Читать книгу Captain Nicholas - Hugh Walpole - Страница 9

Table of Contents

He had thought that by this time he knew his character pretty well. He was not lascivious, he was not light-minded, he hated to do anything that could bring unhappiness to others. But this, although he went over it again and again in his mind, recalling the minutest details, sparing himself no accusations, examining it from every conceivable angle, he could not understand at all.

He had never been unfaithful to his wife before, he had never conceived it possible that in any circumstances he could be unfaithful to her. He was not a prude and was exceedingly tolerant to his fellow men. He did not believe himself to be of any exceptional moral strength of character, but, because he loved and admired his wife so truly, it seemed to him incredible that he could ever have relations with any other woman.

Christine Bell was in no way an exceptional woman. She was thirty-two years of age and had had, he knew, other lovers before himself. She had an easy, agreeable, friendly nature, but she was not intelligent or cultured. She had certainly at first been physically in love with him, but after some six weeks of their intimacy he fancied that she considered him as an older genial friend who was kind to her because he had a fancy for her. He was indeed kind to her. For some while he was like a man submerged in fiery and tempestuous waters. It was like that, as though he were living under water in some strange world where nature was changed, where houses were temples of coral, streets were paved with mother-of-pearl, and a dim green light shivered always in front of his eyes. And with this a fiery heat, so that his eyes burnt, his throat was parched, his hands were dry. A pitiful state for a man of his age! But he did not feel it to be pitiful. For some while he was in a condition of eager and excited exaltation. He considered no consequences, he wrote her passionate and foolish letters, he gave her extravagant presents, for which, to do her justice, she appeared to care very little.

Looking back, it was extraordinary to him that no one, during those weeks, noticed anything, but it happened that, at the end of January, Fanny, who had not been well, went with Nell on a cruise to the West Indies. It was, indeed, the consciousness, early in March, that she would soon be returning that woke him from his dream.

It was as though an enchantment had been placed on him and then as suddenly withdrawn. One evening, talking to Christine quietly in the little flat in Chelsea where she lived, he saw her as she was. He saw that she was a kind, ordinary, good-natured, commonplace woman and that he was in love with her no longer.

She, of course, saw it as quickly as he did and bore him no kind of resentment. She also was not in love with him. It seemed to her quite natural that these episodes should be bright, swift, and ephemeral. She had had a pleasant time, she had given him everything that he wanted, but he was not a sensual man and the permanent things that he wanted from a woman she could not possibly give him. She did not want to give them to him, for his passion, while it lasted, had seemed to her rather ridiculous. She thought of him as his children did—that he was a dear old thing, but—on the whole, for a continued affair, she preferred someone younger. This episode had not appeared to her in any way extraordinary as it did to him. They had both enjoyed their hours together, and she wished him all the luck in the world.

This afternoon he was going to see her for the last time.

As he walked along the King’s Road—he had taken the underground from Westminster to Sloane Square—he was accompanied, it seemed, by a stranger, the man who had felt that crazy and fanatical obsession. He was on no terms any longer with that stranger, or on terms with him only enough to resent him.

This man whom he had once known was no companion of his any longer, but the effect of his company remained.

He turned down Manor Street by the Town Hall and, almost at the river end, arrived at a forbidding building with the appearance of a bishop whose countenance is noble but betrays private stomach trouble. There was grandeur everywhere, but it was a flaky, streaky grandeur; statues at intervals, but statues with peeling noses, wreaths of stone leaves and flowers soiled with bird droppings, and on the steps small fragments of newspaper that rustled and fluttered against the stone like live things.

He went inside, pushed the starting knob of the lift, and on the third floor found a door with a visiting card, a little grubby, inserted above the unpolished door handle. “Miss Christine Bell” it read.

She opened the door to him and, when the door was closed, they kissed as they always did, but he did not put his arms round her nor did she wish him to do so.

In the sitting room, which had a yellow wall paper, a large bright green pouf in front of the gas fire, and two very silent canaries in a cage by the window, they sat one on either side of the pettish little fire which went, every once and again, “Put—Put—Put” in accents of irritable discontent. The rain began to beat against the windowpane, and suddenly one of the canaries uttered an excited, emotional little chirp as though it said, “Well, here’s some life at last! Here’s something to be thankful for!”

Christine did not pretend to be anything but weary. She had had an awful morning in the shop. This was her half-day, and didn’t she need it! “The women were too frightful. All their nerves seemed to be on edge—especially that dreadful old Lady Hadden. She didn’t know what she wanted. The narcissus was faded, although I told her it had come straight up from the country that same morning, and the white lilac was monstrously dear, which it isn’t, and so on and so on. I could have smacked her old strawberry face, really I could, and there we have to stand, smiling and smiling. Oh, well, it’s all in the day’s work, I suppose.” She lifted her eyes to his. She was wearing a grey frock and was almost, except for a little rouge on her lips, a shadow against the wall with her pale hair, her thin form, her long slender hands.

She was, perhaps, a shadow. These last months had been a dream; he had been in love with a ghost. And she looked at him, thinking more than ever that he was “a dear old thing.” He was clumsy as a lover and absurd when he was passionate. She did not want him ever to touch her again, but she was very sorry that this was the last time that she would see his face, for he had one of the kindest, best-natured countenances in the world. It was his face really that she had fallen in love with, that she was even a little bit in love with still. She liked it when he was puzzled with something and wrinkled his eyebrows. She liked the good-natured crow’s-feet that were marked near his eyes when he laughed. She liked his direct and honest gaze. Oh, he was a good man, and really this kind of thing wasn’t his game at all. It was much better that it should end, especially as he loved his wife and his wife loved him. She wasn’t one for breaking up married happiness. There wasn’t so much of it about as all that.

She smiled at him and said:

“Here I am idling and you wanting your tea.”

“Let me help,” he said.

“Oh, no, you stay where you are.”

When she came back with the tea he thought: “How well she does this! She ought to be married! It’s a shame.”

They talked of anything but the real thing. He told her of Nicholas’s arrival.

“Not written to you for ten years!” she cried. “Looks as though he was making use of you, if you ask me.”

“I don’t know. He’s not like other men. He lives from hand to mouth—he always has. I wasn’t overpleased when I heard that he’d come, but now that he’s there he’s very charming, you know. He’s got endless stories and is always in a good temper. My wife’s delighted——” He stopped. He’d better come to the point, finish with it, and go.

“I’m terribly sorry this is the last visit,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “So am I. I’m very fond of you—I didn’t know how much until today.”

She got up and kissed him on the forehead. Then she went to a shabby imitation Queen Anne writing desk and from a drawer produced a bundle of letters.

“Here they all are,” she said, giving them to him. “Every one of them. Every scrap. I’d like to keep them, of course—a sort of consolation in my old age.” She laughed. “But it’s wiser not. If you take my advice, Charlie, you’ll burn the lot.”

“I will.” He didn’t look at them.

She was an extremely honest woman. He knew that he could trust her.

“I haven’t kept them all. There was one—oh, well, you know—after we had known one another about a week. I thought that really was risky. I burnt it.”

“Thank you.” He looked at her with gratitude and great liking. “There’s only one thing makes me a little uneasy. There was one night—I was lonely, I missed you—I couldn’t sleep and I got up and put on my dressing gown and wrote to you. It was the sort of letter you’d call silly—the sort you were always telling me not to write. I put it in an envelope and meant to post it in the morning. And then—do you remember?—when I saw you two days later you said you’d never had it—I’ve never known what I did with it. I should hate anyone to see it.”

“Well, you are a silly! The way married men behave always beats me. Think of all the unhappiness there might be! And I hate people to be unhappy.”

“Yes, I know. As a matter of fact I think I must have posted it and for once the post went wrong. It doesn’t often, does it?”

He paused, hesitated, then went on:

“Look here, Christine. This is a bit difficult to say. But although we aren’t going to meet again I’m awfully fond of you—I admire you so much. And then of course I’ll never forget what’s happened. And you’ve been so good——” He stopped, stammering, while she watched him with amused, maternal eyes. As she said nothing, he went on:

“What I mean is—I wish you’d let me do something for you, something that will really help you. I want to——”

“I know,” she broke in. “I understand. But it’s all right. Don’t you worry. I’m fine. If ever I’m in a hole I’ll let you know. I promise I will. But I don’t want to be dependent on anyone. You’ve been awfully good and generous to me. You’re the kindest man I’ve ever known, the best-hearted. Really, you are. I don’t want a thing, thanks very much. I’d rather not, really.”

They had never been better friends than at this moment, never understood one another more completely.

She went on: “You know, Charlie, I’ve often wondered what you think of me—what you think I am, I mean. You’re a simple soul in lots of ways, and I’ll tell you one thing—you don’t know much about women. You men who are devoted to your wives, you don’t know anything about women at all. Really, you don’t. Not even about your wife. When you’re as devoted to a woman as all that, you don’t see her as she is, not a bit. You think you do, of course. Now I know a lot about men. I like men, and you don’t really like women. You sort of despise them, really. But I’ve known all sorts of men—bad, good, and indifferent. Oh, I’ve known some bad ones all right. I like being kind to men, poor things. They’re so sentimental. What they want is to have the physical excitement and all the fine feelings—all going on together for evermore. And of course it doesn’t, and when the physical excitement’s over the fine feelings are over, too. And they’re lost and bewildered, poor dears. Can’t think what’s happened. That’s the nice ones, of course. As to the rotters—I know how to deal with them all right. But I’ve never taken a penny from a man and I never will. I’ve simply given a man a good time if he’s wanted it and if I liked him. And one day perhaps the real right man will come along—the sort a woman’s always dreaming of. But by that time I’ll be too old. Oh, well, there’s always a dog or a cat you can look after. I don’t worry.”

She smiled.

“Of course I knew this wouldn’t last. And a good thing it hasn’t, too. Your wife must be a dear from what you say. I wouldn’t hurt her for the world.”

“It’s the last flash of my youth,” Charles said. “It will never happen again. I don’t want it to. You were right there, Christine. I’m not the sort of man who can be happy leading two lives at once. If you hadn’t been such a good sort I might have made a mess of it. And if I thought I’d done you any harm——”

She laughed at that.

“Done me any harm? Why, I’ve had all the fun. You’ve been sweet to me, Charlie. I’ll never forget it. If you were single we’d go on being friends for ever and ever. But as it is it’s better this way.”

They stood together for a little, his arm round her waist, in front of the sputtering fire. They embraced, and she stroked his cheek with her hand. “You always shave so beautifully. You’re so clean and you smell so nice, and your hair’s strong and wiry. You’re awfully strong really, aren’t you? And I like your eyes best of anyone’s.”

She kissed him on the mouth. Then she pushed him to the door.

“There’s your hat and coat. Funny! I know that coat so well and I’ll never see it again. You’d better go or I’ll make a fool of myself.”

He went out.

In the King’s Road he found that he was a little unsteady on his feet. A cold wind was blowing, driving the flares on the barrows into wild tongues of flame, and the bright cinema on the opposite side of the road, its poster of Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler splashing the dark wall with colour, seemed to him to be also a little unsteady, as though at any moment the twinkling lights might run down in flaming streams and flood the pavement with liquid fire.

It was so cold that he turned up the collar of his overcoat. And only yesterday there had been that wonderful spring evening! He had smelt flowers in the air.

London is suddenly dangerous. Every vehicle threatens you, and the houses shake their chimneys above your defenseless head. London can be dangerous, but only because some virtue has gone out of yourself. Virtue had gone now out of Charles. The episode was ended. He would never see Christine again. No harm had been done to anyone. No harm could come.... And yet for the first time since it began he was apprehensive. He had a strange fear that he would not get home to Fanny safely. For the first time he felt that he had done something shabby. But why? Christine was none the worse, he was none the worse, Fanny was none the worse. And yet there was some shabbiness somewhere, some concealed disgust.

His heart ached for Fanny. Like so many husbands returning to their good wives after an act of which they are ashamed, he wanted to do something for her, to give her things, to love her and make a fuss of her....

Her goodness, kindness, generosity, simpleness of heart—he didn’t deserve them, he took them for granted. He would remember in the future that he could not make enough of her. But the spring evening was gone. Buried in the underground, he could fancy the wind screaming overhead. The women and the men, tightly packed in despondent rows, looked wind-blown. At Westminster he got out of the train as though he expected someone to stab him in the back.

But no, it was only Frobisher, who got out at the same time. Frobisher was thin and bald and a little chilly in spirit, but that was because Mrs. Frobisher—who was warm and eager and never stopped talking—adored Frobisher so dearly that she had taken his soul into her keeping, so that Frobisher was a shell, a husk, poor man. But he didn’t know it. He believed in his wife’s estimate.

“Hullo, Carlisle!”

“Hullo, Frobisher!”

“Very cold wind.”

“Yes, isn’t it? After that glorious day yesterday. How’s the painting?”

“Mustn’t complain. Got to go up north tomorrow to paint a mayoress.”

“Wife going with you?”

“Of course. We don’t like to be separated, you know.”

They parted.

Charles found his wife in her bedroom. He put his arms round her and held her close to him as though he hadn’t seen her for months. Fanny was a girl, a child. He was her father and lover and husband and son.

They talked a little, sitting on the edge of the bed, her hand on his shoulder.

“Well, I must go down and see that Edward’s all right,” she said. She kissed him. “There’s one thing. Grace gave me some change yesterday—for those towels. Do you remember? We were all together having tea, and she put it on one of the tables. I know I picked it up—it was some loose silver—but what I did with it I can’t imagine.”

“Never mind. I’ll give you some more.”

“Oh, it isn’t that! But what can I have done with it?”

“How’s Nicholas?”

“All right, I think. The house feels quite different. He’s so jolly and friendly with everyone. But that’s a funny little girl. She never speaks.”

“She’s shy yet,” said Charles. “Edward will do her good.” And then at the thought that he’d got Fanny safely, that they were together now, that he had no secret any longer, he caught her face in his hands, looked into her eyes and kissed them.

She was terribly pleased, and very readily those same eyes filled with tears.

“Why, Charles, whatever is the matter?”

“Nothing—only I love you.”

“Well, that’s no news,” she said, laughing, and went to Edward.