A Man of Forty (13 page)

Adam had begun his visit with the intention of returning to town on Sunday night, and it did flash across his mind that perhaps in the present uncomfortable state of affairs between them neither host nor hostess would be sorry to be rid of him. But, since on the whole it suited his convenience to stay till Monday morning, he went to bed with a light heart, giving no second thought to the matter. Before getting between the sheets he roughed out a letter to Dr. Hinksey at Radnage Hollow, near Chiselbrook, which, with the name of the county, he judged would be sufficient address. One hoped, he said, that Dr. Hinksey would forgive a comparative stranger—a total stranger, indeed, until that happy but (for one's own part) all-too-brief encounter on the downs—for troubling a busy man with reminiscences of one unimportant infancy. But he did feel that the question Dr. Hinksey had propounded, the question about one's earliest memory, deserved far more serious and unsentimental consideration than it usually (didn't he find?) received. And so, at the risk of being tedious…

It was a long letter, and it contained not the smallest reference to Mary Wilton.

Lily's six o'clock appointment was a fiction. She only wished it were not, provided she could have had the arranging of everything,
according to her fancy. If she had been meeting Adam Swinford, for example. Not Adam as he was; but an Adam, simple-hearted, eager, crazy with love of her; love, not just—well, love,
you
know, so that you do care a bit what happens to a person; an Adam who would hang about, jumpy with impatience and anxiety, and then, when at last she came, his face would break into a wide grin of happiness. There was at least one young man among Lily's acquaintances who would behave like that, but what would have enchanted her in Adam did not advance Bert Vines in her favour; and it was not until the street bell rang, at ten past eight, that she remembered having promised to let Bert take her to the pictures tonight. Lily lived in one of the top rooms of a large tall ugly house which thirty years before had figured in house-agents' lists as a desirable residence but was now let off in bits and pieces by a tight-lipped elderly woman who called every Saturday to collect her rents. That double ring, from the bell on the landing just outside her door, meant that someone standing on the doorstep, three floors down, had pressed the button labelled
Marchmont
1
Elver
2. The someone would be Bert Vines, whom she'd forgotten all about. And me not ready, she said, jumping out of a dream.

Ten seconds with the lipstick put everything right, or right enough. Now where'd I leave my gloves? There was no need to doll up seeing it was only Bert Vines. But a girl can't go out looking dowdy, specially Sundays.

“Hullo, Bert!”

“Hullo, Lil!”

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Bert.”

“Don't mind waiting,” said Bert, “ for
you”
He grinned, showing all his teeth. “ Sworth it,” he said.

“Fancy that!” said Lily, with a disdainful grimace. “ Compliments flying around!”

It was routine stuff, so far. And Lily was already bored. She felt bad about Bert Vines, and was irritated with him for making her feel so. He was the son of the newsagent and stationer at the end of the road, and an eminently suitable young man to be walking out with Miss Lily Elver. She didn't question that. A respectable, steady chap, on the right side of his father, and with every prospect of coming into a nice little business : that was Bert Vines.
But he wasn't Lily's fancy; and she hoped he wasn't serious about her, and she knew he was; and she wished she hadn't promised to go out with him tonight.

“Where we going?” she asked.

“What say to the Paramount? There's a Gary Cooper on.”

“Suit me all right.”

“You can look at Gary Cooper while I look at you. Fair division, eh?”

“Do you think 'em up,” Lily asked, “ or does it come natural?”

“Eh?” said Bert. He gave her a puzzled glance. “ Oh, I get you!” He laughed goodhumouredly. “ That's one to you all right.”

Lily liked Bert Vines well enough. He was dependable and good-tempered. In the ordinary way she was at home with him. But his gallantries were a nuisance, and when in the darkness of the cinema he got hold of her hand it cost her an effort not to snatch it away at once. But you couldn't do that. Not, with Bert you couldn't. Rather than, hurt his feelings that much, you had to be civil. So she waited till the lights came on, at the end of the News Reel, and after that she was busy with her handkerchief a good deal, and Bert couldn't get her settled down again. She felt mean, for what was a bit of hand-holding after all? To her, nothing. But to Bert it wasn't nothing : she was pretty sure of that. She was being unfair to him either way, but on the whole it was best to put a stop to things now, before they got warmer. She hated having to pretend to like him less than she did : especially during the Silly Symphony, which made her feel so happy for the moment that she could have hugged anybody. But there was no help for it; and she reflected, with bitter amusement, that he didn't know what she was saving him from.

During the long picture he began fumbling for her hand again, only to be frustrated by her passiveness.

He leaned towards her, till she could feel his breath warm on her cheek. “ Anything wrong, Lil?”

She shook her head without answering, pretending to be intent on the picture; and very soon the pretence became a reality, so that she forgot Bert and his admiring glances altogether, and was
almost surprised, when they came to God save the King, to find him still at her side, still watchful.

Outside in the street, she offered a second dose of discouragement. “ Don't bother to see me home, Bert.”

It was a false step, for it gave him an opening to ask again what was the matter.

“Matter? Nothing,” she said. “ What should be the matter?”

With his hand on her arm he piloted her along the street in silence for a while. Then he said, half-bantering : “ You've been a bit queer all the evening, now I come to think of it.”

“Very likely,” she said. “ I'm a queer person, I daresay.”

“Oh, come off it, Lil. You know I didn't mean it like that. I meant sort of quiet, that's all.”

“We can't all be noisy,” said Lily.

“Meaning?”

“Some people make enough noise for two.”

“Who? Me?”

“I didn't say you, did I?”

“Do you mean when I laughed?”

“Oh, I don't mean anything,” said Lily. “ It was just something to say, that's all.”

“You
are
a rum one,” said Bert.

“I told you I was,” retorted Lily.

Presently Bert began a line of talk about the picture they had just seen. Lily answered in monosyllables except when she said, in a flat tired tone : “ Thanks ever so much for the pleasant evening, Bert.” Despite her conscientious wish to discourage him, not to say thank-you would be plain rude, she felt.

“What about Wednesday?” said Bert, when they reached her door.

Lateness and silence gave the moment an intimate quality. The gaunt grey street was empty; the footsteps of a retreating pedestrian made a small diminishing sound in the distance; and, after a day of unexpected heat, the cool of evening was delicious. The time, the place, the opportunity, all were here. Nothing was lacking to foster Bert's persuasion that tantrums in a girl as pretty as Lil were all part of the game, and she'd think the worse of him if he let her get away with it.

“ Good night, Bert,” she said, latchkey in hand.

“What about Wednesday?” he repeated. “ You doing anything?”

“Yes, I am,” said Lily. “ Thanks all the same.”

“Thursday then. Call for you, shall I?”

“I'm doing something Thursday too,” said Lily. She turned het back on him and inserted her key in the lock.

“That's a pity, isn't it?” said Bert sardonically. “ Look, Lil Don't go in yet, there's a sport. I want to talk to you.”

Lily had already opened the door and crossed the threshold. She turned round, to repeat her good night.

“Oh, not now, Bert. I'm nearly asleep.”

“Are you?” said Bert. He grinned. He made it clear that he didn't believe her. “ Just five minutes,” he said, in a wheedling tone.

His apparent change of mood, from solemn to cheerful, made her think it safe to relent.

“Oh, all right.” She left the door ajar and came out on the top step. He stood beside her in the window of the dingy-ornate pillared porch. “ Only five minutes, though. Some people have to get up in the morning.”

“Look, Lil,” he began. Shyness came upon him and he seized her hand. “ There's something I've been wanting to say to you. I didn't mean to tell you tonight, but somehow——”

“Well, don't then,” said Lily, twisting her hand away.

He reddened. His eyes flashed angrily. “ Don't what? Not breakable, are you?”

“Don't tell me tonight. Don't ever tell me.” In hurting him she had hurt herself. Her voice was urgent, almost pleading. “ I'm not the sort of girl you think me, Bert. I'm a bad lot.”

His eyes softened in gentleness and widened in disbelief. “ Don't say things like that, Lil. I know better.”

“You don't know anything,” said Lily earnestly. “ Some day p'raps you will.”

“What are you getting at, Lil? Everybody makes mistakes, so they say. Why not tell me what's on your mind, and have done with it?”

“I almost would, Bert. Tell you, I mean. Sooner you as anyone. And that's a compliment, if you only knew.”

A sombre look came into Bert's eyes. “ Is there someone else?” he asked.

“Someone else?” She tried to retreat.

“A bit late in the day, am I? Is that it?”

Lily shrugged her shoulders and turned into the house. “ Put it that way if you like, Bert.”

He stood very still, staring at his boots. She began slowly shutting the door against him.

“Tell you what,” he said hoarsely. “ Doing anything Saturday?”

She shook her head miserably. “ It's no good, Bert.”

He straightened himself and gave her a level look. “ Please yourself,” he said.

“That's right,” said Lily. In that moment she admired him : it was almost like the pictures. “ There's plenty more about.”

He turned on his heel and said, staring at distance : “ Not like you, there aren't. Well ... I hope he treats you right, that's all. He better had.”

She was silent.

“Well,” he said again, “ so long then.”

“So long, Bert.”

She shut the door and began climbing the stairs to her room, wondering how much or how little Bert knew of her secret.

June, having arrived in splendour, departed forlorn. Midsummer week was cold and wet. But with the maturing of July the hot weather returned; a long drought set in; and at the end of a weary evening David jumped up suddenly from his chair and said : “ I think I shall go out. It's stifling here.” The day's heat still hung heavily about the room, where, stupidily, because he could think of nothing else to do, he had been sitting with Lydia and Eleanor. A stranger glancing in from the garden might have seen in that lighted room, that family group, a picture of ideal domestic happiness; Eleanor,
patient and serene, darning Paul's socks; Lydia sewing, with a book propped up on the table before her; and David in an easy chair by the window, a book lying in his lap. But David could not bring himself to make even a pretence of reading; Lydia read with a strange hungry intensity, as though she hoped to appease her heart with a glut of printed matter; and Eleanor, with covert glances from one to the other, said to herself that Paul was the only sane creature left in the house, for she too, she Eleanor, had caught something of the prevailing infection.

“Yes, it is,” Eleanor said. “ Stifling.”

David met her glance and saw that she understood his meaning all too well.

Lydia, turning a page of her book, said : “ Why don't you take David for a walk, Eleanor?” With sudden decision she shut the book and gathered her sewing together. “ I'm going to bed.”

David did not second the invitation. He did not want Eleanor's company, and he had no reason to suppose that she wanted his.

“I'm tired too,” said Eleanor, getting up. “ Good night, David.”

“Good-night,” said David. “ I'll be as quiet as I can when I come in.” He offered the assurance, timidly, to Lydia : it was the kind of propitiatory effort for which, in retrospect, he despised himself.

“You won't forget to bolt the door?” said Lydia coldly.

“No. I'll see to everything. I feel I must get a little fresh air, you know.”

She did not look at him, but she showed him her angry smile. “ I should, if I were you. By all means.”

Standing by the open window, where darkness was, and cool air, and the scent of grass, he watched the two women file out of the room, and listened to their steps ascending the stairs. A new, breath-taking thought flashed into his mind. He glanced at the watch on his wrist. Not quite ten o'clock : the evening's agony had been mercifully abbreviated. Going softly out of the room, he listened at the foot of the stairs and heard the bedroom doors being shut : first one, then the other. He tiptoed across the hall to the morning room, opened the door with exaggerated care, entered, shut himself in. Now… shall I be in time? And will
she
answer? Everything hung on that, on her happening to answer the telephone.

He went to the instrument and lifted the receiver. Silence. Then… the voice of the exchange. A strange impersonal voice : some supernumerary doing night duty. So much the better, thought David : he won't recognize me. Nevertheless it was in almost a whisper that he gave the Hinkseys' number.