Return I Dare Not Read online

  “They’re shy,” explained Philomena. “Much shyer, I think, than we used to be.”

  Hugo felt pleased to hear this, he did not know why. She was shy. Perhaps that was why she had not waved to him. The little darling!

  “Has shyness come in then?” he asked. “I didn’t know.”

  “Oh yes,” said Lady Geraldine. “And they’re much quieter than any girls I can ever remember. And they take everything very seriously. They are always working very hard at something or other: architecture or Chinese or something like that. And they practise their music. They do nothing but practise. They never perform, as far as I can see. They don’t have accomplishments, as they did when I was a girl. One can’t ask them to play. They just practise because they like practising.”

  “When I was their age,” whined Aggie pensively, “I was always falling tewwibly in love with somebody or other. Don’t they?”

  Lady Geraldine shook her head.

  “Not Marianne,” she said, “as far as I know. I can’t tell you about the other one … little Solange. We might ask them.”

  Adrian Upward put down his cup in a hurry and spilt some of his tea. Solange?

  “Tell me some more,” demanded Hugo.

  At the back of his mind he was making rapid notes. Because, as a modern playwright, it would never do for him to be late for the fair. If the young girl was no longer a minx or a dipsomaniac, if she was serious, shy, cold, and devoted to the study of Chinese, he ought to be the very first to know all about it. He would put a girl like that into his next play. But he must find out what sort of things she would do and say besides being shy and knowing Chinese. He must sit next to Marianne (or Solange) at dinner and discover what was going on inside their funny little heads. The opportunity would have to be made somehow, in the intervals of amusing Aggie … for though it was important that he should know all about the modern girl he must not forget that he had other and plumper fish to fry. Aggie would keep him busy. She was saying now that they must all come indoors and read ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. Because she was going to play Anabella at a Charity Matinée and during the week-end she must study the part. To-night they would read it again, and they could rehearse all to-morrow.

  “But, Aggie, it’s enormously long.”

  “We needn’t read it all. Only my scenes. And we don’t want many women. Mrs. Grey can be the bawd … Putana …”

  Philomena, however, felt that the moment had come for crossing swords with Aggie. She got up and said that she was going to bathe. It was much too hot to go indoors and read plays.

  “Are you coming, Hugo?”

  Hugo said, in all sincerity, that he would adore to, but …

  “Hugo’s got to be Giovanni,” said Aggie.

  Philomena turned towards the house.

  “I’m sure poor Mr. … that everyone wants to bathe,” objected Lady Geraldine. “Can’t you read it after dinner?”

  Aggie explained that they would read it both before dinner and after until she was sure of her words. And she wanted all the men. There were a great many men in the play. Messengers must be sent to collect the missing men. Ford Usher must be recalled from his stroll with Laura, and Gibbie, who had gone with Laura’s husband into the house for a drink, must be commandeered. Everybody must help. Because, except for the words, she was too marvellous in the part. Everybody said so. Even David Dormer, London’s most formidable producer, had said so. And she looked for corroboration to Adrian, who had seen her at a rehearsal and had afterwards talked dreamily of the Duse.

  But Adrian did not, on this occasion, take his cue. He was looking fixedly at two figures which had just slipped round the side of the house and were scampering across the lawn. They were wrapped in long cloaks and had bathing caps on their heads, but in spite of this disguise there was a familiarity about the shorter young woman which sent a pang through his liver. He turned to stare after them as they disappeared among the bushes by the swimming pool.

  “Was that Solange?” he asked abruptly.

  “Little Solange?” Lady Geraldine turned to look. “My dear Adrian! Of course! It’s your daughter.”

  “You remember, Adrian? You saw me rehearsing at Queenie’s …”

  He made no answer. Never in his life had he been so vastly put out. Loosing every trace of urbanity he turned away with an angry grunt, a noise that Betsy knew, and walked rapidly off across the lawn.

  “My own daughter,” he kept saying to himself. “My own daughter! It’s monstrous!”

  He felt as if he should never be safe from his awful family again, as if he might find Betsy next, hiding behind a syringa bush. He was betrayed by his own daughter. Hardly knowing where he went, anxious only to escape observation, he hurried through the house into the flower garden at the back, and hid himself in the pleached alley which flanked it. He must have time to recover his composure, and somewhere at the end of the alley he knew there was a yew parlour, a snug retreat hedged thickly on three sides, with a comfortable teak bench and a view westwards over the downs. He would sit there, smoke a pipe, and decide what was to be done.

  “I won’t stand it,” he vowed, as he tramped up the alley. “I’ll teach her a lesson. I’ll cut off her allowance. I’ll …”

  But he knew quite well that Solange had no allowance to be cut off. He could not afford to give her one, and Betsy had always managed to get her clothes out of the housekeeping money. He must think of some other pressure that he could bring to bear.

  He approached the hedge of the yew parlour and stopped short, startled by a loud exclamation, a cry of protest it sounded, from somebody already in the arbour.

  “No, Ford! No! Are you mad?”

  “But, my God, Laura! Why did you send for me if …”

  “I love you. I’ve said so. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Hush!”

  “What?”

  “Somebody …”

  There were quick, striding footsteps and Ford Usher appeared round the yew hedge, just as Adrian was making off again.

  “Well?” he said, in a very unpleasant voice.

  Poor Adrian had never been in such a stupid situation before. To listen at keyholes was the last thing in the world that he was likely to do. The implied accusation, and Ford’s bullying underlip, coming on top of the atrocious behaviour of Solange, were too much for his temper. He returned, angrily:

  “Don’t say ‘well’ to me, sir!”

  “Oh! My dear men, don’t.”

  Laura had come round the hedge. At first she had thought it was Corny and in that case she would have stayed where she was. But she did not want her old friend Adrian to misunderstand anything, so she came round to pacify them, standing up, tall and white, against the dark background of cut yew. And they forgot that they were angry with each other because they had to look at her and wonder. She was so glowing, so alight with the emotion of her contest with Ford.

  “Dear Adrian,” she said gently. “I’m so very sorry. If you’ll let me, I’d like to explain a little sometime …”

  “My dear Laura …”

  Adrian felt as though he had never looked at her before. That lovely, sulky face must have been waiting all its life for just this illumination. She took his arm and turned to Ford.

  “Adrian is one of my oldest friends,” she declared. “He will understand … everything.”

  “If he does, it’s more than I do,” said Ford stubbornly.

  Laura smiled a little, but she kept her hand on Adrian’s arm. And presently Ford was walking meekly away down the pleached alley, his blond head almost touching the arch of leaves above it. He had been dismissed.

  “Come into the yew parlour,” she said to Adrian.

  “My dear child … I can assure you …”

  “I want to tell you,” she insisted softly. “I want your advice. You’re the only person I can talk to, Adrian. You’re so marvellously … impartial. And I want to clear my own mind about it. I want to get the who
le thing put quite clearly. I feel I can talk to you as if you were God.”

  Adrian was almost consoled for the behaviour of Solange. Nine-tenths of him felt the charm and flattery of being compared to God. He liked the rôle of confidant and he was as anxious as everybody else at Syranwood to know exactly how affairs stood between Laura and her exotic fancy. But the eternally rebel tenth of him wondered why she should want to talk to God and suggested that if Corny or Hugo or Blake or Simmonds had arrived upon the scene they would have heard it all instead. For nothing would ever stop Laura talking about herself.

  He followed her into the yew parlour and sat down on the teak bench. The sun’s rays were slanting now and growing yellow instead of white so that the view of hills between the black walls of yew looked hazy and distant. Warmth and peace filled the little bower. Bumble bees, blundering in from the hay fields, and scarcely troubled to fly out again but crawled about the sun-baked stones. And it was very quiet; no noise came from the fields save the creaking of a wagon now and then as it jolted over the cut grass.

  Laura leaned back and seemed to forget Adrian. She gazed out across to the molten hills as if she was staring back into some remembered land. Her long, lovely body relaxed, her breath came more slowly, and the glow of excitement left her. Gradually her cheeks recovered their usual creamy pallor, but her expression remained a little exalted and aloof. For the moment it was free of that subtle fretfulness which so often tainted its beauty, the unconscious but eternal grievance of a passionate woman frustrated. She was, perhaps, thinking, and the effort made her stern; so that her profile, standing out against the dark background of the hedge, reminded Adrian of a head which he had seen in a museum somewhere. The full lips, the nose and forehead which made one straight line, the heavy eyelids and the mane of tawny hair—they all took him back, back, to an afternoon in Rome and the Thermae Galleries and … and … yes it was … the head of a Sleeping Fury, and the moment of discomfort which he had had when looking at it. But he had not identified that marble composure with the restless Laura.

  The silence went on far too long. He had, as he sat down, assumed the countenance of an uncle confessor, a rôle to which he was accustomed. But after five minutes this expression began to wear a little thin. At last he ventured to offer his penitent a cigarette, whereat she started, came to herself, shook her head and sighed deeply. And he became aware that, among other things, he must be prepared to be very sorry for her. This did not surprise him.

  For thirty years he had enjoyed the hospitality of the rich, and he could give nothing in return save sympathy. They wanted all that he could offer, always. He patted Laura’s hand and said:

  “You’re very unhappy.”

  She admitted that she was. She was wretched. No woman had ever been so misunderstood, or so falsely accused. Ford (Adrian must have heard what he said) had no right, not the shadow of a right, to accuse her of leading him on. She had invited him, as he knew, as everybody knew, as she had told everybody, to meet Walter Bechstrader, who was coming to Syranwood that week-end. Walter wanted to patronise scientific research. Ford wanted money for a second expedition to Yeshenku. Laura wanted to bring them together. Was it not a natural and benevolent wish? And had Ford any excuse for mistaking her motives?

  “Well …” said Adrian temperately.

  He was thinking of other young men who had been financed by Bechstrader, a gross but rather pathetic millionaire who had leanings after culture and looked to Laura for guidance in the matter. In the last two or three years she had helped him to get rid of a great deal of money. He had backed plays, launched musicians and published books of poetry. For Laura felt a concern for the welfare of all her admirers. If she broke their hearts, at least she filled their pockets, and though she never gave them what they desired yet they were never, from the more material point of view, sent away empty.

  Now she was explaining the immense importance of a second expedition to Yeshenku. It seemed that the prophylactic parasite had mysteriously disappeared, and the attempts to cultivate it at the Guthrie Institute, from infected mosquitoes, had ended in failure. She was very technical and, as always with such women, he was astonished at her grasp of the subject. She might have spent a lifetime among mosquitoes.

  “I never knew that you were so much interested in these things,” he said. “You’ve kept it very dark, you know, Laura.”

  She gave him a quick look of enquiry and then laughed, with a characteristic and disarming volte-face towards candour.

  “You mean it’s all window dressing? Perhaps it is a little. But not altogether. I am interested because of Ford, you see.”

  “But you’re more interested in Ford really?”

  “Naturally. Since he’s the only man I’ve ever … who’s ever really meant anything to me.”

  “Oh,” said Adrian.

  He could not keep a note of enquiry out of his voice and Laura turned on him instantly.

  “You’re thinking of all the other people who’ve … oh, they were nothing. They were just straws I clutched at because I was drowning. I’ve been so unhappy. All these years. So lonely. I couldn’t help clutching at happiness and pretending that my life wasn’t quite empty. But I never loved them. And when I met Ford again I knew what I’d lost. I belong to him, Adrian, and I always have. He was the first and he’ll be the only one, always. I’ve been starving. And starving people do queer things sometimes, you know. They don’t just die. You can’t expect them to. If they can’t get bread, they’ll eat stones. And that’s what I’ve been doing: eating stones and calling it bread, all these years. Pretending I wanted this and that when it was really only Ford I wanted.”

  “Then you’ve known him a long time?”

  “That’s what I want to explain to you. I must make you understand the whole thing; I can’t bear to know you’re thinking that he’s just another one. But I’ll have to go back to the beginning, and I warn you it’s a very sad story. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all, but may I smoke a pipe?”

  “Dear Adrian! Of course! A dozen pipes. What a comfort you are.”

  7. A Very Sad Story.

  “You see, Adrian, when I was eighteen I wanted (would you believe it?), I wanted quite terribly to earn my own living. Can you understand why, I wonder? It was just to have the feeling that I was self-supporting. Not that I had a vocation or anything like that. I couldn’t do a thing, and I’d had a wretched education. But I hated the idea of being kept. Perhaps it was because I resented seeing my mother so entirely dependent on my father. She had no money of her own ever, you know. And once I heard him scolding her because she’d over-tipped a porter. He was odd in those ways, and very lavish in others. And it seemed dreadful to me at that time. Quite suffocating! I couldn’t bear to think that always, all my life, some man would have the right to question what tips I gave to porters. There were times when I even envied my own maid; at least she’d earned her money and could spend it as she liked.

  “And then I used to get unreasonable terrors about the future. I thought that my father might lose all his money perhaps, and we should be quite poor. I never quite knew where it came from and I never felt safe. I used to imagine myself an incompetent, impoverished old maid, like those aunts people have. Or I used to picture myself marrying a poor man who would die and leave me with six children. It seems absurd, but I had the whole question terribly on my mind. I worried myself ill about it. I felt so unsafe; as if I’d no control over my own life when I was so absolutely dependent on other people. I thought I was useless. Of course I was very young.”

  And she smiled, with compassionate indulgence for the foolish girl that she had once been. Sir Alec never asked what tips she gave to porters and she had learnt to set a value on herself. But at eighteen she might have been excused for not knowing how easy it is to get money for nothing.

  “Of course,” she added inconsequently, “I married too young.”

  Adrian made a sound of agreement. He had heard this said before.
Nearly all his penitents had married too young. But in Laura’s case he really thought that there might be some truth in it. Alec was too old for her, and she ought to have married for love. She might have been a wonderful giver, but she was a bad taker, never knowing where to stop. And she had taken so much from Alec that her scruples about giving anything to his rivals were quite comprehensible. Also he understood, and was touched by, that young desire to work for her living. It did her credit and it should have been respected by her parents. Perhaps her whole life might have been different if, at eighteen, she had been allowed to enter a profession. For his part he was all in favour of giving girls their heads. He always advised it. Only the other day a girl had told him that she wanted to study toxicology. What girl? Solange. And now she was blackmailing him. It was monstrous. He stamped savagely on a crawling bumble bee, while Laura’s deep, husky voice cooed on about the mistake of early marriages. But the name of Mrs. Usher roused him to a closer attention.

  “She advertised in The Times,” Laura was saying, “for a Lady Help. Of course I hadn’t an idea what a Lady Help really is. I didn’t know anything about the kind of people who advertise for Lady Helps, or know that they only do it because proper servants won’t stay. She described herself as a woman writer with an interesting literary circle, to which the Lady Help was to be introduced. I thought that sounded fun! It’s difficult to think oneself back into such a condition of blank innocence … I thought I was so bored at home that any new people would be amusing. I was a lady and I supposed that I could be a Help if I tried. She offered thirty pounds a year and my laundry and a char was kept. So I answered the advertisement.”

  “But my dear Laura … did you say Mrs. Usher? A journalist? Not surely the Mrs. Usher that I know?”

  “No, I don’t expect so. Nobody ever knew her except me.”

  “I’m thinking of a lady who is always writing to me on behalf of people I’d sooner not offend to ask me to lecture, or write articles, or stand on my head, in the interests of their pet charities. It always annoys me that they don’t write themselves. Because if I accept she gets the credit, and if I refuse I get the odium. She’s a sort of snob procuress, and as difficult to get rid of as the moth, once you’ve given her an inch. But how she ever gets into touch with the people who employ her …”