Sir!' She Said (19 page)

“After all, you know,” he was saying, “the marriage of convenience is in point of fact exactly what the modern girl is making nowadays. Her parents made love marriages in protest against an older generation that tried to arrange their marriages for them. They demanded Romance. They were not, they said, going to lose their one chance of it. And of course to them marriage was that one chance. They were chaperoned. They had no latchkey. They had no cheque-book; their letters were examined. But to-day marriage isn't by any means a girl's one chance of romance. No more than it is a man's. A girl marries in much the same way that a Victorian man did. She thinks it's time she settled down.”

With her nerves on edge, Julia listened. Yes, in a way it was true enough. That was how they did marry, more often than not, the girls of her generation. They had their fun; their freak parties: their flirtations, and then they got tired of it; they felt the need of a home and constancy. So they married, calm-blooded,
open-eyed. The only difference between this generation and the mid-Victorian was that where the mid-Victorians had their marriage of convenience arranged for them by their parents, it was the young people themselves who arranged their marriages to-day. Yes, it was well enough, thought Julia. But if those were Leon's views on marriage, why was his own life a complete contradiction of them. If marriage was an arrangement of convenience into which you need not enter, why was he ruining his own marriage because it happened to be loveless?

He spoke so confidently, too, with such an assurance. She hated him to speak like that. She hated the appearance of strength it gave him. Once she had thought him strong, experienced, mature. It was his strength that had attracted her. And he wasn't strong, she knew that now. His assurance, his aggressiveness was just a façade to hide his weakness. He was weak, weak, weak. He was afraid of life, querulous for protection against life. He was so helplessly weak that she had not the heart to hurt him. Just as it had been his strength that had attracted her, so was it his weakness that held her now: against her will: against her judgment: against her wishes. She would never have stood the strain, the indignity of such a relationship if she had not felt that by ending it she would break the faith and purpose of Leon's life. He needed her so, he was so unhappy. He had so many troubles at his office and in his home. She was the one happiness he had in life. She could not take that little from him. She must do the best she could. Resolutely she took her part in the conversation.

Morosely from behind the bowl of tulips Mabel looked down the table. She was not enjoying herself. What was the idea of these parties: why did one give them: why did people come to them? Because you owed somebody a dinner. Because you had an evening to fill in; because you were caught in the social machinery of giving and accepting invitations. Not because you liked people. Not because you felt the need of seeing them.

In the days when Leon had loved her, she had seen the whole of life in terms of fondness and affection. Now that Leon no longer cared, that he stayed with her only out of duty, out of habit, she saw life in terms of duty and of habit. Would it matter to one of these people if she were to die tomorrow: would it matter to her if she were to see none of them again? Not one: not a single one. That Terance girl. Why should she be here? She was Leon's friend, not hers. They were always together. People kept saying to her, “I saw your husband to-day with such a pretty girl.” Were they in love with one another? Was there anything to it? She did not know. One was always the last person to learn that kind of thing oneself. Probably every one in the room knew the facts except herself. It might be true. It was likely that Leon should search elsewhere for what he could not find at home. Men were like that. But since they were, they should keep that side of their life apart from their home life. They shouldn't bring their mistresses into their wives' houses. Things had been better in the days when men had set up shop girls; been humiliated and duped by them; but at
least had confined their intrigues to women of another class: had allowed their wives to retain their dignity. The Victorians had been cleaner about those things. Why should she have to meet this girl?

When they were in the drawing-room afterwards she found it almost impossible to be polite to Julia. Julia was conscious of this hostility: a hostility that was shared, it seemed to her, by the other women. They were justified, she thought. She had no right here: she was accepting hospitality on false pretences. These other women suspected what they did not know. They resented her presence amongst them. They were not actually rude to her. But she found herself left out of conversation. Her remarks were listened to and answered, but the trains of discussion she started were not followed up. No attempts were made to lead her into the conversation. In the end she subsided into silence. By the time the men joined them, she was fretful and impatient. She beckoned Leon across to her. “It's no good,” she said. “I'm not coming here again.”

A pained, worried look came into his face.

“My dearest, why?”

Julia shrugged her shoulders. “You must surely see that. The situation's just not possible.”

“You're going to let me down, then?”

“Of course I'm not.”

“It will amount to that.”

“Why?”

“Unless you come here I won't be able to see you away from here.”

“What nonsense, Leon.”

“It isn't nonsense. You can't be treated like some girl in an East End hat shop that is taken to places where she won't be seen. A girl in your position has to be friends with the wives of her men friends. It's not fair to her otherwise.”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters. I tell Mabel that you're one of my best friends. The natural answer is, ‘Oh, well, then let's have her to our parties.' If you don't come she's suspicious.”

Wearily Julia listened. Yes, she knew these arguments: she had heard them so many times; during the months since she had let herself drift into this intolerable situation. How essential it was to maintain appearances. How to the world and Mabel it must be made to appear that they were no more than friends.

“Don't make things harder for me than you need,” he said. “Things are so difficult for me here and at the office. You can't think what the strain of it is. I don't know sometimes how I can stand it.”

Julia made no reply. He would get round her in the end, of course, as he always had, as he always would. His weakness was his strength. One hadn't the heart to hurt him. But she was weary, so completely weary of everything the situation involved: the deceit: the strain: the obligations. Anything would have been better than that: anything. To be the plaything of a cad: to be bullied, deceived, exploited: anything would be better than the endless series of complications that a weak man involved you in. You became a part of his insufficiencies.

“It's only a question of time,” he was insisting. “It can't be more than that: when I'm a partner, when the future is safe, I'll be able to arrange for a divorce, and we'll get married.”

The old familiar words. How often she had listened to them. And with what changes of attitude. In the beginning she had listened with a fond, indulgent smile. She had not taken seriously that easy talk of marriage. She had not wanted to marry anyone. She had been young. Life was new and Leon had attracted her.

The setting had been romantic: Villefranche in August. The little fishing village cut back in the cliff's solid rock, with its narrow climbing streets, its
rue obscure,
its archways; its green, flower-hung balconies, with pretty Italian children tumbling in the gutter: and pretty Italian women sitting on their doorsteps, sewing: and sunburnt fishermen with brown muscled arms, in sleeveless tricots: and the market, the fruit and flower stalls, and the boats anchored in the harbour.

Across the bay was the headland of Cap Ferrat: and all day the sun had shone out of a blue sky. You had woken at six o'clock with the sea a quivering carpet. You had bathed in the cool grey water. You had breakfasted on the hotel terrace off coffee, figs and crisp French rolls. After breakfast you had rowed over to the yellow sands of Lutetia. You had swum and sun-bathed there, lying on your face with the sun beating through your back. And in the afternoon you had strolled into the hills among the grey-green, olive planted terraces; returning hot and dusty, for your
evening bathe. You had felt lazy, happy and at ease. Every one was happy. Nobody had a care. The children smiled at you in the streets, there were smiles on the faces of the market women with whom you bargained every morning for an extra fig. As you watched the blue train curving along the hill on its way to Cannes, you could not believe that civilisation was an hour distant. And after dinner when on moonless nights you rowed out into the bay the phosphorus was incredible. You swam under water and your body was clothed in fire like a Blake drawing. On moonlit nights you sat on your balcony watching the great copper shield lift slowly over the headland and Cap Ferrat. You forgot London; you forgot the future; you forgot the responsibilities that were waiting you. You lived in a spaceless, timeless universe.

It had been a dream, and Leon away from his family, on a holiday, had been so fresh, so youthful, so charming a companion. They had walked, laughed, swum and danced together. A balcony had run the length of the hotel. His room had been next to hers. At night they had sat side by side looking out over the slate grey water at the pale still blue sky, at the soft silvered hills, their hearts open, defenceless in the face of beauty. It was the kind of romance one's girlhood dreamed of. It had been easy to believe then in the “forever” quality of love. It had been lovely to hear Leon speak of marriage to her. Lovely to feel that she mattered to him so much that for her sake he would be ready to break up his marriage and the fabric of his life. She had not
wanted him to. But it was lovely that he should want to.

And later when they were back in London it was the excitement of a new relationship and the thrill of secrecy that had led her to combat the difficulties of meetings, that had made her decide to work in Brooke Street, and on the proceeds of that work to furnish the flat in Paddington. She had not looked ahead. She had not visualised the complications that would arise: nor had she realised how Leon himself would change; that his gaiety and laughter had been a reaction, a relief from the cares of a wife and the office; and that the eager, romantic lover would become the petulant exacting suppliant who appealed not to her youth but to her pity. She knew now, and it was because she knew that she was so desperately anxious to preserve Melanie from a similar experience. If only she could do that, it might be that she would be able to see as justified all these months of strain.

Two years back she had smiled on Leon's protestations. Now she saw marriage not as a romantic adventure but as the one outlet from an intolerable situation. It was no good being bitter. One just had to wait.

It was difficult, though, that waiting, and it was difficult not to feel bitter as Leon's car drew up a couple of hours later outside the pyjama party on the “Friendship.” It was the kind of party that three years ago she would have enjoyed. In an hour of novelties the “Friendship” was the season's novelty. The best freak parties of the summer had been held there. There had been a tropical party at which the women
had appeared as Hawaiians in grass skirts and the men as planters in pith helmets and duck suits. There had been a Venetian party, a Regency party and a Robot party. It was the first time that Julia had been to a party there, and as the car drew up under Charing Cross Bridge, she felt exhilarated and curious as she walked on Leon's arm in her green silk pyjamas, across the Embankment towards the pier, through the knot of inquisitive idlers who had collected at the gangway. On the upper deck chairs and cushions were set about the hatches. Lying back there in the stern, looking up at the sky, violet and star-studded against the black irregular outline of wharves and chimney stacks, with the sound of the water lapping against the ship, you might have fancied yourself moored many miles away in the bay of a tropic port, had there not been the Embankment on the other side, with its great, double-decked cars swinging between Blackfriars and Kennington, the knot of people grouped on the bridge, looking down upon you; and beyond, like some fantastic moon, the red vast circle of Big Ben.

Below deck there was the bar. Behind stacks of savoury sandwiches; foie gras, anchovy, caviare, smilingly harassed waiters, dressed as stewards, were serving champagne, cocktails, gin fizzes, and cold rum punch. At one end of the long low room, which had been divided once into the innumerable small compartments of cabins, storerooms and messrooms, was a nigger band. Lighthearted in their Lido silk pyjamas, a couple of hundred people were dancing or
sitting on the settees along the wall, or standing in knots around the bar, chattering noisily.

Champagne corks were popping with hospitable regularity. A face or two was looking a little flushed. Here and there fingers were intertwining. It was the kind of party that it would be well, no doubt, to leave fairly early. But it was still, and would remain for a couple of hours, jolly and fresh and open-hearted. It was the kind of party Julia ought to have enjoyed. There were the kind of people there, too, that Julia liked, that she would have been happy to meet again and talk to. But she could not help remembering that this was the kind of party that had led her into the mess in which she now found herself.

She knew what the party would have developed into by five o'clock. There would be drunks propped up in corners: drunks being helped to taxis: drunks being encouraged to be sick. Those who were sober enough would be petting openly. A grubby business: a symbol of the life it typified. It looked gay enough to begin with, this world of broken conventions and free love: as gay as this party was looking; but it would end as this party would end—squalidly.