Читать книгу The Middle of the Road - Philip Gibbs - Страница 13

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Joyce had gone out to a dance, leaving Bertram alone to write his book. She had made him a fair offer to come with her, telling him that it was his own fault if she had to rely on other company as an escape from boredom.

“What company?” he asked, and looked up sharply from his papers.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Some of the usual. The two Russian girls and Jack Hazeldeane, Kenneth.”

Bertram pushed his papers on one side.

“What’s the use of my coming? The two Russian girls bore me to death with their tales of the old régime and stories of Bolshevik atrocities. And I hate to see you dancing with Kenneth. He dances like an amorous ballet master. Besides—”

“Besides what—?”

“If there’s any dancing to be done, it’s I that want to dance with you.”

“All the time, Bertram?” She smiled at his greed.

“Yes. You’re my wife.”

His damnable jealousy had got the better of him again.

“Not your property, my dear!” said Joyce.

“Not other people’s property,” grumbled Bertram. “I’m old-fashioned enough to object to your doing that jazz stuff with any fellow who likes to put his arms round you. It’s disgusting.”

“It’s you that are disgusting!” said Joyce.

Her face flamed with sudden anger, and Bertram saw the steel glint in her eyes. She was standing by the doorway in her evening frock, a thing of blue silk, showing her white neck and bare arms. The light of the electric candles on his desk played with her gold-spun hair. Bertram loved the look of her, and yet knew that temper was creeping up into his brain because he could not stop her from dancing with a man he loathed, nor hold her to himself alone, nor get from her the absolute love he desired, hungrily.

“That’s not a good word from any wife to any husband,” he said, heatedly.

“Your word!”

She laughed and lingered at the door, looking at her husband with a queer, half-scornful, half-enticing smile which he did not see because he was staring at his papers. There was even a little pity in her eyes.

“Better come! That book of yours is getting on your nerves.”

“It interests me,” said Bertram.

“I know I shall hate it anyhow. I want to forget the silly old war.”

“Everybody wants to forget it,” said Bertram, with a touch of passion in his voice. “The Profiteers, the Old Men who ordered the massacre, the politicians who spoilt the Peace, the painted flappers. I’m damned if I’m going to let them!”

“Painted flappers?” said Joyce. “Meaning me?”

“Not meaning you,” he answered.

“Thanks for that!”

She left the room, and Bertram heard Edith say the taxi was waiting. He rose and made a step towards the door, as though to join her after all. He wanted to go, in spite of Kenneth and the Russian girls. He wanted Joyce’s beauty, though he would have to share it with her friends. But it was too late. The door had clicked behind her, and he heard the taxi-cab drive away.

He was too rough with Joyce. Why shouldn’t she dance with other men? Was it some strain of his father in him that made him hate it so—his father’s harshness and intolerance. Or was it the passion of his love which Joyce seemed to deny him—did deny him—after the death of her baby? She did not respond to his endearments, and made no disguise of her dislike of his caresses. Or was this constant wrangling between them—becoming rather serious at times—due to an intellectual challenge between their different points of view—her patrician philosophy of life, his democratic leanings? Anyhow, it was all very difficult. He would have to be more careful, get a better grip on himself, rise to more selfless heights of love, if need be, and if possible, make a sacrifice of his very passion for Joyce’s sake. It was all very difficult!

He constrained himself to get to his writing again, now that he had refused her offer of companionship. Soon he lost himself in his task, glad of the swift flow of his pen and his savage strokes. It was strong stuff. It was a bitter indictment of the stupidities, the blunders, the unnecessary slaughter of men, which he had cursed in time of war because his own men had been the victims, with the others. Those orders from Corps Headquarters! Inconceivable! Unbelievable in their imbecility!

He had written for several hours, utterly absorbed, when he heard the electric bell ringing in the hall. Joyce back already? Hardly. The clock said midnight, and she was not back then, as a rule, from one of her dances. Edith had gone to bed, as Joyce had taken a key. He would have to open the door. Confound it! Who on earth—

It was Susan, his sister, and she had a man with her, standing back a little behind her in the darkness of the porch. She came into the hall with a “Hullo, Bertram!” and the man followed her and shut the door.

She leant against the wall, breathing in a hard way, as though she had been running. The man by her side was Dennis O’Brien whom Bertram had known in France. He kept his felt hat on his head, and his hands in his pockets, and stood looking at Bertram in a careless, quizzing way. But he was pale.

“Rather late for an evening call,” said Bertram.

Susan asked whether the servants had gone to bed, and when Bertram nodded, led the way into his study with her friend.

“Shut the door, Bertram, old boy.”

Bertram obeyed her. He had a sense of apprehension. There was something strange in his sister’s look and manner.

“What’s the game?” he asked.

Susan took one of his cigarettes and lit it by a spill from the fire before answering. O’Brien sat down in Bertram’s desk chair, and held his hat between his knees. He was wearing a trench coat, and looked shabby.

“It’s like this, Bertram. Dennis, who, by the way, is my man—we married a week ago—is ‘on the run,’ as they call it. He’s very much wanted by the English police, and I’m going to ask you to be sport enough to put him up for a day or two. He’ll stay close and give no trouble.”

She looked over at Dennis, and laughed in a low voice. Bertram noticed that one lock of her dark hair had come loose beneath her hat. Her brown eyes had a kind of liquid light in them, or some leaping flame, and her cheeks were flushed. She looked more Irish than he had ever seen her. Perhaps it was excitement that had set that part of her blood on fire, or the marriage she mentioned “by the way.” Susan married! To a fellow who was “wanted” by the English police! And the crisis in the family.

Bertram laughed, but mirthlessly.

“So O’Brien is ‘wanted,’ is he? And you’ve married him, Susan? Any more announcements?”

“That’s all for the present,” said Susan. She watched her brother anxiously, saw his face harden a little, and then went to him and clasped his arm with both hands.

“Bertram! You and I were always pals. You’ve helped me out of many a scrape, and never said a word. This affair is my worst scrape, and Dennis’s. It’s a question of life and death. Play up to the old tradition!”

“I want to know more,” said Bertram. He spoke sharply, and looked over at O’Brien, who was silent, with a nervous smile about his lips. “What game have you been up to in England? That arson business?” He remembered that several timber yards had been set on fire at the London docks, with Sinn Fein warnings of further damage.

Dennis O’Brien shifted his felt hat round, and stared at the brim.

“I’m not answering questions,” he said.

“Perhaps it’s worse than arson,” said Bertram. “Were you in Dublin last Monday?”

There had been an attack outside the Castle. Two British officers in a motor car, and three Sinn Feiners lying in ambush had been killed. Others had escaped.

Dennis O’Brien became more pale, and Susan drew in her breath sharply.

“I was in Dublin,” said Dennis O’Brien. “The point is whether you’re a friend or an enemy.”

“I’m a friend of Ireland,” said Bertram, “but an enemy of those who drench her with blood, and drag her into anarchy.”

“The English,” said O’Brien.

“Irish too, by God!” said Bertram.

O’Brien shrugged his shoulders, and said something in a low voice about the right to liberty.

Susan threw her cigarette in the fire and put her arm round Bertram’s neck.

“Brother o’ mine! It’s no time for argument about Irish liberty or English tyranny. Don’t you understand? Dennis is my husband and his life’s in danger. You must hide him here, for my sake!”

Bertram thought hard and rapidly. Susan’s words called to his chivalry. She was this man’s wife. And it was not easy to turn a hunted man from his door, anyway. But what about Joyce? In hiding O’Brien he might drag her name in, and her father’s name.—‘The Earl of Ottery’s daughter shelters an Irish rebel.’ The newspapers would make a fuss of that! And his own father’s name? Michael Pollard, K.C., who defended the policy of reprisals! A family scandal all round, and damnably dangerous!

“Can’t you find another place?” he asked Susan, weakly.

Susan laughed.

“The police were pretty close. We dodged ’em by the length of a street.”

She held his arm again, and said: “Big brother! Sportsman and gentleman! For the Irish blood that’s in you!”

“With English loyalty,” said Bertram, sharply.

“In that case,” said Dennis O’Brien, in a sullen way, “I’ll just slope out into the streets again. I take no favour from English loyalty. To hell with all its loyalties!”

He stood up and went towards the door, but Susan ran round the table to him and caught hold of his coat.

“Dennis, my dear! Bertram is all for Irish liberty. And don’t forget I’m half English too!”

“All Irish now!” said Dennis, in a low, passionate voice.

Bertram watched them. His face was flushed, and he had thrust his hair back so that it was all tousled.

“This is a devilish affair,” he said, “but if O’Brien cares to stay here, he can have that sofa!”

“Well played!” cried Susan softly, and with those words she kissed her brother, and her eyes were wet and shining.

“It’s not a very cordial invitation,” said O’Brien, with sarcasm, “but if your brother gives his word—”

“Do you doubt me?” asked Bertram. His voice had a savage note.

“I’m in your hands,” said O’Brien, more humbly.

Presently Joyce came in. They had not heard the front door open, so that her appearance in the room was unexpected. She stood for a moment in the doorway, her fur cloak half slipping from her shoulders. Then she spoke to Susan, not hiding her surprise.

“Hulloa! Anything wrong?”

Perhaps it was their silence, some look in their eyes which suggested to her that something was “wrong.”

“You’re looking splendid again, Joyce,” said Susan, in her best “society” manner. There was always a sense of armed truce between the two girls. Bertram’s sister resented what she called the “haughty condescension” of Bertram’s wife. Joyce had not disguised from Bertram that in her opinion Susan was “a dangerous little spit-fire—with atrocious manners.”

“I’m quite well, thanks.”

Joyce glanced at O’Brien, who had risen from his chair as she had come in.

“Won’t you introduce me?” she asked Susan.

Susan said, “This is Dennis O’Brien, my husband.” It was very calmly said.

“A surprise!” said Joyce. “Congratulations to both of you, and all that, I suppose. Rather sudden, wasn’t it?”

She failed to shake hands with Dennis O’Brien. As she had told Bertram many times, sometimes amusing times, and sometimes not, she hated all the Irish except half an Irishman.

She sat in Bertram’s low arm chair, yawning a little, with her long white arms behind her bobbed hair.

“A cigarette, Bertram!”

Bertram gave her the cigarette, lit it for her, and mumbled something about the late hour, and bedtime. He had a foreboding that Joyce didn’t intend to go to bed until Susan and Dennis had gone. And Dennis was not going. There would have to be an explanation. There would probably be a row.

It came half an hour later, after strained and unnatural efforts at bright conversation by Bertram and Susan, while O’Brien sat gloomily silent, and Joyce yawned with increasing carelessness, and asked occasional questions without listening to the answer. The crisis happened when she sprang up and stretched her arms above her head.

“Haven’t you people got any home? I hate being inhospitable, Susan, but you and your new-found husband had better go. Bertram and I sometimes sleep o’ nights.”

There was a moment’s silence before Bertram answered:

“O’Brien is staying. He’s going to use the sofa to-night.”

There was another silence.

“Sorry,” said Joyce, “but I can’t allow that.”

“Why not?”

Bertram knew the “row” was coming.

“It’s not in my contract with the maids,” said Joyce very calmly. Then she spoke another sentence which seemed to reveal a knowledge, or at least a guess of the inner meaning of this visit from Susan and Dennis.

“Besides, my house is not going to be made a hiding place for Irish rebels. I’m English, and play the game accordingly.”

Yes, undoubtedly, there was going to be a row!

Bertram decided upon a frank explanation. Joyce had the right to know.

“Look here, Joyce, O’Brien is Susan’s husband, and the police are after him. You know how I stand about Sinn Fein. … Anyhow—I’ve given my word. O’Brien stays here to-night.”

“He does not stay,” said Joyce. “This is my house. If that man is not out of it in two minutes, I’ll telephone to the police.”

She walked quickly to Bertram’s desk and caught hold of the receiver.

Bertram followed her, still explaining, rather desperately. He had given his word. He quite understood Joyce’s point of view. He sympathised to some extent. This Sinn Fein business was criminal folly. But O’Brien had been a friend of his in the War. And he was Susan’s husband. Did she understand? His own brother-in-law! He was in real danger, and it was not in the code of their crowd—was it?—to hand over a hunted man.—A criminal? Well, he didn’t know. O’Brien had told him nothing. He asked no questions. Besides—that was all beside the argument.

“I’ve given my word, Joyce—my honour’s pledged.”

“What about my honour?” asked Joyce. Her voice was very cold and hard. “My father’s name? Our honour to England?”

She turned to Dennis O’Brien, still holding the telephone.

“Are you going? Time’s up.”

Dennis O’Brien smiled at her, and his Irish eyes paid homage to this girl’s beauty as she stood facing him, so hostile. He had been smiling all through Bertram’s monologue. It seemed to amuse him, this altercation between the English girl and his wife’s brother.

“I’m going,” he said. “Don’t worry at all. It’s what one expects of English women! They would turn a starving dog out of doors.”

“Mad dogs,” said Joyce. “With a whip.”

It was Susan now who intervened, ragingly.

“Joyce! You’re a damned cat! No wonder Bertram has a hellish time with you. I’d like to see the Bolsheviks playing with your bobbed hair, and your lovely white neck.”

Joyce picked up the telephone receiver, and said, “Police station, please.”

“No!” said Bertram.

He took hold of Joyce’s wrist and wrenched it from the instrument, conscious of his own violence.

“Joyce, I forbid you. I gave my word. Surely you respect that? By God, you must respect it. If you touch that telephone again, I’ll—I’ll carry you upstairs.”

Joyce looked at him squarely, and their eyes met and searched each other. She saw more anger in his eyes than ever before. She saw that he meant to use his strength.

“I surrender to force. Three to one, and all enemies.”

She laughed on a high note, picked up her fur coat, and went out of the room. They listened to her light steps up the polished stairs, and to the sharp slam of her bedroom door.

“Poor old Bertram!” said Susan, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief.

He turned on her fiercely.

“How dare you speak of Joyce like that? She was perfectly right, apart from my pledged word. If O’Brien plays the rebel, let him take the risk of rebels, without crawling into English houses for a hiding place!”

Susan paled.

“Et tu, Brute!” she said in a low voice.

She spoke a whispered word to Dennis O’Brien. He nodded, and buttoned up his trench coat.

“Yes, let’s be going.—Good-night, Pollard.”

Bertram did not answer.

He made no move, as he stood planted on the hearth-rug by the fire, staring moodily at a cigarette holder which Joyce had dropped, while his sister and her Irish husband went out of the room, and a moment later left the house, as he heard by the quiet click of the front door lock. He stood there for half an hour after they had left, and then summed up his thoughts in his usual sentence:

“It’s all very difficult!”

After that he went up to Joyce’s room, which was locked. There was no answer to his tap on the door, and he crept miserably to his own bed.