Cold Pastoral (43 page)

Maxine might take an overdose or plunge into the river! Hard, courageous people did hard, desperate things. It would be the soft, clinging girl who would sob and grovel at people's feet.

“Timmy-Tim,” she prayed, “pipe me across the hall!”

As if she had seeped through the door to their consciousness, it was flung open and they faced her in a solid bunch. Felice was in travelling-clothes, with a radiant face under untidy black hair.

“Mary,” she expostulated, “what are you doing? I've been waiting to show you off. Come in at once.”

“I think I was nervous,” she said childishly, seeing the two tall men standing in tableau with greetings snatched from their lips. Unable to advance, their eyes looked like arrested wonder. Inconsequentially she thought they were held!

“You nervous?” mocked David, advancing and propelling Philip along with him. “I'm nervous, Phil is overcome! We feel like country cousins.”

“Mary,” ejaculated Philip as if he couldn't help it, “I can't bear it if you grow any better-looking.”

He made no attempt to touch her, and too familiarly she saw the disturbance of his nostrils. She should have smelt anaesthetic, but it seemed to have been blown away by the winds of the North Atlantic. The feeling of belonging swept over her. These men were her own, making her walk between them holding an arm of each.

“Oh!” she said happily. “Oh!…”

“We're lovely,” said David, and they all roared together.

“Oh!” she said again, and not knowing who to kiss first she brought their faces against her own. Following her lead they kissed her cheeks with great naturalness.

“Darling, it took your ‘ohs' to make me feel comfortable,” said David.

“Come in, come in,” commanded Felice. “Dave, Phil, what do you think of her ? Have I done well ? Do you like her hair ? Do you like her dress? I take all the credit. I feel she's my glamour-girl.”

The generosity of Felice who could exult in another woman's looks! She acted as the girl's showman until they were reminded of the day Josephine had come to call.

“My, my,” grinned David, “Mary Immaculate, ain't you grand now! Let me see your grand pole?”

She surprised a look between the brothers, but just then she could do nothing but bask in appreciation. Philip looked well, restored, with eyes that told her he was more fascinated with her womanhood than he had been with her childhood.

Felice asked for Maxine, carelessly shrugging with happy exasperation when she heard of her sudden departure. An unsatisfactory relative was dismissed by them all. They were so happy to be alone.

Maxine really receded! Mary Immaculate could live the happy hour and forget the bad moment, tripping along. Praise was so sweet, and to them she was so newly adult. She found she could claim the conversation and make the men listen with interest and homage. She drew in her breath, trying to cram the delights of five months into one rippling report. Even as she talked she was conscious of the smooth feeling of equality. The child was ousted by the woman, and if she chose she could use the full battery of privileged womanhood to gain her own ends. As she talked something in her said she would not use the effect of herself on Philip. She would not wangle, she would not be soft and womanly, she would not stir him with her physical self. There was only one way for her now. She must leap in, go under, become submerged or swim on. Under light, happy inconsequential chatter she had the feeling of running by the river, waiting for someone to tell Philip about Tim and herself. This time he would be bombed with an abortion.

Felice and David had gone after a light warning that they were spending the next day together and she must make do with Philip.

It was just as she had imagined. Philip was regarding his surroundings without approval.

“I couldn't live in a furnished house,” he said decisively.

“It's a nice house,” she said in automatic defence.

Constraint was invading the room. Fellowship had retreated with David's welding effect.

Philip was least influenced, walking from object to object, picking up this and that with no intimacy in his hands. During that general hour she had been impressed by his attitude, though she might have known he would let no grass grow under his feet. His programme loomed ahead, alarming with energy. Immediate interest in London was to be subservient to a side she had not explored—hospitals, clinics, unique operations and men of his own calibre. She had forgotten the volume of his days. No man could be defenceless who had such a definite purpose. He was firmer than she was, capable of being blasted tonight and rising tomorrow to study the eye, ear, nose and throat. Cat-and-mouse attitude with him was gone. Even as she searched for the doting lover she was frantic with her intention of insulting the doctor. David had done a lot for him during their time alone, making him more casual and easy in everything.

Then she knew he had lost all interest in other people's possessions. She got up, feeling she must be on her feet when the scene was on. She remembered her first morning at school when her back had needed the trunk of a tree. Now there was only a wall.

“Well,” he said quietly in a balanced tone, easing towards the weighting of issues.

“Well,” she said, herself, feeling if he looked long enough she would not need to speak at all. Further examination of her face changed his tone at once: “Mary, I've seen that expression before. What's the matter?”

“Philip?”

“Yes,” he said, becoming taut and anxious at once. Her tone did it, she knew, but for weal or woe she was on her way.

“Philip, have I any money left?”

“Yes,'' he said guardedly.

“Then may I have sixty pounds?” she asked without preamble.

“Sixty pounds,'' he said slowly like a man who knew the value of money.

“Yes, just sixty pounds,” she said, belittling the amount.

“Without explanation?” he asked, probing her for the possibilities of expenditure.

Now she wondered if she would like to have it that way. “Yes, if it's possible,'' she said slowly. “Philip, do you remember telling me to come to you at any time?”

“So you've come,” he pondered indecisively. “Mary, would you tell Dave or Felice why you want the money ?”

“No, no, not them,'' she said in a betraying tone.

“Why not them?” he said at once.

Afraid of directing his thoughts she said nothing, letting him stare on as if he would wrench Maxine from behind her brow. Then, dismissing her outward self, he turned away, seating himself at a desk while his hands automatically played with a long green pen. Every line of him reported a will to avoid domination, and a wish to meet her half-way, but something in the rat-tat of the pen expressed irritation for any further mystery. Then, as if his mind was made up, he extracted a cheque-book from his pocket.

“You can cash this at Waterloo Place,'' was all that he said.

Beginning to write he stopped dead, questioning her with strained casualness. “I presume this is for lessons or education of some kind. I would not consider advancing it for other purposes. Have I your word?”

“No, you have not,” she said definitely.

“Then it must be my money,” he said, beginning to rat-tat the pen again.

“No, no,” she protested genuinely, “you've spent so much on me.”

“That or nothing,” he said inexorably, “unless you can present a good reason for the spending of sixty pounds.”

A glance over his shoulder made him rise in spite of himself.

“Mary,” he said, taking her hand, “come away from the wall and sit down.” Drawing her to a lounge, he stood over her, retaining her hand.

“My money or your confidence,” he said gently but implacably. It would be a waste of time to beat herself against that tone. It would be equally futile to accept his money and preserve a mystery. He would torture himself, thinking of every closed book. From the beginning had she not planned to bomb him? she asked herself with ruthless honesty. She sat up, squaring her shoulders.

“Philip,” she said, without elaboration, “I want sixty pounds for an abortion.”

It was a split-second of doubt, but it was enough. He collapsed on the couch like somebody felled, dragging her with his fall. Literally she bore the full weight of his body across her knees. On the hand that lay on her lap she could feel the ooze of his sweat, damping the lace of her dress. Wildy she knew she might have taken a gun and wounded him with less pain. Her own stupidity appalled her. So sure of her chastity she had not contemplated he might think it was her abortion.

“Philip,” she almost screamed, “it's not me! What have I done? It's not me, I tell you! How can you be so blind? It couldn't be me!”

“No, no,” he muttered.

She shook him until his body seemed less of a dead weight. Then her hands strained at his shoulders, dragging him up, seeing the change a few seconds can stamp on a face.

“No, no,” he said in a dazed regard of her face, “it couldn't be you when you look like that?”

Then she went into extreme quietude, feeling the antagonism that can well up between a man and a woman. Even his obvious shock and confusion did not soften her.

“Philip,” she said proudly, “twice I've shocked you terribly, and twice you've insulted my chastity.”

She had done what she had not intended to do. Through the medium of herself she had turned the tables on him completely, making him cringe to outraged purity and trust.

“It was only for a second,” he muttered in extenuation, dabbing his brow with his handkerchief. They sat in long silence, and she let him think his own thoughts.

“I begin to see,” he said slowly, “you've been going round a lot. The money is for—”

“No!” Her hand over his mouth made a quick stifling of names. “Don't guess,” she commanded, but he removed her hand, speaking with professional coldness and distance.

“I presume your friend knows the risks, the possibility of infection…”

“Yes, yes, but don't tell me, Philip; I don't want to know any more. It's not our affair.”

The possessive pronoun did something to galvanise him into action. With a businesslike air he removed himself to the desk, probing her with hard brown eyes in a grey-white face.

“Mary, didn't you know exactly the effect that request would have on me?”

“Yes, Philip.”

“Didn't you know what I might think—”

“No, Philip, I couldn't think of that in connection with myself,” she said proudly. “I just thought of it as a thing.”

“I'm glad of that.” He picked up the pen again, but he did not write. “Didn't you also do this definitely with some thought of punishment for me?”

She met his eyes, feeling a strong will towards self-revelation.

“I think I did, Philip. When it happened I remembered all over again, and I saw there was some suffering beyond a man's understanding. You were coming, and it seemed a lead. Since Tim's death I've sorted a lot of my feelings, and I know his dying was not as wounding as my eviction from the Place. Perhaps I've held the thought of revenge in my heart. I don't know, but it came over me again, the awful agony of being outcast—the feeling of walking down the steps…”

“I see,” he said in a tormented voice, “in some ways it was a settling of accounts? Mary, will Vincent always come between us?”

She stared at him with infinite candour. “Philip, Tim lives in me like the memory of the loveliest childhood. If that stands between me and anything, it must stand.”

His eyes lowered to the cheque-book and he wrote on it, at once, as if he could say no more.

“There, it's on my account. Say no more about it.”

“Thank you very much,”she said, feeling it was the end of an infinite day. “I wouldn't be surprised if it's not paid back, Philip.”

He shrugged, as if other payments were more considerable. “I'm going to bed,” he said briefly; “are you going?”

He had sent her to bed so often! How odd it was to adjust herself to her new status with him. He walked to the door as if she could do just what she liked.

“Good night, Philip,” she said faintly.

Before going through he turned, facing her once again. “Mary, I've got something to tell you. Perhaps I should prepare you…”

“No, tell me right out,” she said with an unaccountable feeling.

“Your mother is dead,” he said as if glad to be spared long words.

“Mom!” she breathed. “Mom dead!”

Stock-still she retreated from London in long backward thought. Literally she could smell the Cove, see the ravine, and Josephine going round and about in perpetual rugged work.

“Poor Mom,” she mused out loud. “Oh, Philip, how I hope, how I pray that she won't be disappointed. There must be saints, there must be angels, it wouldn't be fair—oh, there must be…”

She looked at him as if he must produce her mother's requirements of Heaven. He smiled gravely, like a deeply reassured man. “I sent flowers from you, Mary.”

“Oh, thank you, Philip. She was such a good woman.”

“As good as they're made, my dear, and you're her daughter.”

What did he mean? He was distant, wounded, with a darkly shadowed face, but he had stepped back to see that she went upstairs before him.

“Philip,” she said like a hostess, “I have an appointment for lunch. Will you have tea with me tomorrow?”

“Mary, you know I never take tea.”

“Very well,” she said, sweeping out with a Lady Fitz Henry back.

“But,” he said to the back of her head, “if you mean, will I be in when you return, I will.”

“Four-thirty,” she murmured, and, dropping her dignity, she ran quickly upstairs.

Nothing is ever as it is pictured before the event. Mary Immaculate wanted to laugh. It looked as if she had done all the agonising. Maxine met her with the laconic contribution that it was a lousy day. She might be frantic inside her smart coat, but she sat at a table looking at other people as if they were less than the dust. Maxine received the notes, slipping them into her bag as if they were trivial, Woolworthian, of no conequence whatever. But Maxine invited her to lunch with sudden spaciousness, paying for it as if she had enough money for a dozen abortions. Then there was another picture of Maxine coughing in Piccadilly Circus from suddenly acrid air. In that position her slim-fitting coat seemed taut over tension and rack.