The Matchmaker (43 page)

Here Jean reappeared, wearing a beautiful dress of blue silk printed with large white flowers under a coat of pale wool, and the finest of stockings. Mr. Potter immediately looked relieved, and stood up in readiness for departure. He was afraid I’d pawned all her clothes to buy food for the children, thought Alda, pleasantly accompanying them to the door.

Meg was busily employed with her ants upon the doorstep and (as Jean paused to exchange a word or two with Alda and Mr. Potter courteously waited for her) she glanced up at him to secure his attention, then pointed with a fat forefinger at an ant hurrying along by her foot and observed conversationally, “His name is Gilbert,” but Mr. Potter, assuming that his ears had misled him, gave no reply beyond a vague smile.

Alda had not yet thought precisely what explanation she was going to give to Mr. Waite about his betrothed’s non-appearance, but when Jean lifted her hand to wave good-bye as they went down the path, and Alda saw that she no longer wore her engagement ring, she
did
experience a slight shock; and when she set out after lunch to meet him, she already thought of her friend as lured away and lost, and had got so far as wondering whether Mr. Waite would sue her for breach of promise.

“Hullo!” she called cheerfully, waving and smiling as he drove up, and getting in her opening speech before the surprise dawning upon his face could express itself in a question, “I’ve got a message from Jean. She’s awfully sorry, she can’t come this afternoon. An old friend of her father’s came down unexpectedly and she’s gone into Brighton with him.”

She intended this remark to have a flavour of family-solicitors-and-boring-papers-to-be-signed but, uttered as it was by a pretty woman in a cotton dress with her hair stirred by the wind,
it
sounded fatally runaway and festive: it chimed with the robust mirth of elderly stockbrokers and the clinking of glasses in secret bars.

“Oh,” he said, after a long, suspicious look, and said no more. He appeared to meditate, staring down at the wheel of the car. He is much better-looking than Mr. P. but has no charm at all, thought Mrs. Lucie-Browne, who had now made up her mind to get Jean married to Mr. Potter. Mr. Potter was more Jean’s type; Mr. Potter had some money and would fit more easily into Lucie-Browne parties; and, after all, the poor pet had always fancied Mr. Potter. Well, Mr. Potter she should have.

“Why did he come?” asked Mr. Waite suddenly, looking at her.

“Oh, just to see her, I think. He knew her people quite well. He’s just back from South Africa.”

“I take it that he is well off, then?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, so far as I know.”

“He must be, if he can take holidays in South Africa,” with a sarcastic little laugh.

“His firm sent him, I think,” said Alda—and of course he pounced on that, saying sharply:

“Oh, he’s a young man, then? I thought you said he was old?”

“An old
friend
, I said,” retorted Alda rather crossly. This man would never have fitted in with us, she thought; I’m glad Mr. P. turned up in time.

“Did they say where they were going?”

“No. Just to lunch in Brighton. One of the expensive places, I suppose,” she added with a little malice.

“I can’t understand why she didn’t bring him over to meet me,” he muttered. “If it’s any question of business, I’m the person to be informed now.”

“It wasn’t business; he just wanted to see her,” said Alda recklessly, thinking that the sooner he realised how matters stood the better for him and everyone.

“Are you sure they didn’t say where they were going? I was thinking—I might run over there and look in at the Ship and one or two places, and join them.”

“They’d have finished lunch by now, it’s a quarter to three. And besides, you’d never find them,” Alda said decidedly. “Look—it’s a shame to spoil your afternoon and the children would love to see the sea. Can’t you take us to Brighton instead?”

He gazed gloomily at her. She had honeysuckle fastened in her bosom and her hands in the pockets of her old coat as she stood there smiling at him. Since his engagement he had successfully banished a certain troubling image from his thoughts; telling himself that if a man is engaged to one woman he does not dream about another; and the discussion of all those domestic details that Jean found so tedious had helped him to fix his mind upon the future rather than upon the slightly painful present.

Now Jean, upon whom he was unconsciously growing to depend, had failed him. That was how he thought of her behaviour. Heaven knew that he could not depend upon Alda—Mrs. Lucie-Browne—to behave sensibly, for one never knew what she would do next, but there she stood; the day was sunny and clear and all over the green country of Sussex people were playing and working in the sunshine, while fifteen miles away, glittering in blue and silver, rolled and murmured the sea. He dropped his hands upon the wheel and exclaimed:

“Go and fetch the kiddies. We’ll go.”

The letter to Mrs. Waite was still lying upon the table where she had pushed it aside at Mr. Potter’s entrance when Jean came slowly into the parlour that night. The long summer twilight had not yet left the sky and two moths, a little gold one and a heavy dark creature, were hovering near the lamp. Alda was moving about the room, tidying it.

“Darling! Where have you been?” she exclaimed in a laughing,
hushed
tone as Jean came wearily in. “The children are only just in bed. We’ve had a day out with your fiancé.”

“I know; I saw you,” Jean said, sitting down. “Is there any tea left? I’m parched.”

“Help yourself. Where were you when you saw us?”

“In the lounge of some hotel.” She pushed her hair back and drank thirstily. “I saw you coming along the Parade in his car and guessed what had happened. I’m simply dead; we had a lot to drink, too,” she added, half to herself.

Alda stood, looking down at her. She was extremely pale and there were shadows under her eyes.

“Was Phil very cross?” she asked, without looking up, as she poured out another cup.

“He was, rather, but we soothed him down. He didn’t say much; it was more his manner. I think he enjoyed being with us; he gave us a very good tea and carried Meg down to the sea to paddle.”

“It was horribly crowded, wasn’t it,” Jean murmured.

“Yes, but great fun. The children loved it, bless them. Your Phil isn’t such a bad old stick, J. By the way,
is
he still your Phil? I notice you’ve shed your ring.”

“It’s awful of me, I know.” Jean looked up miserably. “But I just couldn’t help it, darling. Oliver really does seem to like me a lot, after all, and I simply hadn’t the courage to tell him.”

“Has he asked you to marry him?”

“Not in so many words but—oh, Alda!—he seems to take it for granted that I will. Isn’t it frightful! What
shall
I do?”

“Nothing, of course, until you see what they’re going to do,” said her friend decidedly. “Take a firm line with Phil and say you’ve a perfect right to go out with an old friend if you want to——”

“And what about Oliver?” Jean was now leaning forward, gazing up into the gay, confident face with a slightly less wretched expression upon her own. Alda would help her; Alda knew exactly what to do.

“(Is he Oliver? How sweet.) Oh, just string him along. See as much of him as you can without making Phil furious——”

“He wants me to go back to London. He—he doesn’t like my being down here.”

“Yes, I could see that,” Alda muttered, beginning to fold up the children’s outdoor clothes.

“He says I’m buried here, and we could see so much more of each other in town. He can’t get away except at week-ends, of course, because of his job. He wants to me to go and live at an hotel——”

“Well, why don’t you?”

Jean stared at her.

“But, Alda, how can I? What would Phil say? I’m supposed to be going to his mother’s next week.”

“Say you’ve got to get your trousseau or you feel like a change or something.”

“He wouldn’t believe me.” Jean rested her head drearily upon her hands.

“He’d believe me quick enough; I wish I had the two of them to manage,” murmured Alda, bending over to raise the lamp wick, and the brighter glow shone upon her white throat and the slight smile of reminiscent mischief on her mouth. “I remember once when I was going about with Johnny Bradfield——”

“And there’s another thing,” burst out Jean unhappily, and her head sank lower into her hands, “—two other things really—I’m afraid Oliver may only want me for my money, and——”

“And what?”

“
He
may not be a Christian.”

“Oh really, J., how morbid!” cried Alda crossly; the last quality with which we associate Christianity is elegance, and Mr. P.’s clothes, his shoes, his very gadgets were so elegant that it seemed absurd to think of Mr. P. and Christianity in the same breath. One of the three writers whose books she loved and knew by heart was Jane Austen, and now, as she suddenly remembered the passage in
Sanditon
where another Mr. P.
catches
sight of the children’s bathing-shoes in the shop window and exclaims delightedly, “Civilisation! Civilisation!” she burst out laughing.

“He’s as good a Christian as anyone is nowadays, I expect,” she added, sobering.

“And how good is that?” without looking up.

“Oh—kind and honest, and all that sort of thing.”

“That isn’t everything, if—if you really do believe.”

“Oh, J.,” sighing exasperatedly. “As if you hadn’t enough to worry about! What’s come over you? You never used to be like this.”

“I know. It’s been coming on for years. And until I got engaged I was happier than I’d been for years, too, and now I’m wretched.”

Alda demanded bluntly: “Are you in love with Oliver?”

“Of
course
I am; I’m crazy about him; that’s what’s so awful. If I marry him I shall have to lead his sort of life, and perhaps get to hate him because he makes me lead it.”

“What sort of a life, for goodness’ sake? (here, have some more tea and don’t talk so loud; you’ll wake the children).”

Jean was silent. She wanted to speak of her experience in Sedley Church but she could not; the words would not come; she felt that her friend would never understand, and then, suddenly, as she sat there miserably sucking down tepid tea, she felt rebellious.

Why should she have to be worried about Phil and worried about Oliver and bothered about what was right and what was wrong? Some of those hours spent with Oliver had been deliciously happy, filled with the violin-notes that had lately been missing from her personal life. She was suddenly, strongly tempted to do what she wanted to do, and blow the rights and wrongs.

Alda had been watching her downcast face. She now Said more gently:

“Lots of husbands and wives don’t have the same religious
views.
You could have your beliefs (whatever they may be) and Mr. P. could have his. He could be what Ronald calls a Noble Pagan.
¹
Ronald’s one himself, as a matter of fact, but it doesn’t worry me. He lets me bring up the children as Christians; he think’s Christianity the best of all the religions, actually, only he’s too old to believe in it.”

“And what about Phil?” Jean said.

Alda had been so busy arranging the religion of Jean’s husband that she had forgotten Jean’s fiancé. But she knew just what to do. She said firmly:

“Drop him, J. You’ve always wanted your Mr. Potter and now you’ve practically got him. Don’t give Phil another thought.”

“But, Alda—I’ve taken his ring—and accepted him——”

“Oh, you can get out of it somehow. Keep out of his way. Go up to town to-morrow; I’ll make your excuses. You can write to him from there.”

Jean hesitated, staring down in silence at her hand, now bare of those dim little garnets. How tempting the suggestion was! By to-morrow evening she could be in a cool bedroom in a London hotel, with the muted roar of traffic rising from the streets below; she could be far away from the insistent, silent pressure of these woods and meads that forced her to see too clearly, to feel too deeply; she could be back in the world again, dressing to dine at the Dorchester with Oliver Potter.

She lifted her head and looked at Alda.

“You think I’d better marry Oliver, then?” she said.

“Of course I do, darling! Haven’t I made it clear? I
know
he’s just your type.”

“More than Phil?”

“Oh, J.! You are dumb! Of
course
. Why, Phil was only a stop-gap, a last chance, a—a
faute-de-mieux!
If Oliver wants you, for
mercy
’
s
sake snap him up while you’ve got the
chance
.”

Her face glowed and her eyes were bright in the lamplight,
her
voice was hushed because of her sleeping children, yet rang with an imperious, compelling note as she leant forward, resting her rounded arms and sturdy hands upon the table. Jean caught her mood; her wretched look vanished; she began to laugh unsteadily, and at last she said, blowing her nose:

“Oh, darling, I really believe you’re right! I’ll go.”