Time of Hope (41 page)

The street was deserted, At last – in an instant when I turned my eyes away – her window had clicked into darkness. Relief poured through me, inordinate, inexpressible relief. I turned away; and I was drowsing in the taxi before I got home.

For days in Chambers I was driven, as violently as I had been that night. Writing an opinion, I could not keep my thoughts still. At a conference, I heard my leader talk, I heard the clients inquiring – between them and me were images of Sheila, images of the flesh, the images that tormented my senses and turned jealousy into a drill within the brain. And in the January nights I was driven to walk the length of Worcester Street, back and forth, hypnotized by the lighted window; it was an obsession, it was a mania, but I could not keep myself away.

One night, in the tube station at Hyde Park Corner, I imagined that I saw her in the crowd. There was a thin young man, of whom I only saw the back, and a woman beside him. She was singing to herself. Was it she? They mounted a train in the rush, I could not see, the doors slid to.

Soon afterwards – it was inside a week since she broke her news – the telephone rang at my lodgings. The landlady shouted my name, and I went downstairs. The telephone stood out in the open, on a table in the hall. I heard Sheila’s voice: ‘How are you?’

I muttered.

‘I want to know: how are you, physically?’

I had scarcely thought of my health. I had been acting as though I were tireless. I said that I was all right, and asked after her.

‘I’m
very
well.’ Her voice was unusually full. There was a silence, then she asked: ‘When am I going to see you?’

‘When you like.’

‘Come here tonight. You can take me out if you like.’

Once more an answer broke out.

‘Shall you be alone?’ I said.

‘Yes.’ In the telephone the word was clear; I could hear neither gloating nor compassion.

When I entered her room that evening she was dressed to dine out, in a red evening frock. Since I had begun to earn money, we had taken to an occasional treat. It was the chief difference in my way of life, for I had not changed my flat, and still lived as though in transit. She let me do it; she knew that I had my streak of childish ostentation, and that it flattered me to entertain her as the Marches might have done. For herself, she would have preferred our old places in Soho and round Charlotte Street; but, to indulge me, she would dress up and go to fashionable restaurants, as she had herself proposed that night.

She was bright-eyed and smiling. Before we went out, however, she said in a quiet voice: ‘Why did you ask whether I should be alone?’

‘You know.’

‘You’re thinking’, she said, her eyes fixed on me, ‘of what I did to you once? At the Edens’ that night – with poor Tom Devitt?’

I did not reply.

‘I shan’t do that again,’ she said. She added: ‘I’ve treated you badly. I don’t need telling it.’

She walked into the restaurant at the Berkeley with me behind her. Just then, at twenty-five, she was at the peak of her beauty. For a young girl, her face had been too hard, lined, and over-vivid. And I often thought, trying to see the future, that long before she was middle-aged her looks would be ravaged. But now she was at the age which chimed with her style. That night, as she walked across the restaurant, all eyes followed her, and a hush fell. She made the conversation. Each word she said was light with her happiness, more than ever capricious and sarcastic. Sometimes she drew a smile, despite myself. Then, in the middle of the meal, she leaned across the table, her eyes full on me, and said, quietly and simply: ‘You can do something for me.’

‘What?’

‘Will you?’ she begged.

I stared at her.

‘You can be some good to me,’ she said.

‘What do you want?’

She said: ‘I want you to see Hugh.’

‘I can’t do it,’ I burst out.

‘It might help me,’ she said.

My eyes could not leave hers.

‘You’re more realistic than I am,’ she said. ‘I want you to tell me what he feels about me. I don’t know whether he loves me.’

‘What do you think I am?’ I cried, and violent words were quivering behind my lips.

‘I trust you,’ she said. ‘You’re the only human being I’ve ever trusted.’

There was silence. She said ‘There is no one else to ask. No one else would be worth asking.’

In exhaustion, I replied at last: ‘All right. I’ll see him.’

She was docile with delight. When could I manage it? She would arrange any time I liked. ‘I’m very dutiful to Hugh,’ she said, ‘but I shall make him come – whenever you can manage it.’ What about that very night? She could telephone him, and bring him to her room. Would I mind, that night?

‘It’s as good as any other,’ I said.

She rang up. We drove back to Worcester Street. In the taxi I said little, and I was as sombre while we sat in her room and waited.

‘He’s highly strung,’ she said. ‘He may be nervous of you.’

A car passed along the street, coming nearer, and I listened. Sheila shook her head.

‘No,’ she said. ‘He’ll come by bus.’ She asked: ‘Shall I play a record?’

‘If you like.’

She grimaced, and began to search in her shelf. As she did so, there pattered a light step down below. ‘Here he is,’ she said.

He came in with a smile, quick and apologetic. Sheila and I were each standing, and for a second he threw an arm round her waist. Then he faced me, as she introduced us.

‘Lewis, this is Hugh Smith.’

He was as tall as me, but much slighter. His neck was thin and his chest sunken. He was very fair. His upper lip was petulant and vain, but when he smiled his whole face was merry, boyish, and sweet. He looked much younger than his years, much younger than either Sheila or me.

He was taken up with Sheila’s dress.

‘I’ve not seen you in that before, have I?’ he said. ‘Yes, it’s very very nice. Let me see. Is it quite right at the back–?’ he went on with couturier’s prattle.

Sheila laughed at him.

‘You’re much more interested than my dressmaker,’ she said.

Hugh appealed to me: ‘Aren’t you interested in clothes?’

His manner was so open that I was disarmed.

He went on talking about clothes, and music, and the plays we had seen. Nothing could have been lighter-hearted, more suited to a polite party. She made fun of him, more gentle fun than I was used to. I asked a question about his job, and he took at once to the defensive; I gave it up, and he got back to concerts again. Nothing could have been more civilized.

I was watching them together. I was watching them with a desperate attention, more concentrated than I had ever summoned and held in all my life before. Around them there was no breath of the heaviness and violence of a passion. It was too friendly, too airy, too kind, for that. Towards him she showed a playful ease which warmed her voice and set her free. When she turned to him, even the line of her profile seemed less sharp. It was an ease that did not carry the deep repose of violent love; it was an ease that was full of teasing, half-kittenish and half-maternal. I had never seen her so for longer than a flash.

I could not be sure of what he felt for her. He was fond of her, was captivated by her charm, admired her beauty, liked her high spirits – that all meant little. I thought that he was flattered by her love. He was conceited as well as vain. He lapped up all the tributes of love. He was selfish; very amiable; easily frightened, easily overweighted, easily overborne.

Sheila announced that she was going to bed. She wanted Hugh and me, I knew, to leave together, so that I could talk to him. It was past midnight; the last buses had gone; he and I started to walk towards Victoria. It was a crisp frosty night, the black sky glittering with stars.

On the pavement in Lupus Street, he spoke, as though for safety, of the places we lived in and how much we paid for our flats. He was apprehensive of the enmity not yet brought into the open that night. He was searching for casual words that would hurry the minutes along. I would have welcomed it so. But I was too far gone. I interrupted ‘How long have you known her?’

‘Six months.’

‘I’ve known her six years.’

‘That’s a long time,’ said Hugh, and once more tried to break on to safe ground. We had turned into Belgrave Road.

I did not answer his question, but asked: ‘Do you understand her?’

His eyes flickered at me, and then away.

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

‘Do you understand her?’

‘She’s intelligent, isn’t she? Don’t you think she is?’ He seemed to be probing round for answers that would please me.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I think she’s very sweet. She is sweet in her way, isn’t she?’

Our steps rang in the empty frost-bound street.

‘She’s not much like the other girls I’ve known!’ he ventured. He added with his merry childlike smile: ‘But I expect she wants the same things in the end. They all do, don’t they?’

‘I expect so.’

‘They want you to persuade them into bed. Then they want you to marry them.’

I said: ‘Do you want to marry her?’

‘I think I’d like to settle down, wouldn’t you?’ he said. ‘And she can be very sweet, can’t she?’ He added: ‘I’ve always got out of it before. I suppose she’s a bit of a proposition. Somehow I think it might be a good idea.’

The lights of the empty road stretched ahead, the lights under the black sky.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I’m frightfully sorry if I’ve been poaching. I am sorry if I’ve got in your way. These things can’t be helped, though, can they?’

For minutes the lights, the sky, had seemed shatteringly bright, reelingly dark, as though I were dead drunk.

Suddenly my mind leapt clear.

‘I should like to talk about that,’ I said. ‘Not tonight. Tomorrow or the next day.’

‘There isn’t much to talk about, is there?’ he said, again on the defensive.

‘I want to say some things to you.’

‘I don’t see that it’ll do much good, you know,’ he replied.

‘It’s got to be done,’ I said.

‘I’m rather full up this week–’

‘It can’t be left,’ I said.

‘Oh, if you want,’ he gave way, with a trace of petulance. Before we parted, we arranged to meet. He was shy of the place and time, but I made him promise – my flat, not tomorrow but the evening after.

The fire was out when I returned to my room. I did not think of sleep, and I did not notice the cold. Still in my overcoat, I sat on the head of the sofa, smoking.

I stayed without moving for many minutes. My thoughts were clear. They had never seemed so clear. I believed that this man was right for her. Or at least with him she might get an unexacting happiness. Knowing her with the insight of passionate love, I believed that I saw the truth. He was lightweight, but somehow his presence made her innocent and free. Her best chance was to marry him.

Would he marry her? He was wavering. He could be forced either way. He was selfish, but this time he did not know exactly what he wanted for himself. He had made love to her, but was not physically bound. She had little hold on him; yet he was thinking of her as his wife. He was irresolute. He was waiting to be told what to do.

Thinking back on that night, as I did so often afterwards, I had to remember one thing. It was easy to forget, but in fact many of my thoughts were still protective. Her best chance was to marry him. I thought of how I could persuade him, the arguments to use, the feelings to play on. Did he know that she would one day be rich? Would he not be flattered by my desire to have her at any price, would not my competition raise her value? I imagined her married to him, light and playful as she had been that night. It was a sacrificial, tender thought.

If I played it right, my passion to marry her would spur him on.

Yes. Her best chance was to marry him. I believed that I could decide it. I could bring it off – or destroy it.

With the cruellest sense of power I had ever known, I thought that I could destroy it.

I had two days to wait. Throughout that time, wherever I was, to whomever I was speaking, I had my mind fixed, my whole spirit and body, bone and flesh and brain, on the hour to come. The sense of power ran through my bloodstream. As I prepared for the scene, my thoughts stayed clear. Underneath the thoughts, I was exultant. Each memory of the past, each hope and resolve remaining – they were at one. All that I was, fused into the cruel exultation.

I went into Chambers each of those mornings, but only for an hour. I conferred with Percy. On Thursday we were to hear judgement in an adjourned case: that would be the morning after Hugh’s visit, I thought, as Percy and I methodically arranged my timetable. February would be a busy month.

‘They’re coming in nicely,’ said Percy.

Those two days were cold and wet, but I did not stay long in Chambers or in my room. I was not impatient, but I was active. It was a pleasure to jostle in the crowds. My mind was planning, and at the same time I breathed in the wet reek of Covent Garden, the whispers of a couple behind me at the cinema, the grotesque play of an enraged and pompous woman’s face.

I did not hurry over my tea on the second day. He was due at half past six; I had to buy a bottle of whisky on the way home, but there was time enough. I had been sitting about in cafés most of that afternoon, drinking tea and reading the evening papers. Before I set off for home, I bought the latest edition and read it through. As people came into the café their coats were heavy with the rain, and at the door men poured trickles of water from their hat-brims.

When I reached my door the rain had slackened, but I was very wet. I had to change; and as I did so I thought with sarcastic tenderness of the first occasion that I arrived at Sheila’s house. In the mirror I saw myself smiling. Then I got ready for Hugh’s visit. I made up the fire. I had not yet drawn the blinds, and the reflections of the flames began to dance behind the window panes. I put the bottle of whisky and a jug of water and glasses on the table, and opened a box of cigarettes. Then at last I pulled down the blinds and shut the room in.