Poor Caroline (43 page)

'Whatever do you mean?' asked Eleanor, but the tell-tale
flush leapt again to her cheeks.

'You perhaps feel some difficulty about going on the
same Board as him? Of course - I quite understand, but I
think-'

'He's told you then?' It was Eleanor's turn to look
astonished.

'Well.' He had told Caroline nothing, but he was her
Friend. There were no secrets between them. Whatever
remained to be told was in effect told already. 'Well, dear,
I didn't know if you'd like me to mention it. But as you have
done, of course, you know, I think I can say that we are
great
friends — almost like mother and son, and yet he is my
father in God.'

'Oh, he's told you. Well - I'm rather glad really. But you
see, don't you, why I want to get away if possible? I think
that perhaps it's better for us not to meet - for a little, any
way. He'll get over it. He'll forget.'

So the girl had declared her love. How like these modern
young women. Eleanor, for all her outward shyness, had
strange moods of self-assurance.

'Oil, yes,' said Caroline. 'He'll forget. I don't think you
need be embarrassed.'

'I shouldn't mind if it were only that. You see - so far as
I'm concerned, I'd like to go on seeing him. I'd be a liar if
I pretended that I didn't like him to send me flowers and
write to me and everything.'

'Did he send you those roses?' asked Caroline quietly.
Roses like that cost over a shilling each just then. 'He only
gave me tulips,' she remembered.

'Oh, yes. I know I ought to stop him. I will too. Only —
it's so much more difficult than I thought. I can't bear to
hurt him. If he were a different sort of person. You know
I'd always thought that nothing was easier than to get rid
of a man you didn't want. All you have to do is to say "No"
and go away. But this - well, he's different, isn't he?'

What was she saying? 'A man you didn't want?' Was she
trying to imply that he wanted her and that she would not
have him? Was it that way round? Caroline began to
tremble. 'Has he
asked
you to marry him?'

'No. That's just it. He keeps on saying he won't ask me,
because it isn't fair. And, of course, it isn't
possible. I
couldn't marry a clergyman. But I never thought, I never
dreamed, that I should
want
to. It's like a sort of nightmare.
Of all people in the world to love - an Anglican curate -
me. It's comic. It's grotesque. When I've always found clergymen a little ridiculous. When I'm an agnostic, and
dislike the Church and think it does more harm than good.
And then to find Roger.'

What did she mean? What did she mean? She was staring at the black, unlit coals in the grate, and talking jerkily and
shyly, as though she were arguing against herself, as though
it were Father Mortimer who had fallen in love with her,
and she who had rejected him. And yet -

'Do you love him?' asked Caroline.

'Love? Yes. I suppose I do. Though I find it harder than
some people seem to do, to say straight out like that, "I love
him." But I do love him. He is nicer than I had ever
thought any man in the world could be - even nicer than
Father. There's a kind of irony and humour about him that
saves him from priggishness. There's something — something
keen and fine about him. I suppose - you can't
help
loving
someone like that?'

'Then what's the difficulty? It seems to me that you're
taking a good deal for granted if you suppose he loves you
when he hasn't asked you to marry him.'

'Oh - but of course - if he's told you - you know all about
it. You see - that night of the accident at Hugh's laboratory - he told me then for the first time. I was so astonished I
hardly knew what to say. Then next day he managed some
how to order for me some amazing carnations — a great box
of them - with an apology for having bothered me. And
you know - when anyone does that as
beautifully
as that, you
can't just be indifferent. I went to see him. I've been to see
him almost every day in the hospital. And we've talked and
talked. He's almost incredibly nice. But, of course, it's all
impossible.'

'What do you mean? Why do you go on saying, "It's
impossible"?'

'Well, of
course
it is. How can I marry him? I know he
says he'd be willing for me to keep my own name and do my
own work and just come and stay with him whenever it was possible, and that he believes in divorce and birth control in
spite of the present teaching of the Church, because the
Church shouldn't pretend to be inspired on matters of social
convenience. But that wouldn't do us any good, you know.
I haven't somehow allowed for marriage in my life. I've never wanted it at all until I met him. I want to do things -
to make things. I want to organize people. I'd like to
organize a business like Perrin's, manufacturing cinema apparatus - and then use that knowledge of business in poli
tics. There's so much I want to do and that I feel I can do.
I can't just go and marry a curate.'

'I see.' Caroline felt quite cold now and very calm. 'He
declares his love for you and you say you love him, but you
are willing to sacrifice him and your love for your own
selfish career.'

'You can put it like that, I suppose. But that's not really
quite true. I do love him. I want to be with him. I should
love to help him and look after him and - and have children
by him, too, I think. He's so straight and keen and muscu
lar. He'd have
lovely
children.'

'Eleanor!'

'Well - he would. I'm sure. They'd be darlings. He'd
make a darling husband. But that isn't everything. There
are all the other things. How could I make a slum curate's;
wife when the Franciscan ideal isn't my ideal at all? I want
to change slums and poverty and maternal mortality and all that as much as he does. But I want to do it through
power and rationalization and political control. I can't
pray - I don't believe in prayer. I don't want to run girls'
clubs. I want to organize a constitutional and rationalized
revolution. You
ought
to understand, Cousin Caroline.
You've always been a reformer. You ought to know that
there are passions as strong and more lasting than individual
love. There are. At least - for my sort of woman there
are.'

'I understand,' said Caroline trembling, 'that your sort
of woman can be completely selfish. I've always been a
pioneer and struggler. But if I could serve Father Mortimer in any way, I'd give up to-morrow any of my
own
schemes. I've always wanted to help and enrich the people I love, and so I believe would all
real
Christians. And I always understood that love had some sort of connection with self-sacri
fice, but probably I'm wrong and you're right. Only I
think I'm getting too old to take in all these new ideas. You
must go your own way. I can't help you.'

Caroline spoke bitterly. Her heart was bitter. She was
angry and sad and tired. She got up from her chair and
began to pile up the tea-things.

'Oh, let me do that,' cried Eleanor.

Very well. Why shouldn't she? She was young and strong
and selfish. Let her work. She has everything, thought
Caroline. Youth and hope and ambition and love - and
love. Father Mortimer's love. And she did not want that. It was only an interruption to her. Caroline had nothing
but the privilege of old age, to sit back in her rocking chair
and let Eleanor wash up.

So he's been in love with Eleanor from the beginning and
he's never told me, she thought. That was the lovely thing
she had given him. He probably thought her a terrible old
bore. Their friendship was all one-sided. He was young.
He turned to youth. Why should she toil and work for him? He did not want to be enriched by her. He wanted Eleanor.
There was no room for her in his heart, there was only room
for Eleanor. Caroline might build dream houses for him at
Westminster or Holland Park. She might furnish cottages in Kent and halls in
Essex. But he would never come. He
did not want to come. He did not need her.

Now she must face reality. The Christian Cinema Company was breaking under her hands. Her directors, one by
one, were leaving. Her work was gone.

Her dreams were going. Father Mortimer had no need of
her. He only wanted Eleanor, who did not care.

Everything was slipping away from her, because she was
growing old. Her time was passing.

'Those cups don't go in there,' she snapped. 'And you
might put the cake
properly
in the tin.'

'Sony, Cousin Caroline,' said Eleanor humbly.

§3

The April evening lay green and tender across North Kensington. The long rows of pillars below the porches hung like stalactites in a submarine cave, and the people
moving along the empty Sunday street glided quietly as
fishes under water. Caroline hurried anxiously along the
glistening pavements. It had been raining, and the streets
were wet, although the sky now opened bland and clear
beyond the spire of St. Cecilia's Church.

If she hurried, she would be just in time. Of course, it had
been silly to come by bus. Buses always took longer than she
expected. If she had gone by underground to Netting Hill and then walked, she might have been quicker. But even
then, she was not sure. She did not want to be late, because she disliked people who came in after the service had begun and then insisted on clattering all the way up the aisle. Yet, if she sat at the back of the church, she would not be able to
see Father Mortimer.

She had rung him up and arranged to meet him after Sunday evensong at St. Cecilia's. He was to take the service for
the rector there, and to preach the sermon on behalf of his boys' club.

'Come and have supper with me afterwards. Then we can
talk,' he had suggested.

She had forgiven him for not telling her about Eleanor. After all, she had been very hasty in jumping to the con
clusion that he had any intention of keeping things back
from her. He might have thought that telling was unfair to
Eleanor. The story did not cast a particularly attractive
light on Eleanor. And, in any case, Caroline could not bear to remain angry with her friend. It was her love for him, not
his for her, which glorified her life. No feeling of his towards
her could hurt her like the cessation of her love for him. She
must love him or die.