The Passionate Year (19 page)

He was speechless now, made so by a curious dignity with which she spoke
and the kindness to him that sounded in everything that she said. He was so
tired and sorry. He leaned his head in his arms and sobbed. Some tragedy that
had seemed to linger in the lamp-lit room ever since he had come into it out
of the fog, was now about his head blinding and crushing him; all the world
of Millstead, spread out in the panorama of days to come, appeared in a haze
of forlorn melancholy. The love that he had for Helen ached in him with a
sadness that was deeper now than it had ever been.

And then, suddenly, she was all about him, kneeling beside him, stroking
his hair, taking his hand and pressing it to her breast, crying softly and
without words.

He whispered, indistinctly: “Helen, Helen, it’s all right. Don’t you
worry, little Helen. I’m not quite well to-night, I think. It must be the
strain of all that concert work…But I’ll be all right when I’ve had a rest
for a little while…Helen, darling, you mustn’t cry about me like that!”

Then she said, proudly, though her voice still quivered: “I’m not
worrying, dear. And you’ll see Clare again soon, because I shall ask her to
come here. You’ve got to choose between us, and Clare shall have a fair
chance, anyway…And now come to bed and sleep.”

He gave her a smile that was more babyish than anything that she had ever
been or done. And with her calm answering smile the sadness seemed somehow a
little lifted.

He was in bed for three days with a temperature (but nothing
more serious); Howard, the School doctor, chaffed him unmercifully. “You’re a
lucky man, Speed, to be ill in bed with Mrs. Speed to nurse you! Better than
being up in the Sick-room, isn’t it?” Once the idea occurred to Speed that he
might be sickening for some infectious complaint, in which case he would be
taken away and isolated in the Sanatorium. When he half-hinted the
possibility of this to Howard, the latter said, laughing loudly: “You needn’t
worry, Speed. I know you don’t want to lose your pretty little nurse, do you?
I understand you, young man-I was your age once, you know.”

But the strange thing was that what Howard supposed Speed didn’t want was
just what he did want. He wanted to lose Helen for a little while. Not
because he didn’t love her. Not because of any reason which he could dare to
offer himself. Merely, he would admit, a whimsical desire to be without her
for a short time; it would, he thought, clutching hold of the excuse, save
her the work of attending to him. He could hardly. understand himself. But
the fact was, Helen saddened him. It was difficult to explain in detail; but
there was a kind of aura of melancholy which seemed to follow her about
wherever she went. In the short winter afternoons he lay awake watching her,
listening to the distant cheering on the footer pitches, sniffing the aroma
of tea that she was preparing for him; it was all so delicious and cosy, and
yet, in a curious, blinding way, it was all so sad. He felt he should slide
into madness if he were condemned to live all his days like these, with warm
fires and twilit meals and Helen always about him in attendance. He could not
understand why it was that though he loved her so dearly yet he should not be
perfectly happy with her.

How strange it was to lie there all day listening to all the sounds of
Millstead! He heard the School-bell ringing the end of every period, the
shouts of the boys at call-over, the hymns in the chapel—(his Senior
organ-pupil was deputising for him)-Burton locking up at night, the murmur of
gramophones in the prefects’ studies; and everything, it seemed to him, was
full of this same rich sadness. Then he reasoned with himself; the sadness
must be a part of him, since he saw and felt it in so many things and places.
It was unfair to blame Helen. Poor Helen, how kind she was to him, and how
unkindly he treated her in return! Sometimes he imagined himself a blackguard
and a cad, wrecking the happiness of the woman who would sacrifice everything
for his sake. Once (it was nearly dark, but the lamp had not yet been lit) he
called her to him and said, brokenly: “Helen, darling—Helen, I’m so
sorry.”

“Sorry for what, Kenneth?” she enquired naturally. And he thought and
pondered and could only add: “I don’t know—nothing in particular. I’m
just sorry, that’s all.” And once also he lashed himself into a fervour of
promises. “I
will
be kind to you, Helen, dearest. We
will
be
friends, we two. There’s nothing that anybody shall have of me that you
shan’t have also. I
do
want you to be happy, Helen.” And she
was
happy, then, happy and miserable at the same time; crying for joy
at the beautiful sadness of it all.

Those long days and nights! The wind howled up from the fenlands and
whiffed through the ivy on the walls; the skies were grey and desolate, the
quadrangle a waste of dingy green. It was the time of the terminal
House-Matches, and when Milner’s beat School House in the Semi-Final the
cheering throng passed right under Speed’s window, yelling at the tops of
their voices and swinging deafening rattles. In a few days Milner’s would
play Lavery’s in the Final, and he hoped to be up by then and able to watch
it.

Of course, he had visitors. Clanwell came and gave him endless chatter
about the House-Matches; a few of the less influential prefects paid him a
perfunctory visit of condolence and hoped he would soon be all right again.
And then Doctor and Mrs. Ervine. “Howard tells me it is
nothing—um—to be—um, er, perturbed about. Just, to use
an—um—colloquialism, run down, eh, Speed? The strain of
the—um—concert must have been quite—um—considerable.
By the way, Speed, I ought to congratulate you—the whole evening passed
in the most—um, yes-the most satisfactory manner.” And Mrs. Ervine
said, in her rather tart way: “It’s quite a mercy they only come once a year,
or we should all be dead very soon, I think.”

And Clare.

Helen had kept her promise. She had written to Clare asking her to tea on
a certain afternoon, and she had also contrived that when Clare came she
should be transacting important and rather lengthy business with the Matron.
The result was that Speed, now in his sitting-room though still not allowed
out of doors, was there alone to welcome her.

He had got into such a curious state of excitement as the time neared for
her arrival that when she did come he was almost speechless. She smiled and
shook hands with him and said, immediately: “I’m so sorry to hear you haven’t
been very well. I feel partly responsible, since I dragged you all that way
in the fog the other night. But I’m not going to waste too much pity on you,
because I think you waste quite enough on yourself, don’t you?”

He laughed weakly and said that perhaps he did.

Then there was a long pause which she broke by saying suddenly: “What’s
the matter with you?”

“Matter with me? Oh, nothing serious—only a chill—”

“That’s not what I mean. I want to know what’s the matter with you that
makes you look at me as you were doing just then.”

“I—I-I didn’t know I was. I—I—”

He stopped. What on earth were they going to talk about? And what
was
this look that he had been giving her? He felt his cheeks burning;
a fire rising up all around him and bathing his body in warmth.

She said, obviously with the desire to change the subject: “What are you
and Helen going to do at Christmas?”

Pulling himself together with an effort, he replied: “Well, we’re not
certain yet. My—er—my people have asked us down to their
place.”

“And of course you’ll go.”

“I’m not certain.”

“But why not?”

He paused. “Well, you see—in a way, it’s a private reason. I
mean—”

“Oh, well, if it’s a private reason, you certainly mustn’t tell me. Let’s
change the subject again. How are the House-Matches going?”

“Look here, I didn’t mean to be rude. And I
do
want to tell you, as
it happens. In fact, I wouldn’t mind your advice if you’d give it me. Will
you?”

“Better put the case before me first.”

“Well, you see, it’s like this.” He was so desperately and unaccountably
nervous that he found himself plunging into the midst of his story almost
before he realised what he was doing. “You see, my people were in Australia
for a holiday when I married Helen. I had to marry her quickly, you remember,
because of taking this housemastership. And I don’t think they quite liked me
marrying somebody they’d never seen.”

“Perfectly natural on their part, my dear man. You may as well admit that
much of their case to start with.”

“Yes, I suppose it is rather natural. But you don’t know what my people
are like. I don’t think they’ll care for Helen very much. And Helen is bound
to be nervous at meeting them. I expect we should have a pretty miserable
Christmas if we went.”

“I should think in your present mood you’d have a pretty miserable
Christmas whatever you did. And since you asked for my advice I’ll give it
you. Buck yourself up; don’t let your imagination carry you away; and take
Helen to see your people. After all, she’s perfectly presentable, and since
you’ve married her there’s nothing to be gained by keeping her out of their
sight, is there? Don’t think I’m callous and unfeeling because I take a more
practical view of things than you do. I’m a practical person, you see, Mr.
Speed, and if
I
had married you I should insist on being taken to see
your people at the earliest possible opportunity.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she answered, “I should be anxious for them to see what an
excellent choice you’d made.”

That was thoughtlessly said and thoughtfully heard. After a pause Speed
said, curiously: “That brings one to the question—supposing I had
married you,
should
I have made an excellent choice?”

With a touch of surprise and coldness she replied:

“That wasn’t in my mind, Mr. Speed. You evidently misunderstood me.”

And at this point Helen came into the room.

During that strange twilight hour while the three of them
were tea-drinking and conducting a rather limp conversation about local
matters, Speed came suddenly to the decision that he would not see Clare
again. Partly, perhaps, because her last remark just before Helen entered had
hurt him; he felt that she had deliberately led him into a position from
which she could and did administer a stinging snub. But chiefly his decision
was due to a careful and pitiful observation of Helen; he saw her in a
dazzling white light of admiration, for she was deliberately (he could see)
torturing herself to please him. She was acutely jealous of Clare, and yet,
because she thought he liked Clare, she was willing to give her open
hospitality and encouragement, despite the stab that every word and gesture
must mean to her. It reminded him of Hans Andersen’s story about the mermaid
who danced to please her lover-prince even though each step cost her agonies.
The pathos of it, made more apparent to him by the literary comparison,
overwhelmed him into a blind fervour of resolution: he would do everything in
his power to bring happiness to one who was capable of such love and such
nobility. And as Helen thus swung into the focus of his heroine-worship, so
Clare, without his realising it, took up in his mind the other inevitable
position in the triangle; she was something, at least, of the adventuress,
scheming to lure his affections away from his brave little wife. The fact
that he was not conscious of this conventional outlook upon the situation
prevented his reason from assuring him that Clare, so far from scheming to
lure his affections from Helen, had just snubbed him unmercifully for a
remark which any capable adventuress would have rejoiced over.

Anyway, he decided there and then, he would put a stop to this tangled and
uncomfortable situation. And after tea, when Helen, on a pretext which he
knew quite well to be a fabrication, left him alone again with Clare, he
could think of no better method of procedure than a straightforward
request.

So he summed up the necessary determination to begin: “Miss Harrington, I
hope you won’t be offended at what I’m going to say—”

Whereat she interrupted: “Oh, I don’t often take offence at what people
say
. So please don’t be frightened.”

“You see…” He paused, watching her. He noticed, curiously enough for the
first time, that she was—well, not perhaps pretty, but
certainly—in a way-attractive. In the firelight especially, she seemed
to have the most searching and diabolically disturbing eyes. They made him
nervous. At last he continued: “You see, I’m in somewhat of a dilemma. A
quandary, as it were. In fact—in fact I—”

“Supposing we use our ordinary English language and say that you’re in a
mess, eh? ‘Quandary’! ‘Dilemma’!” She laughed with slight contempt.

“I don’t—I don’t quite see the point of—of
your—objection,” he said, staring at her with a certain’ puzzled
ruefulness. “What has my choice of a word got to do with it?”

“To do with what?” she replied, instantly.

“With what—with what we’re going to talk about.”

“Since I haven’t the faintest idea what we’re going to talk about, how can
I say?”

“Look here!” He got up out of his chair and stood with his back to the
fire. He kept a fretful silence for a moment and then said, with a sharp
burst of exasperation: “Look here, I don’t know what you’re driving at! I
only know that you’re being most infernally rude!”

“Don’t forget that a moment ago you were asking me not to take
offence.”

“You’re damned clever, aren’t you?” he almost snarled.

That was all he could think of in the way of an answer to her. He stood
there swaying lightly in front of the fire, nursing, as it were, his angry
bafflement.

“Thank you,” she replied. “I regard that as a very high attribute. And I’m
nearly as pleased at one other thing-I seem to have shaken you partly out of
your delightful and infuriating urbanity…But now, we’re not here to
compliment each other. You’ve got something you want to say to me, haven’t
you?”