Lewis Percy (24 page)

Mrs Harper seemed unsure of her attitude towards him. She had flung wide the door, as was her custom, but she had not invited him into the crimson interior. Lewis considered the possibility that she too hated him: nothing would have seemed more natural. That he should be despised by all women seemed to be his destiny, whether or not they had the measure of his crimes. But Mrs Harper had been forced to make terms with him, when it became apparent that she was unwilling to shoulder once again the burden of her daughter. And if there were to be a baby Mrs Harper would prefer the baby to live in Lewis’s house rather than her own. She had discovered the delights of living alone, the early nights, the leisurely sauntering days, the absence of all encumbrances save that of her lover, the light delicate meals, the stupor of television. When, these days, she said, ‘I’m getting old,’ no one contradicted her, although she still dressed carefully and prepared her appearance before going out. She continued to strike a variety of false notes, too dressed up for the local parade of shops, too compromised, too discontented for the centre of town, where, like many idle women, she might have spent pleasant harmless days, as women of her generation were accustomed to do. She had never worked. What she lived on Lewis never knew, but money did not appear to be a problem. Lewis supposed her to be something of a remittance woman, turned out of the family home for some early misdemeanour and paid an allowance in lieu of her expectations of an inheritance. The
family was, apparently, a good one, highly thought of in Jersey, although Lewis imagined that exaggerations of grandeur were called for in her situation. Jersey was always spoken of as the place where all right-thinking people lived, yet no explanation was offered for her long exile. It was assumed, by her and by everyone else, that she would eventually make her home there, presumably when she judged it appropriate to do so. Had she not married, Tissy would have accompanied her, met various cousins whom she did not know, and begun her career as a
jeune fille
all over again. Without Tissy Mrs Harper’s projected exile had taken on a bolder outline, more colourful lineaments. Might she not marry the doctor, himself, to judge from his appearance, a remittance man of sorts? Might they not, together, make a late bid for respectability? And might it not become them, as it occasionally does, after a lifetime of inglorious freedom?

But Mrs Harper’s expression, as she stood in the doorway of her red house, was uncertain. She was too proud, too case-hardened, to exhibit helplessness, although it was quite apparent that that was what she felt.

‘She says she’s not coming back.’ She delivered the message expressionlessly, as if her own competence to deal with the matter were not in play.

‘Not coming back?’ Lewis laughed slightly, as if to demonstrate that this could not be serious. ‘Not coming back? Look, do you think I could come in for a minute? I don’t quite understand what’s happened.’

Reluctantly she had let him in, although she made no move towards the drawing-room. Lewis had found it quite reassuring that she should remain in character, to the extent of letting him stand in the hall. So far he was not really worried, believing vaguely that all women ran to their mothers when they were upset.

‘She says she’s not coming back to you, Lewis. It’s no good your looking at me like that. None of this is my doing. Far from it.’

‘Where is she?’ he asked. ‘Is she all right?’

‘Perfectly all right. She always is when she gets her own way. She’s up in her room, her old room, I mean. And as far as I can see she intends to stay there.’

Mrs Harper breathed hard, as her ordinary life, the life she had lived between Tissy’s marriage and the events of this evening, receded in an aura of distant happiness.

‘I don’t know what you did,’ she went on. ‘And I don’t want to know. All I know is that she’s decided to leave you.’

‘Did she walk here by herself?’ asked Lewis stupidly.

‘No. She telephoned me to come and get her. Oh, I know her in this mood. But what could I do? She is my daughter after all. She has no one else.’

‘She has me,’ said Lewis.

‘Oh, men,’ Mrs Harper retorted, with something of her old asperity. ‘Take it from me, Lewis, a woman can’t rely on a man. I should know. Not that I’ve anything against you: you’ve been good to her. But I wonder if these feminists aren’t right. Only women really understand women.’

As she talked, Lewis was aware that the two of them, mother and daughter, would soon work their way back into a type of female collusion that he had disrupted but not obliterated. By intemperately marrying Tissy he had taken her from her rightful place, from the ranks of all those women who would presumably understand what she was doing. Yet they all wanted to get married, didn’t they? They were not above the odd sly move in this direction, the odd ploy, the odd plan. What more could he have done to please her, once he knew that this was her intention?

In Mrs Harper’s face there began to dawn the first signs of a look of dangerous disappointment, which would soon, Lewis knew, be directed against himself. In no time at all she would be blaming him for what had happened. He marvelled at the irrational faultlessness with which their minds worked: so swift to reach the correct conclusion, yet getting there by means which he would consider irregular, almost gangsterish. His shoulders slumped in weariness: he
would never find mercy at this tribunal. He saw himself condemned to repeat his defence throughout eternity, without ever a hope of swaying the jury. ‘But nothing happened!’ he said to himself, miserably aware of how paltry a man sounds when he utters this particular excuse. If nothing happened, then this was the final blow to his masculinity, no matter how ardently he might proclaim his virtue. And to a man there was something unseemly in this raking over the ashes, this jealous watchfulness, when what had taken place should have been an affair of the utmost privacy, of secrecy. He did not know the rules, he concluded, had merely thought in terms of admiring, longing, loving, when what apparently counted was a calculation of the sexual score, as if everyone were keeping a tally. Did you or didn’t you? Tissy had humiliatingly asked him. Either you did or you didn’t. But she had left the room without waiting for an answer. Either answer would have counted against him. And, will you or won’t you? Emmy had demanded. And all that he had wanted was to examine, quite delicately, this feeling that had brought them together, to experience its novelty, to dream of its possibility. But a passage of arms was what had been in mind, so that she too could add him to her list of unsatisfactory or impossible men.

It still did not occur to him that Tissy had left him for good. He thought this retreat to her old room was part of an elaborate ritual, and that once he had played his part, confessed that he was penitent, remorseful, and helpless without her, she would return.

‘Can I see her?’ he asked Mrs Harper.

‘I shouldn’t advise it. I’ve put her to bed with some hot milk and an aspirin. I’ll give her a sleeping pill later.’

‘Well, what would you advise?’ he had said, exasperated by this show of invalidism. If this was where they were heading the outlook was poor.

‘You could call round tomorrow, I suppose. Or better still, leave it for a couple of days. It won’t do you any harm to look after yourself for a bit, show you what women have to do.’

‘I do work, you know.’

‘Oh, work,’ she said, with a look of disgust. ‘I know all about men’s work.’

‘As a matter of fact, Thea, it would have done Tissy no harm to have had a job of sorts. Part-time. Nor you either.’ He knew he was on dangerous ground but a wave of anger had made him bold. ‘You’ve both got too much time to think about yourselves. About what pleases
you
. And you’re both competent women. Tissy is much too young just to sit at home. She had more energy when she was working in the library. Why couldn’t she go back there?’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Lewis. You forget how handicapped she is.’

‘But the point is she was getting so much better. She could have overcome it altogether if you’d let her. You kept treating her as if she were a little girl. You colluded with her. And don’t tell me your life couldn’t have been different if you’d met more people. You might have married again. You’re still a good-looking woman.’

The ‘still’ was perhaps unfortunate. But now that he was speaking the truth he thought there was no point in pretending that things were other than they were.

‘That’ll do, Lewis. You’ve no business criticizing me.’

‘No, you’re right, I haven’t. But Tissy is a married woman now. My wife. It’s time she stopped behaving like a baby. She’s going to
have
a baby, for God’s sake. What kind of a mother is she going to be?’

He thought of a daughter, undergoing the same claustration, the same reclusion as Tissy had done, with all her childishness preserved intact. Yet a daughter would be better than a son. A son would be denatured by such a mother. Or would he? He himself had been brought up by his mother, and he did not truly think that he was any the worse for it, although the women in his present life – or out of it – would no doubt accuse him of nameless faults in this connection. But his mother had been all sweetness, and her only fault had been to lead him to overvalue sweetness in others. He
himself half hoped for a boy. But when he thought of Tissy he knew it was unrealistic to calculate in terms of a son or a daughter. He saw the child in terms of infinite babyhood, a babyhood enduring throughout its adult life. Sexless loyalty was Tissy’s requirement, and if she could not get it from her husband she would exact it from her child.

‘Whether I call round or not,’ he said, ‘I expect Tissy to get in touch with me tomorrow.’

‘I can’t answer for her,’ said her mother.

‘Surely you can see how unsatisfactory this is? It’s in nobody’s interest … And anyway, she’s my
wife
.’

‘Yes, well, you should have thought of that.’

But her voice was weary and her eyes seemed tearful, as the prospect of the rest of her life unrolled before her. She doubted whether the doctor would come to heel now, although he might have done if Jersey and its delights had been on the horizon. Instead of that she was to have a grandchild in the house, for there was a distinct possibility that Tissy might stay indefinitely. Tissy’s revenge would be extended to everyone she had ever known, beginning with her mother. Forgiveness was beyond her; forgetting out of the question. Her sole pleasure, in the future, would consist of being an uncomfortable reminder of how they had all wronged her. And no doubt the baby would come in for some of that as well.

The fact that throughout this interview he had not been asked, let alone invited, to sit down, seemed to Lewis emblematic of the whole affair. His status, he saw, was henceforth to be that of an intruder. As he was already classed as the guilty party, this new attitude, which had formed remarkably quickly, simply edged him further towards marginality. Steps would soon be taken to remove him altogether. He would be redundant, irrelevant in a household of women. For although there were only two of them he saw them as the centre of a grievance that would inevitably bring others to their side. They would benefit from their situation, however precarious, however unenviable it might seem to be, and
the longer they persisted in it the more incapable it would become of any resolution. Pride, reputation, honour were in the balance, and all would fall if the masculine will were to prevail. This contest, in which love had no part – had indeed not been mentioned throughout the proceedings – seemed to Lewis the height of insanity. He had hardly time to consider his own situation, since he still could not calculate the time-scale of Tissy’s absence. But at last he began to perceive his predicament, if Tissy chose to stay away. He could see that just as it was a matter of honour for her to leave him, it was a matter of
his
honour that she should return. There was simply no point at which they could compromise. And the poor little baby, torn between the two of them! But he did not really believe that they would still be in this mess in seven months’ time, when the baby was due to be born. If they were he would simply have to abandon the child to his or her mother and grandmother. He would be too heartbroken to bring it up on his own. He thought of Silas Marner, and felt the beginning of tears again as he saw himself, a grey-haired old man, devoting his life to a pretty and unsuspecting little girl. Yet tears were not to be shed, it seemed, neither his nor Mrs Harper’s. Tissy’s tears would, of course, have preceded her arrival.

Above his overriding and immediate dilemma there hovered a more abstract speculation. Something about this mother and daughter repelled him. Their behaviour towards each other, towards the world, was not as it should be. He had never, except at the wedding ceremony, seen them embrace. His reading had led him to expect more, much, much more, perhaps an outpouring of love and anguish such as he himself felt ready to bestow. He imagined an ideal mother and daughter, whom he might have devised himself, greeting each other. The picture was vivid: he could see it quite clearly, over and beyond Mrs Harper’s discomposed features. Such kisses, such sighs, such patting of cheeks! There was none of that here, nor, to his knowledge, had there ever been. Emotion was something they did without; at least, their
constricted view of emotion was translated into silent demonstrations of attachment, of loyalty, certainly, of fidelity of an unquestioning kind, but also of an inability to go further, into pleasurable feeling. If Tissy loved him – if she had ever loved him – it was in the same way that Mrs Harper loved the doctor, almost with a sort of reluctance, as if this were all that could be expected of them. It pained him to discover within himself a sympathy with the doctor, whom he unreservedly disliked, but he could see that both of them must often have retreated into resignation. It was Emmy who had opened this new perspective in his thinking. She was outrageous, but she was also spontaneous, instinctive: the surge of the id was there, however disastrous the consequences. She was at the other extreme from Tissy. Then he remembered that they both appeared to hate him, and that whatever he had done, or not done, had apparently removed them both. A coldness settled on him, and he began to face the fact that he had somehow, simultaneously, let them both down. It would have been better if he had been unfaithful: what comfort could there be in inadequacy? Yet the idea that he had failed his marriage was his predominant anxiety: this was a crime, and, like the shooting of the Duc d’Enghien, worse than a crime, an error. Who would have thought Tissy capable of the action that now confronted him? And how was he to live, if not as a married man, the fate that he felt had been bestowed on him almost since birth?