorrow, in the bright sunlight of an April day. And she would tell me that she was not really the daughter of a Tyneside miner, but of an impoverished country Squire, married to a rich cad, in part settlement of an overdue account. “I could not stand it,” she would say, “I ran away. But he found me, he dragged me back. He is with me now in the hotel at Boscastle.”

But she should never go back to him. We should rush to Padstow and catch the next train to town. I should hurry round to Grant Richards. “Trouble,” I should say, “I’m going to Austria to-morrow. I must have a hundred pounds at once. My address to no one.” A terrific story, I felt, ending perhaps with a duel on the steps of a Viennese hotel. I had indeed already begun to wonder what editor I should approach with its scenario when the dream was broken.

I detected her, shortly before lights out, leaning in the dark corner of a wall against the beating breast of a junior lance-sergeant.

If I had been sixty instead of twenty-two, I should have been doubtless highly thrilled by the discovery. I should not, indeed, have even included myself in my romantic reverie. I should have selected an attractive member of my platoon and ordaining that he should fall in love with her, I should have watched their love-making with that mixture of subjective and objective interest with which we watch the love-making of the cinema and the stage, I should have identified myself, through my imagination, with their rapture. It would have been a focussing of myself, like the writing of a love-story is when, for a while, one ceases to be oneself, or perhaps becomes oneself more truly in the persons of one’s hero and one’s heroine.

There must be rough sea, though, before the calm waters of harbourage are reached. Many stories of first love have been written, but I cannot at the moment remember a single story about last love. I do not mean the “Père Goriot,” or “Poor Folk”; the “gaga” love affairs. I mean a story of purposeful, commanding love; a love that is at its dawn fine and fresh and vigorous; but that comes too late in life, that pilfers the last years of manhood, that wastes and exhausts itself; but to which its object clings desperately, knowing it is for the last time, knowing that he will not have the faith, the strength, the confidence to begin again. And it must come very often, such a love; must be, as often as not, an inevitable stage in the natural development of man; must mark the passage of the borderland between middle-age and age.

Take, as an example, a prosperous man in the middle fifties, a politician shall we say, grey-haired, grey-bearded, with a strong, massive, heavily-lined face. His second daughter has been married for two years. He is emotionally unattached. His wife has been to him for many years little more than a companion. He can no longer live as he had lived for the ten or twelve years previously, in his daughters. He has begun to weary somewhat of the evasion, the deceit, the insincerity of party politics. He meets at a friend’s house a young girl who has ideas of going on the stage. It is not difficult to understand their attraction for one another. She is small, dainty, with light flaxen hair bobbed low at the neck, and drawn back tightly from her forehead, so that it may bunch widely like clustering flowers about her ears. Her eyes are blue, a pale, cornflower blue; she is not pretty, perhaps; she is the sort of girl who would look very ordinary in a photograph, for the charm of her features lies in their mobility. She is never still. She is listening eagerly, or talking eagerly, and her laughs are quick and short, like commas in her conversation. There is a gulf of over thirty years between them. But her innocence responds to his experience. He can teach her so much. And for him the greed of life, the curiosity, the freshness, the enthusiasm of those dancing eyes and laughing lips speak of a country in which he will never again travel.

He wins her as she would be won. There is no diffidence, no hesitation in his wooing. They lunch together; there is no word of love between them. He talks of himself and not of her; of the men he has known, the places he has visited, of his early days in politics; his first campaign, that reversal of a two-thousand vote majority. He mentions casually as men of his acquaintance the great men of the hour. And, as he talks, the spell of his domination is falling over her. She does not analyse the sensation, does not ask herself whether or not she is in love with him. But she knows that here is a man to whom she could trust herself, in whose arms she would find surely, and to its full, the relief of self-surrender.

Two days later they dine together. It is the first time she has ever been to the Savoy. She is thrilled and frightened by the glare of lights, and is measurably grateful for the guiding hand at her elbow. In this new atmosphere of luxury and display she feels more than ever the need of his experience. She notices with pride and pleasure the assurance with which he follows the bowing waiter to their table at the far end of the room, and he does not embarrass her by handing her a menu and asking her what she will choose. He decides what they shall have. “A savoury dinner, I think,” he says, “caviare; turtle soup and _truite au bleu_ and a pheasant, and perhaps--yes, I think we’ll have an anchovy savoury to finish up with. And a bottle of that 103.” Ninety seconds and it is over. It is she this time who does the talking. She is happy and excited, and she tells him of her ambitions, of her hopes to get an engagement in a touring company. “It won’t be much fun,” she said, “but I shall get to know people and I shall get experience.” He smiles. “We must see what we can do for you,” he says.

They dance afterwards, and she finds, as she had expected, that he dances well, if conventionally, following closely the pattern of the music. She is lulled by the rhythm of the dance, upheld by the pressure of his hand upon her shoulder. She misses her step once, and his toe strikes against her instep. He apologises, but in a tone that reminds her that the fault is hers, not his. And for the first time in her life she is content to be corrected. He makes no avowal of love to her as they drive home in the taxi, but just before the car slows down before her door his hand closes firmly over hers. “Wednesday, then, at one o’clock,” he says. She nods her head, weak, happy and submissive.

There is never any talk of marriage. He has his political career. There are his daughters. For their sake he must keep his name free of scandal. And even if he were free it is doubtful if she would want to marry him. Over thirty years between them. She will not want to spend some of the best years of her life nursing an old man. But she is content that as long as their love lasts he should give her his protection. For a while they are wonderfully happy. In his arms and against his lips she comes into the rich kingdom of her womanhood. Through her he wins back to the lost countries of his youth.

They are happy days. He takes her to restaurants of which she only knows the name, places over which her imagination has spread the high colour of romance. They go to theatres and dances and music-halls, and they know always there is waiting for them the little flat that he has furnished for her so prettily, and where their love makes the hours pass on such swiftly sandalled feet.