Outbreak of Love (20 page)

She had expected him at about six o'clock, and had braced herself to introduce the subject then. When he did not come her nervous tension increased. She knew that it would be very difficult to keep Wolfie to the point. He would fling red herrings in every direction. When he had not returned by half-past six she wrote down the chief points of her arguments in case she should forget them in emotional recriminations.

Wolfie came in looking nervous, almost sidling round the door, and he gave too voluble explanations of why he was delayed.

Diana went with him into the music-room.

“Wolfie,” she said. “That woman at the ball last night, Mrs Mont-something, is your mistress.”

“Why do you say so?” asked Wolfie, turning sharply.

“She told me, more or less.”

“Would she tell you such a thing?”

“She was tipsy. Besides she did tell me. I'm not making it up.”

“She disgraced herself,” said Wolfie loftily.

“Then you admit you know her?”

“I know her—yes.”

“But you never told me you knew her.”

“I do not tell you of many of my friends. You are too high for them.”

“Why must you have low friends?”

“They are not low. They are humble and worthy.”

“Is Mrs Thing humble and worthy? What is her name?”

“She is Mrs Montaubyn.”

“She didn't look humble. She was tipsy and she used horrible language.”

“I say she disgraced herself.”

“She disgraced me too. I felt as if I had been splashed with mud from the gutter.”

That Mrs Montaubyn, whom he had left tenderly, within the hour, should be called “mud from the gutter” distressed Wolfie.

“What do you wish?” he asked.

“I want to clear the situation.”

“Do you wish me not to see her then? It will not happen again. I have rebuked her.”

“You have seen her already?” said Diana.

Wolfie gaped for a moment, then he said: “I telephoned to her.” Diana knew that he was not telling the truth, but that was a minor detail. She had wanted to keep cool, but she was angry that he should have gone so soon after last night's incident to see the woman. She did not know whether her anger was reasonable or if his visit made any difference to the situation, except that it emphasized its sordidness and made her more determined to hold to her intention.

She glanced at the piece of paper in her hand on which she had made her notes, and she thought how absurd it was to conduct a vital discussion with her husband from notes. But Wolfie touched everything with absurdity. The amusement it caused spread a protective cloud round him which preserved him from the results of his behaviour. She would no longer be amused.

“Listen,” she said, her voice shaking a little, “I've never asked very much of you. I had great belief in your music. I still have. I thought that people who can create music or art of any kind should have more freedom of behaviour—that it might be necessary to their work. If a man can write a poem which brings understanding to millions of people over the centuries, we can never pay what we owe him. It was a silly romantic idea perhaps. But that's why I put up with all those girls on piano stools. I didn't like it.”

“You do not speak like a lady,” said Wolfie.

“Possibly not. But I expect I'm as ladylike as Mrs Mont-thing. I know you like young girls.”

“Please!” said Wolfie haughtily, holding up his hand.

“Listen,” said Diana. “I thought it was troublesome but harmless. I thought, as you said, they inspired your music. When you married me I was a young girl—” She gave a little choke. “I'm not one any longer, so I tolerated the piano stools. But this woman is something entirely different. She is my own age, and you prefer her to me—you prefer that unspeakable vulgarity …”

At her reference to Mrs Montaubyn, Wolfie clutched his hands.

“What do you want? What do you drive at?” he demanded.

“I want the situation cleared up.”

“Do you want me not to see her more?”

“That is no longer my concern. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think that I have any longer the obligation to sacrifice my life to yours.”

“And then please?” said Wolfie haughtily.

“I want a divorce.”

He stared at her incredulously. “A divorce!” He gave a long sarcastic artificial laugh.

“I'm serious,” said Diana.

“You are serious, please? After twenty years of our happy life—suddenly—a divorce! No previous intimidation —nothing! Just five minutes, then please, divorce. I laugh again.” He repeated the horrible sound.

“It's not sudden,” said Diana. All the things she had endured, his complete indifference to her convenience and the requirements of a household, and the more serious but less explicit worries he had caused her, came seething into her mind and she could have poured out a flood of accusation. But she did not want to widen the issue. She clung to Mrs Montaubyn as her key to freedom. Also she knew that it is possible to love most deeply those who have asked most from us, and if she released this flood, the end might be a reconciliation she did not desire.

“You are serious to ask a divorce,” said Wolfie, “because I have one extra friend. She does not harm you.”

“She has insulted me in about the most public place possible, in the sight of half the people I know.”

“That was a misfortune. It will not happen again. For this one thing you will wreck our life, our beautiful home where we are so happy. Do we not often laugh together? Do you not put your feet on that sofa while I play you lovely melody? Are we not proud together when our children come home to kiss us—our sweet Josie who is gentle like a flower? Is it all to be gone, blown off in a harsh tempest of jealousy? That would be wickedness.”

“It is you who have wrecked it,” said Diana.

“You say so. But it is not I who will do so. It is you. I do not speak of divorce. Divorce? My wife, my beautiful home, my dear children—broken apart! What shall I do in this desolation?”

“You might have thought of that earlier.”

“What must I do? What do you wish? That I should give up my Mrs Montaubyn? Will that satisfy your cruel heart? Very well, I shall do so. I shall not see her again. She will be a sacrifice to your coldness!” He was now in a state of extreme agitation.

“Wolfie, do be calm,” said Diana, her own voice trembling.

“I am to be calm before such horror? I am not like you. I have no cold blood.”

“I'm not cold,” she said, “I don't like wrecking our home. But the children are grown up. We can go our own ways.”

“You are glad to leave me. Suddenly, in a day! You are treacherous.”

“Is it less treacherous to carry on with that woman behind my back?”

“I do not wish to leave you,” said Wolfie. “I have loved you all.”

“You don't consider us.”

The argument, as Diana knew it would, went right away from the point. She crumpled the paper with her notes into a ball and threw it into the wastepaper basket. Wolfie told her she was like a governess. He became reckless and boasted about Mrs Montaubyn.

“That is why I seek her,” he said. “She is warm, generous, a true woman.”

“You need a governess to keep you clean,” said Diana bitterly. “You couldn't catch a train without one. But I'm not going to bother any more to keep you clean to go off to disreputable women.”

Then, as they continued to bicker, they fell into the idiom of their private conversation, Diana using inadvertently though ironically certain witticisms which were family jokes, and something began to happen. Their entangled fibres, those long-established tendrils of feeling began to assert themselves, and they made irrelevant whatever words they flung at each other. Diana was afraid to stay with him, lest the whole discussion should dissolve in emotion. She knew that this was the only opportunity she would ever have to escape from her long exploitation into the kind of life which until now had seemed an impossible dream, and she must not risk losing it. She made a gesture of exasperation and went to her room.

The next afternoon she met Russell at the Gallery. There were not many people about and they met in one of the side galleries where they were not likely to be interrupted. Russell looked at her with affectionate concern and asked: “Any developments?” She compared his attitude with Wolfie's, whose demonstrations of affection were almost entirely a form of self-expression.

“Only in my own mind,” said Diana.

“What are they?”

“I told Wolfie I wanted a divorce. He just let out a stream of emotion, pleadings and reproaches. I knew he would. I even made notes beforehand on a piece of paper, so that I could keep him to the point, as if I were going to address a public meeting. But it was useless. He won't hear of a divorce. I don't know the legal situation. Can I divorce him on the strength of that woman?”

“I'm not sure. I don't think so,” said Russell. “I think he'd have to desert you as well.”

“He has about as much intention of deserting me as a limpet.”

“Then what are the developments in your own mind?”

“I'll tell you, but I don't know what you'll think of them. You asked me to go away with you, but you didn't say when or how. We didn't think of any details.”

“No, but that's what we're to do now, isn't it?”

“Yes. Well I thought the obvious thing was for me to divorce Wolfie. But apart from the legal side I don't see how it's possible. How can you divorce someone who insists on living with you in your house? But even that isn't the real difficulty. Supposing that I could obtain the divorce, it would take a year, wouldn't it, before I was free?”

“I imagine something like that.”

“What could I do for that time? I can't go on living at the Brighton house with Wolfie, and he won't leave it. I would have to take a flat somewhere. It would all be confused and ludicrous. And then if, during that year we met frequently, that might affect the divorce proceedings, mightn't it?”

“I suppose it might.” Russell looked a little pale. “Do you mean you want to call it off?” he asked diffidently.

“No. Oh, no!” exclaimed Diana. “I wasn't leading up to that at all. It's only that I want to tell you everything. Please don't misunderstand anything I say. I don't think you will, that's one of your attractions.” She smiled. “You can't think what a great relief it is to speak to a rational mind. This is what I want to say—the thing I hope you won't misunderstand. But you must know it if we are to be together. It is not easy for me to make this break. It is in a way chopping off a limb. I mean because of the children and all my friends and associations here; but I am ready to do it because I want to be with you. All the rest of me will be more alive, and it will be worth the limb, but I want it chopped off sharply, not slowly torn away, with each separate ligament yielding its full capacity of pain.”

“Then?” asked Russell.

“You said would I go away with you. I don't know if its unwomanly of me to ask you—Wolfie said I was unwomanly—but did you mean now?”

“I mean as soon as you possibly could.”

“I hoped you meant that; that is what I want to do. But I thought that you might want things arranged so that we remained—well—respectable.”

“You don't think I would give up a year of life with you for respectability?” He meant this, but also he was enjoying the prospect of giving society a slap in the face. He had made too many sacrifices to it and he felt that this would restore his manhood. He was tired of hearing old ladies say that he was such a nice man.

“But you have so much to lose—in that way, I mean.”

“My dear, I have nothing,” exclaimed Russell. “You will be sacrificing real things for me. I shall only be giving up rubbish for you. I wish I could give up something real. I only gain it.”

She felt a wave of gratitude to him for his apparent understanding of what it would mean to her to break with her home and family, and his complete absence of resentment at her mentioning it.

“You don't mind my being logical, or trying to be?”

“Mind it! I love your understanding and your clear-sightedness. If you only knew the relief I have in talking to you,” said Russell.

“But I have the same relief with you.”

“Our minds were turned out of the same mould.”

“I'm sorry that there are so many complications attached to me.”

“You mustn't think that. Anyhow, Andromeda wouldn't have been such a prize if she hadn't been chained to the rock.” They laughed. “You are exactly what I came out to Australia to find,” he added.

“Did you come to Australia to find someone?” asked Diana.

“I didn't realize it, but I believe that is what I did.”

“Why did you have to come out here?”

“I've told you. I wanted someone of my own kind. I'm not really English, you see.”

“We're getting back to spiritual homes. Where will ours be?”

“Where we are together,” he said. She made a gesture of assent.

Opposite where they were sitting was a painting called “Winter Sunlight” by Walter Withers. It was of a little white wooden farmhouse on a grassy hill.

“That is the Australia I love,” he said.

“So do I, but why?”

“I think because it's pure Australia. It's not anything else. It's innocent. If there is to be an Australian civilization it must begin with that—not with importations.”

“Is that our place in history?”

He laughed and said: “It might be.”

“Shall we find a little house like that? In Western Australia perhaps?”

“We couldn't live there, because when we found that we were peasants we'd try to show that we were intellectually superior to the other peasants. We're both European. For us this tie has never been cut. There are Australians whose life has begun here. They're the true Australians. They've never known anything else. Our sort are just carrying on the kind of life they brought with them. It's better to go back to the source.