The Custom of the Country (28 page)

She sighed a little, and turned her head away. She flattered herself that she had learned to strike the right note with Van Degen. At this crucial stage he needed a taste of his own methods, a glimpse of the fact that there were women in the world who could get on without him.

He continued to gaze down at her sulkily. ‘Were the old people there? You never told me you knew his mother.’

‘I don’t. They weren’t there. But it didn’t make a bit of difference, because Raymond sent down a cook from the Luxe.’

‘Oh, Lord,’ Van Degen groaned, dropping down on the end of the sofa. ‘Was the cook got down to chaperon you?’

Undine laughed. ‘You talk like Ralph! I had Bertha with me.’

‘
Bertha!
’ His tone of contempt surprised her. She had supposed that Mrs Shallum’s presence had made the visit perfectly correct.

‘You went without knowing his parents, and without their inviting you? Don’t you know what that sort of thing means out here? Chelles did it to brag about you at his club. He wants to compromise you – that’s his game!’

‘Do you suppose he does?’ A flicker of a smile crossed her lips. ‘I’m so unconventional: when I like a man I never stop to think about such things. But I ought to, of course – you’re quite right.’ She looked at Van Degen thoughtfully. ‘At any rate, he’s not a married man.’

Van Degen had got to his feet again and was standing accusingly before her; but as she spoke the blood rose to his neck and ears.

‘What difference does that make?’

‘It might make a good deal. I see,’ she added, ‘how careful I ought to be about going round with you.’

‘With
me
?’ His face fell at the retort; then he broke into a
laugh. He adored Undine’s ‘smartness’, which was of precisely the same quality as his own. ‘Oh, that’s another thing: you can always trust me to look after you!’

‘With your reputation? Much obliged!’

Van Degen smiled. She knew he liked such allusions, and was pleased that she thought him compromising.

‘Oh, I’m as good as gold. You’ve made a new man of me!’

‘Have I?’ She considered him in silence for a moment. ‘I wonder what you’ve done to me but make a discontented woman of me – discontented with everything I had before I knew you?’

The change of tone was thrilling to him. He forgot her mockery, forgot his rival, and sat down at her side, almost in possession of her waist. ‘Look here,’ he asked, ‘where are we going to dine tonight?’

His nearness was not agreeable to Undine, but she liked his free way, his contempt for verbal preliminaries. Ralph’s reserves and delicacies, his perpetual desire that he and she should be attuned to the same key, had always vaguely bored her; whereas in Van Degen’s manner she felt a hint of the masterful way that had once subdued her in Elmer Moffatt. But she drew back, releasing herself.

‘Tonight? I can’t – I’m engaged.’

‘I know you are: engaged to
me
! You promised last Sunday you’d dine with me out of town tonight.’

‘How can I remember what I promised last Sunday? Besides, after what you’ve said, I see I oughtn’t to.’

‘What do you mean by what I’ve said?’

‘Why, that I’m imprudent; that people are talking –’

He stood up with an angry laugh. ‘I suppose you’re dining with Chelles. Is that it?’

‘Is that the way you cross-examine Clare?’

‘I don’t care a hang what Clare does – I never have.’

‘That must – in some ways – be rather convenient for her!’

‘Glad you think so.
Are
you dining with him?’

She slowly turned the wedding-ring upon her finger. ‘You know I’m
not
married to you – yet!’

He took a random turn through the room; then he came
back and planted himself wrathfully before her. ‘Can’t you see the man’s doing his best to make a fool of you?’

She kept her amused gaze on him. ‘Does it strike you that it’s such an awfully easy thing to do?’

The edges of his ears were purple. ‘I sometimes think it’s easier for these damned little dancing-masters than for one of us.’

Undine was still smiling up at him; but suddenly her face grew grave. ‘What does it matter what I do or don’t do, when Ralph has ordered me home next week?’

‘Ordered you home?’ His face changed. ‘Well, you’re not going, are you?’

‘What’s the use of saying such things?’ She gave a disenchanted laugh. ‘I’m a poor man’s wife, and can’t do the things my friends do. It’s not because Ralph loves me that he wants me back – it’s simply because he can’t afford to let me stay!’

Van Degen’s perturbation was increasing. ‘But you mustn’t go – it’s preposterous! Why should a woman like you be sacrificed when a lot of dreary frumps have everything they want? Besides, you can’t chuck me like this! Why, we’re all to motor down to Aix next week, and perhaps take a dip into Italy –’

‘
Oh, Italy –
’ she murmured on a note of yearning.

He was closer now, and had her hands. ‘You’d love that, wouldn’t you? As far as Venice, anyhow; and then in August there’s Trouville – you’ve never tried Trouville? There’s an awfully jolly crowd there – and the motoring’s ripping in Normandy. If you say so I’ll take a villa there instead of going back to Newport. And I’ll put the
Sorceress
in commission, and you can make up parties and run off whenever you like, to Scotland or Norway –’ He hung above her. ‘Don’t dine with Chelles tonight! Come with me, and we’ll talk things over; and next week we’ll run down to Trouville to choose the villa.’

Undine’s heart was beating fast, but she felt within her a strange lucid force of resistance. Because of that sense of
security she left her hands in Van Degen’s. So Mr Spragg might have felt at the tensest hour of the Pure Water Move. She leaned forward, holding her suitor off by the pressure of her bent-back palms.

‘Kiss me good-bye, Peter; I sail on Wednesday,’ she said.

It was the first time she had permitted him a kiss, and as his face darkened down on her she felt a moment’s recoil. But her physical reactions were never very acute: she always vaguely wondered why people made ‘such a fuss’, were so violently for or against such demonstrations. A cool spirit within her seemed to watch over and regulate her sensations, and leave her capable of measuring the intensity of those she provoked.

She turned to look at the clock. ‘You must go now – I shall be hours late for dinner.’

‘Go – after that?’ He held her fast. ‘Kiss me again,’ he commanded.

It was wonderful how cool she felt – how easily she could slip out of his grasp! Any man could be managed like a child if he were really in love with one …

‘Don’t be a goose, Peter; do you suppose I’d have kissed you if –’

‘If what – what – what?’ he mimicked her ecstatically, not listening.

She saw that if she wished to make him hear her she must put more distance between them, and she rose and moved across the room. From the fireplace she turned to add – ‘if we hadn’t been saying good-bye?’

‘Good-bye – now? What’s the use of talking like that?’ He jumped up and followed her. ‘Look here, Undine – I’ll do anything on earth you want; only don’t talk of going! If you’ll only stay I’ll make it all as straight and square as you please. I’ll get Bertha Shallum to stop over with you for the summer; I’ll take a house at Trouville and make my wife come out there. Hang it, she
shall
, if you say so! Only be a little good to me!’

Still she stood before him without speaking, aware that
her implacable brows and narrowed lips would hold him off as long as she chose.

‘What’s the matter, Undine? Why don’t you answer? You know you can’t go back to that deadly dry-rot!’

She swept about on him with indignant eyes. ‘I can’t go on with my present life either. It’s hateful – as hateful as the other. If I don’t go home I’ve got to decide on something different.’

‘What do you mean by “something different”?’ She was silent, and he insisted: ‘Are you really thinking of marrying Chelles?’

She stared as if he had surprised a secret. ‘I’ll never forgive you if you speak of it –’

‘Good Lord! Good Lord!’ he groaned.

She remained motionless, with lowered lids, and he went up to her and pulled her about so that she faced him. ‘Undine, honour bright – do you think he’ll marry you?’

She looked at him with a sudden hardness in her eyes. ‘I really can’t discuss such things with you.’

‘Oh, for the Lord’s sake don’t take that tone! I don’t half know what I’m saying … but you mustn’t throw yourself away a second time. I’ll do anything you want – I swear I will!’

A knock on the door sent them apart, and a servant entered with a telegram.

Undine turned away to the window with the narrow blue slip. She was glad of the interruption: the sense of what she had at stake made her want to pause a moment and to draw breath.

The message was a long cable signed with Laura Fairford’s name. It told her that Ralph had been taken suddenly ill with pneumonia, that his condition was serious and that the doctors advised his wife’s immediate return.

Undine had to read the words over two or three times to get them into her crowded mind; and even after she had done so she needed more time to see their bearing on her own situation. If the message had concerned her boy her
brain would have acted more quickly. She had never troubled herself over the possibility of Paul’s falling ill in her absence, but she understood now that if the cable had been about him she would have rushed to the earliest steamer. With Ralph it was different. Ralph was always perfectly well – she could not picture him as being suddenly at death’s door and in need of her. Probably his mother and sister had had a panic: they were always full of sentimental terrors. The next moment an angry suspicion flashed across her: what if the cable were a device of the Marvell women to bring her back? Perhaps it had been sent with Ralph’s connivance! No doubt Bowen had written home about her – Washington Square had received some monstrous report of her doings! … Yes, the cable was clearly an echo of Laura’s letter – mother and daughter had cooked it up to spoil her pleasure. Once the thought had occurred to her it struck root in her mind and began to throw out giant branches.

Van Degen followed her to the window, his face still flushed and working. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, as she continued to stare silently at the telegram.

She crumpled the strip of paper in her hand. If only she had been alone, had had a chance to think out her answers!

‘What on earth’s the matter?’ he repeated.

‘Oh, nothing – nothing.’

‘Nothing? When you’re as white as a sheet?’

‘Am I?’ She gave a slight laugh. ‘It’s only a cable from home.’

‘Ralph?’

She hesitated. ‘No. Laura.’

‘What the devil is
she
cabling you about?’

‘She says Ralph wants me.’

‘Now – at once?’

‘At once.’

Van Degen laughed impatiently. ‘Why don’t he tell you so himself? What business is it of Laura Fairford’s?’

Undine’s gesture implied a ‘What indeed?’

‘Is that all she says?’

She hesitated again. ‘Yes – that’s all.’ As she spoke she tossed the telegram into the basket beneath the writing-table. ‘As if I didn’t
have
to go anyhow!’ she exclaimed.

With an aching clearness of vision she saw what lay before her – the hurried preparations, the long tedious voyage on a steamer chosen at haphazard, the arrival in the deadly July heat, and the relapse into all the insufferable daily fag of nursery and kitchen – she saw it and her imagination recoiled.

Van Degen’s eyes still hung on her: she guessed that he was intensely engaged in trying to follow what was passing through her mind. Presently he came up to her again, no longer perilous and importunate, but awkwardly tender, ridiculously moved by her distress.

‘Undine, listen: won’t you let me make it all right for you to stay?’

Her heart began to beat more quickly, and she let him come close, meeting his eyes coldly but without anger.

‘What do you call “making it all right”? Paying my bills? Don’t you see that’s what I hate, and will never let myself be dragged into again?’ She laid her hand on his arm. ‘The time has come when I must be sensible, Peter; that’s why we must say good-bye.’

‘Do you mean to tell me you’re going back to Ralph?’

She paused a moment; then she murmured between her lips: ‘I shall never go back to him.’

‘Then you
do
mean to marry Chelles?’

‘I’ve told you we must say good-bye. I’ve got to look out for my future.’

He stood before her, irresolute, tormented, his lazy mind and impatient senses labouring with a problem beyond their power. ‘Ain’t I here to look out for your future?’ he said at last.

‘No one shall look out for it in the way you mean. I’d rather never see you again –’

He gave her a baffled stare. ‘Oh, damn it – if that’s the way you feel!’ He turned and flung away toward the door.

She stood motionless where he left her, every nerve strung
to the highest pitch of watchfulness. As she stood there, the scene about her stamped itself on her brain with the sharpest precision. She was aware of the fading of the summer light outside, of the movements of her maid, who was laying out her dinner-dress in the room beyond, and of the fact that the tea-roses on her writing-table, shaken by Van Degen’s tread, were dropping their petals over Ralph’s letter, and down on the crumpled telegram which she could see through the trellised sides of the scrap-basket.

In another moment Van Degen would be gone. Worse yet, while he wavered in the doorway the Shallums and Chelles, after vainly awaiting her, might dash back from the Bois and break in on them. These and other chances rose before her, urging her to action; but she held fast, immovable, unwavering, a proud yet plaintive image of renunciation.

Van Degen’s hand was on the door. He half-opened it and then turned back.

‘That’s all you’ve got to say, then?’

‘That’s all.’

He jerked the door open and passed out. She saw him stop in the ante-room to pick up his hat and stick, his heavy figure silhouetted against the glare of the wall-lights. A ray of the same light fell on her where she stood in the unlit sitting-room, and her reflection bloomed out like a flower from the mirror that faced her. She looked at the image and waited.