Christmas Holiday (31 page)

“Oh well.”

“You didn’t believe what I told you the other day?”

“I’m beginning to think it’s very hard to know what to believe in this world. After all, I was nothing to you, there was no reason for you to tell me the truth if you didn’t want to. And those men this morning and the address they gave you to send money to. You can’t be surprised if I put two and two together.”

“I’m glad if I can send Robert money so that he can
buy himself cigarettes and a little food. But what I told you was true. I don’t want him to escape. He sinned and he must suffer.”

“I can’t bear the thought of your going back to that horrible place. I know you a little now; it’s awful to think of you of all people leading that life.”

“But I told you; I must atone; I must do for him what he hasn’t the strength to do for himself.”

“But it’s crazy. It’s so morbid. It’s senseless. I might understand, though even then I’d think it outrageously wrong-headed, if you believed in a cruel god who exacted vengeance and who was prepared to take your suffering, well, in part-payment for the wrong Robert had done, but you told me you don’t believe in God.”

“You can’t argue with feeling. Of course it’s unreasonable, but reason has nothing to do with it. I don’t believe in the god of the Christians who gave his son in order to save mankind. That’s a myth. But why should it have arisen if it didn’t express some deep-seated intuition in men? I don’t know what I believe, because it’s instinctive, and how can you describe an instinct with words? I have an instinct that the power that rules us, human beings, animals and things, is a dark and cruel power and that everything has to be paid for, a power that demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and that though we may writhe and squirm we have to submit, for the power is ourselves.”

Charley made a vague gesture of discouragement. He felt as if he were trying to talk with someone whose language he could not understand.

“How long are you going on at the Sérail?”

“I don’t know. Until I have done my share. Until the time comes when I feel in my bones that Robert is liberated not from his prison, but from his sin. At one time I used to address envelopes. There are hundreds and hundreds of them and you think you’ll never get them all done, you scribble and scribble interminably, and for a long time there seem to be as many to do as there ever were, and then suddenly, when you least expect it, you find you’ve done the last one. It’s such a curious sensation.”

“And then, will you go out to join Robert?”

“If he wants me.”

“Of course he’ll want you,” said Charley.

She gave him a look of infinite sadness.

“I don’t know.”

“How can you doubt it? He loves you. After all, think what your love must mean to him.”

“You heard what those men said to-day. He’s gay, he’s got a soft billet, he’s making the best of things. He was bound to. That’s what he’s like. He loved me, yes, I know, but I know also that he’s incapable of loving for very long. I couldn’t have held him indefinitely even if nothing had happened. I knew that always. And when the time comes for me to go, what hope have I that anything will be left of the love he once bore me?”

“But how, if you think that, can you still do what you’re doing?”

“It’s stupid, isn’t it? He’s cruel and selfish, unscrupulous and wicked. I don’t care. I don’t respect him, I don’t trust him, but I love him; I love him with my
body, with my thoughts, with my feelings, with everything that’s me.” She changed her tone to one of light raillery. “And now that I’ve told you that, you must see that I’m a very disreputable woman who is quite unworthy of your interest or sympathy.”

Charley considered for a moment.

“Well, I don’t mind telling you that I’m rather out of my depth. But for all the hell he’s enduring I’m not sure if I wouldn’t rather be in his shoes than yours.”

“Why?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, because I can’t imagine anything more heart-rending than to love with all your soul someone that you know is worthless.”

Lydia gave him a thoughtful, rather surprised look, but did not answer.

C
HARLEY’S TRAIN
left at midday. Somewhat to his surprise Lydia told him that she would like to come and see him off. They breakfasted late and packed their bags. Before going downstairs to pay his bill Charley counted his money. He had plenty left.

“Will you do me a favour?” he asked.

“What is it?”

“Will you let me give you something to keep in case of emergency?”

“I don’t want your money,” she smiled. “If you like you can give me a thousand francs for Evgenia. It’ll be a godsend to her.”

“All right.”

They drove first to the Rue du Chateau d’Eau, where she lived, and there she left her bag with the concierge. Then they drove to the Gare du Nord. Lydia walked along the platform with him and he bought a number of English papers. He found his seat in the Pullman. Lydia, coming in with him, looked about her.

“D’you know, this is the first time I’ve ever been inside a first-class carriage in my life,” she said.

It gave Charley quite a turn. He had a sudden realization of a life completely devoid not only of the luxuries of the rich, but even of the comforts of the well-to-do. It caused him a sharp pang of discomfort to think of the sordid existence that had always been, and always would be, hers.

“Oh well, in England I generally go third,” he said apologetically, “but my father says that on the Continent one ought to travel like a gentleman.”

“It makes a good impression on the natives.”

Charley laughed and flushed.

“You have a peculiar gift for making me feel a fool.”

They walked up and down the platform, trying as people do on such occasions to think of something to say, but able to think of nothing that seemed worth saying. Charley wondered if it passed through her mind that in all probability they would never see one another again in all their lives. It was odd to think that for five days they had been almost inseparable and in an hour it would be as though they had never met. But the train was about to start. He put out his hand to say good-bye to her. She crossed her arms over her breast in a way she had which had always seemed to him strangely moving; she had had her arms so crossed when she wept in her sleep; and raised her face to his. To his amazement he saw that she was crying. He put his arms round her and for the first time kissed her on the mouth. She disengaged herself and, turning away from him, quickly hurried down the platform. Charley got into his compartment. He was singularly troubled.
But a substantial luncheon, with half a bottle of indifferent Chablis, did something to restore his equanimity; and then he lit his pipe and began to read
The Times
. It soothed him. There was something solid in the feel of the substantial fabric on which it was printed that seemed to him grandly English. He looked at the picture papers. He was of a resilient temper. By the time they reached Calais he was in tearing spirits. Once on board he had a small Scotch and pacing the deck watched with satisfaction the waves that Britannia traditionally rules. It was grand to see the white cliffs of Dover. He gave a sigh of relief when he stepped on the stubborn English soil. He felt as though he had been away for ages. It was a treat to hear the voices of the English porters, and he laughed at the threatening uncouthness of the English customs officials who treated you as though you were a confirmed criminal. In another two hours he would be home again. That’s what his father always said:

“There’s only one thing I like better than getting out of England, and that’s getting back to it.”

Already the events of his stay in Paris seemed a trifle dim. It was like a nightmare which left you shaken when with a start you awoke from it, but as the day wore on faded in your recollection, so that after a while you remembered nothing but that you had had a bad dream. He wondered if anyone would come to meet him; it would be nice to see a friendly face on the platform. When he got out of the Pullman at Victoria almost the first person he saw was his mother. She
threw her arms round his neck and kissed him as though he had been gone for months.

“I told your father that as he’d seen you off I was going to meet you. Patsy wanted to come too, but I wouldn’t let her. I wanted to have you all to myself for a few minutes.”

Oh, how good it was to be enveloped in that safe affection!

“You are an old fool, mummy. It’s idiotic of you to risk catching your death of cold on a draughty platform on a bitter night like this.”

They walked, arm in arm and happy, to the car. They drove to Portchester Close. Leslie Mason heard the front door open and came out into the hall, and then Patsy tore down the stairs and flung herself into Charley’s arms.

“Come into my study and have a tiddly. The whiskey’s there. You must be perished with the cold.”

Charley fished out of his great-coat pocket the two bottles of scent he had brought for his mother and Patsy. Lydia had chosen them.

“I smuggled ‘em,” he said triumphantly.

“Now those two women will stink like a brothel,” said Leslie Mason, beaming.

“I’ve brought you a tie from Charvet, daddy.”

“Is it loud?”

“Very.”

“Good.”

They were all so pleased with one another that they burst out laughing. Leslie Mason poured out the
whiskey and insisted that his wife should have some to prevent her from catching cold.

“Have you had any adventures, Charley?” asked Patsy.

“None.”

“Liar.”

“Well, you must tell us all about everything later,” said Mrs. Mason. “Now you’d better go and have a nice hot bath and dress for dinner.”

“It’s all ready for you,” said Patsy. “I’ve put in half a bottle of bath salts.”

They treated him as though he had just come back from the North Pole after a journey of incredible hardship. It warmed the cockles of his heart.

“Is it good to be home again?” asked his mother, her eyes tender with love.

“Grand.”

But when Leslie, partly dressed, went into his wife’s room to have a chat with her while she did her face, she turned to him with a somewhat anxious look.

“He’s looking awfully pale, Leslie,” she said.

“A bit washed out. I noticed that myself.”

“His face is so drawn. It struck me the moment he got out of the Pullman, but I couldn’t see very well till we got here. And he’s as white as a ghost.”

“He’ll be all right in a day or two. I expect he’s been racketing about a bit. By the look of him I suspect he’s helped quite a number of pretty ladies to provide for their respectable old age.”

Mrs. Mason was sitting at her dressing-table, in a Chinese jacket trimmed with white fur, carefully doing
her eye-brows, but now, the pencil in her hand, she suddenly turned round.

“What
do
you mean, Leslie? You don’t mean to say you think he’s been having a lot of horrid foreign women.”

“Come off it, Venetia. What d’you suppose he went to Paris for?”

“To see the pictures and Simon, and well, go to the Français. He’s only a boy.”

“Don’t be so silly, Venetia. He’s twenty-three. You don’t suppose he’s a virgin, do you?”

“I do think men are disgusting.”

Her voice broke, and Leslie, seeing she was really upset, put his hand kindly on her shoulder.

“Darling, you wouldn’t like your only son to be a eunuch, would you now?”

Mrs. Mason didn’t quite know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

“I don’t suppose I would really,” she giggled.

It was with a sense of peculiar satisfaction that Charley, half an hour later, in his second-best dinner-jacket, seated himself with his father in a velvet coat, his mother in a tea-gown of mauve silk and Patsy maidenly in rose chiffon, at the Chippendale table. The Georgian silver, the shaded candles, the lace doyleys which Mrs. Mason had bought in Florence, the cut glass—it was all pretty, but above all it was familiar. The pictures on the walls, each with its own strip-lighting, were meritorious; and the two maids, in their neat brown uniforms, added a nice touch. You had a feeling of security, and the world outside was comfortably
distant. The good, plain food was designed to satisfy a healthy appetite without being fattening. In the hearth an electric fire very satisfactorily imitated burning logs. Leslie Mason looked at the menu.

“I see we’ve killed the fatted calf for the prodigal son,” he said, with an arch look at his wife.

“Did you have any good food in Paris, Charley?” asked Mrs. Mason.

“All right. I didn’t go to any of the smart restaurants, you know. We used to have our meals at little places in the Quarter.”

“Oh. Who’s we?”

Charley hesitated an instant and flushed.

“I dined with Simon, you know.”

This was a fact. His answer neatly concealed the truth without actually telling a lie. Mrs. Mason was aware that her husband was giving her a meaning look, but she paid no attention to it; she continued to gaze on her son with tenderly affectionate eyes, and he was much too ingenuous to suspect that they were groping deep into his soul to discover whatever secrets he might be hiding there.

“And did you see any pictures?” she asked kindly.

“I went to the Louvre. I was rather taken with the Chardins.”

“Were you?” said Leslie Mason. “I can’t say he’s ever appealed to me very much. I always thought him on the dull side.” His eyes twinkled with the jest that had occurred to him. “Between you and me and the gatepost I prefer Charvet to Chardin. At least he is modern.”

“Your father’s impossible,” Mrs. Mason smiled indulgently. “Chardin was a very conscientious artist, one of the minor masters of the eighteenth century, but of course he wasn’t Great.”

In point of fact, however, they were much more anxious to tell him about their doings than to listen to his. The party at Cousin Wilfred’s had been a riot, and they had come back so exhausted that they’d all gone to bed immediately after dinner on the night of their return. That showed you how they’d enjoyed themselves.

“Patsy had a proposal of marriage,” said Leslie Mason.