A Man of Forty (17 page)

“That
is
a good job, isn't it?” she said, sharpening her smile against him. “ Because it looks like I'm going to have a baby, see?”

The remark shook him, but he tried to persuade himself that it was bluff.

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure!” she said. “ Oh, no, it's just a fancy.” With no wish to spare his blushes she gave him a list of symptoms. “ Better start saving up for the pram, hadn't you? You've got four or five months yet.”

Adam smiled, but not at what she said. His smile was mechanical : it hid, imperfectly, the beginning of panic.

“But wasn't that,” he said with a drawl, “ rather careless of you, Lily?”

“You've got a nerve, I must say,” she said admiringly.

“And aren't there… ways and means?” he suggested.

“Yes,” said Lily. “ And I've tried them, you bet.” Not for the world would she mention Mrs. Parzloe to him.

He assumed a faraway, considering look. “ I suppose you've no idea who the father is, have you?”

She stared at him, ready to be amused. But his “ frozen face made it clear that no banter was intended. Hate flashed out of her eyes, and Adam, hurt to find himself no longer adored, instantly modified his tactics. He didn't want Lily; in view of her inconvenient-condition he wanted nothing so much as to be rid of her; but it would be uncomfortable, and possibly dangerous, to let her go away nursing bitterness. Adam hated to think of anyone's disliking him, and a romantic resignation to the inevitable parting was the emotion he designed for Lily.

“Don't misunderstand me, my dear girl,” he said. “ I'll help you in any way I can. If it's money you want, why of
course,
gladly!” he cooed. “ But one thing I insist on. You must keep me out of it. You must find someone who'll put things right for you, and I'll foot the bills like a…” Like a what? Like a gentleman? Like a hero? “ And I'll,” said Adam, finding no simile worthy of him, “ foot the bill.”

There was silence. And he did not at all like the way Lily was looking at him.

“But,” said Adam, feeling that generosity was thrown away on this young woman, “ my name must be kept right out of it. That's an absolute condition.”

Lily's silence was maddening, almost unnerving. It goaded him to further speech.

“Whatever I do I shall do as a friend, you understand. Considering everything, I'm not at all sure what to think about this…
misfortune of yours. But so long as you promise me ... so long as it's clearly understood that
I'm
not concerned in it, you can depend on me to ask no questions.”

Still Lily said nothing. Her face, which a moment ago had been burning red, was now grey and drawn, and her wide eyes had a tortured look. With some apparent difficulty she got out of her chair and walked carefully to the door.

She opened the door and went out, not turning her head, not saying a word. Bluff? Or something worse? Adam watched her go. He didn't like the look of things. Was she ill? Was she planning a scene? Keeping his distance he followed her to the stairhead and watched her slow descent. He had been prepared for argument, entreaty, even abuse. But he had not been prepared for this strange stubborn silence. That was the worst of these little pick-ups : you never knew where you were with them. Suppose she takes it into her head to collapse on the stairs!—that would be a pretty fine thing, wouldn't it?

He had an idea, an inspiration. With a sudden access of self-solicitude he overtook her, seized her arm, and said : “ You're not well, Lily. You're tired. I'll send you home in a taxi.”

He began helping her downstairs, and sighting Stevenage in the hall below he called out briskly : “ Stevenage, get a taxi, will you? As quick as you like.”

If she did think of starting anything, he was ready with his counterstroke. Neat work, he thought. But just below the surface of his mind was a suspicion that he was in danger of liking himself less after this episode than he had done hitherto, and he looked forward to paying a large taxi-fare by way of a pourboire to his self-esteem.

Stevenage, after one startled glance at Lily, dashed into the street and was back again before Adam had had time to miss him.

“All ready, sir. Lady ill, sir?”

Removing her arm from Adam's grasp, Lily opened her handbag and took out a folded sheet of notepaper.

She said to Stevenage, with a wan smile : “ Give the man this It's where he's to take me.”

“Yes, miss,” said Stevenage.

“And this,” said Adam, producing a ten-shilling note.

He held out the note to Stevenage, but it was Lily's hand that took it. Adam glanced at her with surprise, and with the beginning of gratification. Since she was going to be sensible at last he was almost inclined to forgive her.

“ I'll take you as far as the taxi,” he said cosily.

Staring at him fixedly, Lily screwed the note into a little ball and dropped it at Adam's feet. Adam could feel the docile Stevenage watching him with an unaccustomed light in his eyes. And Stevenage, though seeming to look at Adam for instructions, was quick enough to see that Lily was in danger of falling. He put an arm round her and piloted her gently through the revolving door.

“You want a good lie-down, miss : that's what you want.” Lifting her bodily into the waiting taxi, he unfolded the paper she had given him. “ There you are, mate,” he said to the driver. “ The Women's Hospital, see? Kerslake Road. And better look lively if you ask me.”

Adam had followed them out, propelled by a new and unpalatable decision. Damned nuisance. Precisely what he had wanted to avoid. But she'd been one too many for him. It'd look bad if she arrived at the hospital alone, like that. It would start tongues wagging. Well, they'd wag enough anyhow.

“I'll go with her,” said Adam. “ She can't go alone.”

Stevenage pushed him aside. “ That's all right, sir. I'm seeing to that.” Even if it means the sack, said Stevenage to himself, as he bent his head to get into the cab.

Bert Vines, watching from the shelter of a shop-door opposite, saw the cab drive off. Scowling thoughtfully, he came across the read, arriving just in time to see Adam Swinford push his way back into Orkney House.

Conscious that all his comings and goings were noted, remembered, and resented, David now held himself on a shorter tether. The situation was not to be endured; but endure it he did, and must, until some light from heaven should show him the way out. Three weeks after that night on Bledlow Down, which remained a solitary peak in his life, Mary said to him, on a note
hp
had not heard in her voice before : “ How much longer are we going on like this?” It was a question he could not answer; and he could not so much as attempt to answer it without mention of Lydia, whom even now he was infinitely reluctant to discuss with another woman, even with Mary, especially with Mary. If ever there was need for decision and resolution it was now. But what could he do? Mary's hand was in his; they were sitting together in a narrow strip of woodland
between two parallel roads, enjoying the music and colour of a July afternoon; and Lydia, he knew, was watching the clock at home, bitterly grudging him every minute of absence. The one thing clear to David was Lydia's unalterable resolve never to open her lips on the question of Mary again : she was apparently content to wear her life out, and his, living in bland estrangement in the same house with her husband. What could he do? And what could he say to Mary, in whose sight, he began to fear, his inaction was becoming despicable?

“It's not so easy, Mary. It's… Lydia. I'm afraid of what she may do. There's Paul to think of, you know.”

How lame they sounded, these excuses! How impossible that Mary should understand his indecision!—unless he were to confess flatly that Lydia had outmanoeuvred him by seeming to threaten madness. He had told Mary nothing, except in general terms, of what had happened on his return from Bledlow; he could not, for shame, bring himself to speak of Lydia's breakfast-table mummery; and he could only hint at his fears for Paul, fears which in daylight seemed somewhat hysterical. He felt that his load of domestic care made him a ridiculous figure, anxious and prudent, instead of the unthinking impetuous lover he wished to appear in Mary's sight.

“Paul? Why Paul?” Mary asked.

The question chilled him a little. It did not square with his conception of Mary that Paul's significance in his life had not only escaped her notice but was even, apparently, beyond the scope of her conjecture, so frankly puzzled did she seem. As if in search of an excuse for not answering her, his glance strayed over the sunfreckled scene before him and rested for a moment on Duke, her chestnut mount, who at a little distance, sleek and beautiful, moved with innocent stateliness from tuft to tuft of edible grass, within the circle of his tether. Against the tree to which the horse was fast stood David's bicycle, the recent purchase of which had created a great stir in Paul's young breast. Seeing them together, horse and machine, David was suddenly struck by their incongruity, and by a derisive symbolism which he chose to see in the fact that while Mary rode to these lovers' meetings elegantly, on horseback, he, being the man he was, and unwilling to make himself noticeable and add to Lydia's wrongs by using the car, must come sweating and puffing on two wheels. Brief and tantalizing their meetings now were. It was a poignant delight for David, at the end of a snatched hour, to see Mary mount her horse and ride gallantly away, with only a wave of the hand and a swift smile for parting. He
watched her with the lover's unique mingling of humility and pride, feeling himself royal in the possession of her, yet wondering that anything so lovely could be his. And every such meeting, every such parting, sharpened the point of the question she had asked him just now : how much longer were they going on like this?

“Why Paul, darling?” said Mary again. “ What has Paul to do with it?”

“It's not Paul in himself,” said David, “ though that's a problem too. It's Paul in relation to his mother, and… and what she may do to him. To his mind if… if nothing else. When the horizon clears a bit, we can go ahead with everything,” he continued, nervously glib. Once everything's arranged, she'll be generous and helpful, I'm sure of that. Just now she's not herself.” Feeling half-responsible for Lydia's behaviour, in his mind he was pleading with Mary not to judge it too harshly. “ She's been shaken up by all this. I hardly know her, she's so different.”

Mary gave him a considering look. “ Are you so fond of her?”

He shrugged his shoulders, deprecating the question. “ Let's talk of something else.”

Mary turned her head away. “ But
can
we?'

“Of course we can. What do you mean, darling?”

“We've let her come between us,” Mary said.

Terror leapt in him. “ For God's sake don't say that!”

“Well, haven't we?”

“No,” said David. He spoke curtly, refusing to face the half truth she had uttered.

After a silence Mary remarked, apropos of nothing : “ Aunt Allie's coming tomorrow, to stay a night or two.”

David welcomed the change of subject. “ Who in the world is Aunt Allie?”

“My great-aunt Hinksey. All the morals in the family went to her. The rest of us had to go short.”

David laughed. “ Good job too.” But an uncomfortable possibility occurred to him. “ It won't affect our meeting will it?”

“I'm afraid it will, David. She's rather a handful, Aunt Allie is. She'll expect her brother's dear little granddaughter to be around to entertain her.”

“But surely,” said David, “ you can slip away for an hour or two?”

She shook her head. “ It'll only be three days.”

“Do you mean I'm not to see you for three days?” Deep in love though he was, the idea crossed his mind that she was perhaps
using Aunt Allie as a pretext; making herself less easy of access; increasing demand by reducing supply. “ It's an eternity,” he complained.

“You don't suppose
I
like it, do you?” said Mary. The quality of her smile set his unworthy doubts at rest. “ But it won't hurt us for once. And it'll give you time to get things straight in your mind.”

“That's true,” admitted David, making the best of it. “ Today's Friday. Can we meet here on Monday? At three o'clock, say?”

“Yes. I
think
she'll be gone by then.”

“But supposing she's not?” he said discontentedly.

“Then I'll come all the same.”

The promise restored him. He put an arm round her shoulders and drew her towards him. She lay passive and loving in his arms, but her eyes, he thought, had an absent look.

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” she answered, looking away from him.

“Tell me your thoughts.”

“I'm not good at thoughts, David. You think too much.” She put her hand on the ground and pushed herself into a sitting posture. “ Is there anybody coming?”

He looked : this way, that way. “ No. Nobody at all.”

“I heard footsteps,” she said.

“Someone on the road.” This anxiety was unlike her, and he suspected that she was trying to divert him from the subject. “ Why do you say I think too much?”

Those words, though lightly spoken, had cut deep : for they expressed, as he had never dared express it himself, a secret fear in him. I don't live : I dream of living. There's something radically wrong with me; a sleepy sickness, a poison in the blood; something that drives me to encompass my own failure rather than let me be involved, by success, in action. Always I adapt myself to circumstances instead of changing them. And so it will always be, world without end. The memory of Bledlow made his self-reproach the more bitter. If once, why not again?