No Fond Return of Love (27 page)

‘Well, this
is
a surprise!’ he said. ‘We thought you were in Italy.’

‘So I was, but one can’t stay there for ever, unfortunately. Work calls one back,’ said Aylwin, wondering if it could have done. Then, remembering the unpleasant object of his visit, he said firmly, ‘I’ve come to sort things out here. I thought it was about time I did.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Neville gravely, in a clergyman’s manner, but that was all he said. ‘Mrs Williton and Marjorie have gone out for a walk, I believe.’

Aylwin felt relieved that he would not have to face them just yet. ‘And what are
you
doing here?’ he asked almost jauntily. ‘Leaving your parish like this at the busiest time of the year.’

‘Oh, there was some trouble with one of my female parishioners,’ said Neville lightly. It seemed so far away now, that business with Miss Spicer, that he hardly even thought of it as ‘trouble’.

‘Many visitors here?’ Aylwin asked.

‘No – just two women from London at the moment. Quite pleasant, but we don’t see very much of them.’

‘Good!’

At the moment both brothers felt that this was just how women should be – not allowing themselves to be much seen. But Aylwin knew that he could not put off his unpleasant task much longer. He had come to see Marjorie and see her he must – probably with her mother in attendance, too.

AYLWIN was reminded of the conference of the summer before as he unpacked in his room, but this time it was a bottle of whisky he had brought with him-more medicinal, somehow, than gin. Of course he did not need to bring his own and keep it secretly, but he feared his mother’s comments. This time, too, there was no photograph of Marjorie and no copy of’Some problems of an editor’ – just a Henry James novel,
The Portrait of a Lady
, which he had been rereading in Italy. He wished sentimentally that he had a snapshot of Laurel to keep it company on his bedside table.

There was a tap on the door and his mother came in.

‘It doesn’t seem right, somehow, you and Marjorie not being together,’ she said. ‘I was just saying to Nev, I’m sure Mrs Williton would turn out if you wanted the other bed – it’s the twin beds, you know.’

Oh, the dreadful cosiness of family life, Aylwin thought. ‘I should hardly feel like asking her,’ he said rather coldly, ‘and I’m sure it’s the last thing Marjorie would want. I suppose they’ve already – er – retired for the night?’

‘Yes. They had their Ovaltine – they needed it too, when I told them you’d come. You should’ve seen their faces! I can’t think why you didn’t burst in on them – give them a surprise. A bit of a joke that would’ve been.’ Mrs Forbes laughed – callously, it seemed to Aylwin.

‘Their sense of humour might not have been equal to it,’ he said. ‘I plan to see them tomorrow. Things are usually easier in the morning,’ he added, hoping that they would be.

‘What time will you have breakfast? Half past eight?’ asked his mother.

Aylwin hesitated. He had imagined himself taking coffee and croissants in his room at about nine o’clock. He should have remembered that breakfast at Eagle House had always meant tackling a plate of bacon and eggs and drinking strong tea, downstairs and fully dressed. Besides, if he suggested breakfasting in his room his mother would immediately jump to the conclusion that he was ill and suggest some homely remedy or even call the doctor.

‘We’ve got some people come for bed and breakfast,’ said Mrs Forbes craftily. ‘It s easier to make all the-toast at once and do the cooking – saves fuel. And they tell us to save fuel, don’t they.’

‘
Who
tell us?’ asked Aylwin irritably. ‘You must be thinking of the war, Mother. Now that it’s a question of one’s own fuel bills one can surely do as one likes – and if you’re in any financial difficulties, you know you’ve only got to say so.’

‘You’re a good lad,’ said Mrs Forbes affectionately. ‘You’ll be down to breakfast about half past eight, then?’

‘Not if Marjorie and Mrs Williton are going to be there. I couldn’t face them so early
and
at the breakfast table.’

‘I’ll put them in the dining-room – don’t you worry. They may not want to see you either, first thing!’

So it was that Dulcie and Viola, going to their table in the window next morning, were surprised to see Mrs Williton and Marjorie at another table in the room. There were also two couples who had stayed overnight for bed and breakfast, so that the dining-room seemed quite full.

A sort of early-morning murmur of conversation was going on – almost like the conversation at dinner that first evening at The Anchorage, but there was a different quality about it, as morning is different from evening. Perhaps there was more hope in it, with the promise of the new day, but Marjorie and her mother had an air of grim purpose about them and barely responded to Dulcie’s and Viola’s greetings. It was a fine morning, yes, finer than yesterday, but they did not seem disposed to go further than that.

After breakfast Dulcie decided to go into the lounge and look for a book to read. The bookcase was by one of the two doors leading into the room, and there was an old screen covered with Victorian scraps, behind which Dulcie was hidden as she crouched down, her fingers moving over the shelves among the Marie Corellis, Hall Caines and Annie S. Swans. She was aware that somebody had come into the room through the other door, but took no notice until she heard Aylwin’s voice saying, ‘Well, I suppose this is as good a place as any other.’

Dulcie sat rigid, as if frozen or turned to stone,
Kelly’s Directory of Somerset
for 1905 clasped to her breast. Escape was impossible now, for she saw that Mrs Williton and Marjorie were in the room. If she had been going to move she should have done so immediately and spontaneously: now she would have to stay where she was. Whatever had induced them to choose this public room for a discussion of their private affairs, she wondered, as she settled herself into a rather less cramped position and began to turn the pages of
Kelly
. It would be interesting to see who had owned the Eagle House Private Hotel in those days, she thought, but it was too dark in her corner to be able to read the small print properly, and in any case impossible to shut her ears to the conversation going on around her.

To begin with there was not much conversation at all – or at least none that a gentlewoman might feel ashamed of overhearing.

‘Quite chilly this morning, isn’t it,’ said Mrs Williton.

‘Oh, then we’ll put the electric fire on,’ said Aylwin.

‘One bar will be quite enough,’ said Mrs Williton firmly.

‘You mean we shall generate the extra heat by our discussion,’ said Aylwin – much too frivolously, Dulcie felt.

‘What an odd smell,’ said Marjorie. ‘I suppose it’s the dust burning on the fire. When they aren’t used much they do get dusty.’

‘It was a shock to us to see you here,’ said Mrs Williton, coming a little nearer to the point. ‘I brought Marjorie for a breath of sea air, like you suggested. I didn’t think anything upsetting like this was going to happen.’

Aylwin’s frivolous tone had really been assumed to conceal the fact that he was feeling a little nervous, annoying though it was to have to admit it. He fixed his eyes on the little jewelled poodle, pinned to the lapel of his mother-in-law’s grey tweed suit. She was also wearing ear-clips in the shape of bluebirds carrying something – what could it be? – in their beaks. Or perhaps they were doves bearing olive branches? Odd, her love of trinkets, he thought. She was in so many ways not that kind of person. Even the word ‘trinket’, with its gay and slightly silly associations, seemed in-appropriate to her. It suited Marjorie much better, but at her he dared not look.

She did not appear to be in the least upset. Perhaps love for somebody totally unsuitable dies more completely, when it does die, than any other kind of love. Aylwin himself could not recapture the smallest vestige of his feelings for her – even the stone squirrel seemed ridiculous and embarrassing when associated with Marjorie. He was an impetuous romantic – that was the trouble, Aylwin thought, liking this picture of himself, and here he was being true to form, thinking of marrying a girl half his age!

His thoughts were brought back to reality with a jolt by Mrs Williton asking him point-blank what he proposed to ‘do’ about Marjorie.

‘
Do
?’ he echoed. ‘What is there – could there be – that I could – as it were –
do
?’

‘You could put your marriage to rights.’

‘But what about Marjorie herself? Will she – speak her mind?’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ murmured Marjorie listlessly. ‘I haven’t made a success of being your wife – we just aren’t suited to each other.’

‘Don’t blame yourself, dear,’ said Mrs Williton grimly.

There was a pause. Then Aylwin, who had been pacing about the room, came to a standstill in front of the sofa where the two women were sitting. ‘I may as well tell you,’ he said firmly, ‘that I intend to provide you with evidence for divorce as soon as possible’

‘Ah,
Tuscany
!’ hissed Mrs Williton.

‘Not at all,’ said Aylwin. ‘I spent most of my time there looking at churches and art galleries.’

Marjorie let out a nervous giggle, and Dulcie was very much afraid that she might too. It was a dreadful position to find oneself in – that of eavesdropper – and yet she could not help feeling that if anyone had to overhear what was going on it was best that it should be herself, with her genuine interest in Aylwin Forbes – just as a bona fide research worker may be granted access to private letters or diaries considered too shocking to be gloated over by the general public.

‘I’m as anxious as you are to get this unhappy business straightened out’ Aylwin went on.

‘I suppose you want to get married again yourself,’ said Mrs Williton sharply, ‘that’s what it is. Some Italian senorita, no doubt.’

‘She would be a signorina, if she existed’ said Aylwin, smiling faintly, unable to resist correcting his mother-in-law.

‘So she’s not Italian?’

‘No – and the whole affair is at present of too nebulous a nature to be even – one might say –
dreamed
of. I have not – I
dare
not, indeed – you must understand this – say more. It would be most imprudent, to say the least of it.’ Aylwin resumed his pacing and stood over by the window, his eyes fixed on a distant height just visible through the private hotels and boarding-houses opposite.

Why was Aylwin talking in this odd pseudo-Henry-Jamesian way, Dulcie wondered. Was it an affectation, the outcome of his sojourn in Italy, or did it indicate real uncertainty of mind? And who was this unknown, vaguely hinted-at, ‘other woman’? Not Italian – that was something, but it didn’t get one very far. Perhaps this time it was a sensible person of his own age or a little younger, with similar academic and literary interests – somebody he had met at the conference – somebody like herself, or, she thought suddenly, like Viola. It would certainly be ironical if, after all this time, he should decide to turn to Viola. But no, it must be somebody unknown to them and there was a curious kind of relief in acknowledg-ing this – like finding only Pontings’ catalogue lying on the mat instead of the more interesting but trouble-bringing letter.

Mrs Williton, too, thought Aylwin’s way of talking odd, but she attributed it to his having been drinking, probably since early morning.

‘Well, if that’s the case … ‘ she began, rather at a loss, for divorce was against her principles, and yet she would have liked to retort that Marjorie herself had found somebody else, if only to keep her end up.

‘I’m going back to London this morning,’ he said, ‘so there will be no need for you to cut your holiday short. You realize, of course, that we mustn’t have any communication about this business – you have heard of collusion and that sort of thing, I imagine.’

Mrs Williton’s answer was inaudible to Dulcie, but she heard Aylwin go over to the door-luckily not the one she was crouching by  –  and walk out, closing it behind him. She would have liked to stand up and reveal her presence, if only to ease her cramped position, but she was suddenly aware that Marjorie Forbes was weeping and her mother apparently comforting her, mainly by abuse of Aylwin. Very cautiously, Dulcie stood up and saw that they were sitting on a sofa, quite unaware of her. She guessed that they would soon go out, probably in search of the much-needed solace of a cup of tea. Now would have been the time for Neville to enter the room with a word of comfort and hope. But he did not come, and, sorry though Dulcie was for poor Marjorie, she did not feel equal to the role of comforter herself. Besides, it might have seemed presumptuous, and what could she have said? As it was, she crept quietly and unobserved out of the door, saddened and a little surprised at Marjorie’s tears. The astonishing thing was that the whole scene had taken less than a quarter of an hour. Passing the writing-room, she saw that Viola was engrossed, in a letter, so she did not disturb her but began walking down the road towards the sea, not quite sure where she was going or what she was going to do when she got anywhere, but feeling the need for solitude.

The sun had come out in a rather watery sky and people were strolling on the promenade or sitting in the shelters reading newspapers, talking, or just sitting with that air of hopeless resignation that people on holiday so often seem to have. Dulcie felt that there would be something comforting about the sea; its cold grey detachment (she also remembered Matthew Arnold’s lines, as Aylwin had) might bring consolation after the upsetting scene she had just overheard. I too know what it is to be rejected, she said to herself, and wondered if it might forge some kind of bond between herself and Marjorie. But then she realized that Marjorie was in a superior position, for she had at least acquired a husband and been married to him for some years, whereas she herself had only got as far as a fiancé. So there could really be no bond, when the rejections had been on such different planes. And then there was that china donkey, Dulcie remembered. Could she really have any kind of bond with somebody who had thought it sweet?