The Well of Loneliness (47 page)

To Mary, however, he was usually polite: ‘You like our Paris? I am glad—that is good. You make the home with Mademoiselle Gordon; I hope you prevent her injurious smoking.’

And in spite of his outbursts Mary adored him, because of his interest in Stephen’s fencing.

2

One evening towards the end of June, Jonathan Brockett walked in serenely: ‘Hallo, Stephen! Here I am, I’ve turned up again—not that I love you, I positively hate you. I’ve been keeping away for weeks and weeks. Why did you never answer my letters? Not so much as a line on a picture postcard! There’s something in this more than meets the eye. And where’s Puddle? She used to be kind to me once—I shall lay my head down on her bosom and weep…’ He stopped abruptly, seeing Mary Llewellyn, who got up from her deep armchair in the corner.

Stephen said: ‘Mary, this is Jonathan Brockett—an old friend of mine; we’re fellow writers. Brockett, this is Mary Llewellyn.’ Brockett shot a swift glance in Stephen’s direction, then he bowed and gravely shook hands with Mary.

And now Stephen was to see yet another side of this strange and unexpected creature. With infinite courtesy and tact he went out of his way to make himself charming. Never by so much as a word or a look did he once allow it to be inferred that his quick mind had seized on the situation. Brockett’s manner suggested an innocence that he was very far from possessing.

Stephen began to study him with interest; they two had not met since before the war. He had thickened, his figure was more robust, there was muscle and flesh on his wide, straight shoulders. And she thought that his face had certainly aged; little bags were showing under his eyes, and rather deep lines at the sides of his mouth—the war had left its mark upon Brockett. Only his hands remained unchanged; those white and soft-skinned hands of a woman.

He was saying: ‘So you two were in the same Unit. That was a great stroke of luck for Stephen; I mean she’d be feeling horribly lonely now that old Puddle’s gone back to England. Stephen’s distinguished herself I see—the Croix de Guerre and a very becoming scar. Don’t protest, my dear Stephen, you know it’s becoming. All that happened to me was a badly sprained ankle’; he laughed, ‘fancy going out to Mesopotamia to slip on a bit of orange peel! I might have done better than that here in Paris. By the way, I’m in my own flat again now; I hope you’ll bring Miss Llewellyn to luncheon.’

He did not stay embarrassingly late, nor did he leave suggestively early; he got up to go just at the right moment. But when Mary went out of the room to call Pierre, he quite suddenly put his arm through Stephen’s.

‘Good luck, my dear, you deserve it,’ he murmured, and his sharp grey eyes had grown almost gentle: ‘I hope you’ll be very, very happy.’

Stephen quietly disengaged her arm with a look of surprise: ‘Happy? Thank you, Brockett,’ she smiled, as she lighted a cigarette.

3

They could not tear themselves away from their home, and that summer they remained in Paris. There were always so many things to do, Mary’s bedroom entirely to refurnish for instance—she had Puddle’s old room overlooking the garden. When the city seemed to be growing too airless, they motored off happily into the country, spending a couple of nights at an auberge, for France abounds in green, pleasant places. Once or twice they lunched with Jonathan Brockett at his flat in the Avenue Victor Hugo, a beautiful flat since his taste was perfect, and he dined with them before leaving for Deauville—his manner continued to be studiously guarded. The Duphots had gone for their holiday and Buisson was away in Spain for a month—but what did they want that summer with people? On those evenings when they did not go out, Stephen would now read aloud to Mary, leading the girl’s adaptable mind into new and hitherto unexplored channels; teaching her the joy that can lie in books, even as Sir Philip had once taught his daughter. Mary had read so little in her life that the choice of books seemed practically endless, but Stephen must make a start by reading that immortal classic of their own Paris, Peter Ibbetson, and Mary said:

‘Stephen—if we were ever parted, do you think that you and I could dream true?’

And Stephen answered: ‘I often wonder whether we’re not dreaming true all the time—whether the only truth isn’t in dreaming.’ Then they talked for a while of such nebulous things as dreams, which will seem very concrete to lovers.

Sometimes Stephen would read aloud in French, for she wanted the girl to grow better acquainted with the lure of that fascinating language. And thus gradually, with infinite care, did she seek to fill the more obvious gaps in Mary’s none too complete education. And Mary, listening to Stephen’s voice, rather deep and always a little husky, would think that words were more tuneful than music and more inspiring, when spoken by Stephen.

At this time many gentle and friendly things began to bear witness to Mary’s presence. There were flowers in the quiet old garden for instance, and some large red carp in the fountain’s basin, and two married couples of white fantail pigeons who lived in a house on a tall wooden leg and kept up a convivial cooing. These pigeons lacked all respect for Stephen; by August they were flying in at her window and landing with soft, heavy thuds on her desk, where they strutted until she fed them with maize. And because they were Mary’s and Mary loved them, Stephen would laugh, as unruffled as they were, and would patiently coax them back into the garden with bribes for their plump little circular crops. In the turret room that had been Puddle’s sanctum, there were now three cagefuls of Mary’s rescues—tiny bright-coloured birds with dejected plumage, and eyes that had filmed from a lack of sunshine. Mary was always bringing them home from the terrible bird shops along the river, for her love of such helpless and suffering things was so great that she in turn must suffer. An ill-treated creature would haunt her for days, so that Stephen would often exclaim half in earnest:

‘Go and buy up all the animal shops in Paris…anything, darling, only don’t look unhappy!’

The tiny bright-coloured birds would revive to some extent thanks to Mary’s skilled treatment; but since she always bought the most ailing, not a few of them left this disheartening world for what we must hope was a warm, wild heaven—there were several small graves already in the garden.

Then one morning, when Mary went out alone because Stephen had letters to write to Morton, she chanced on yet one more desolate creature who followed her home to the Rue Jacob, and right into Stephen’s immaculate study. It was large, ungainly and appallingly thin; it was coated with mud which had dried on its nose, its back, its legs and all over its stomach. Its paws were heavy, its ears were long, and its tail, like the tail of a rat, looked hairless, but curved up to a point in a miniature sickle. Its face was as smooth as though made out of plush, and its luminous eyes were the colour of amber.

Mary said: ‘Oh, Stephen—he wanted to come. He’s got a sore paw; look at him, he’s limping!’

Then this tramp of a dog hobbled over to the table and stood there gazing dumbly at Stephen, who must stroke his anxious, dishevelled head: ‘I suppose this means that we’re going to keep him.’

‘Darling, I’m dreadfully afraid it does—he says he’s sorry to be such a mongrel.’

‘He needn’t apologize,’ Stephen smiled, ‘he’s all right, he’s an Irish water-spaniel, though what he’s doing out here the Lord knows; I’ve never seen one before in Paris.’

They fed him, and later that afternoon they gave him a bath in Stephen’s bathroom. The result of that bath, which was disconcerting as far as the room went, they left to Adčle. The room was a bog, but Mary’s rescue had emerged a mass of chocolate ringlets, all save his charming plush-covered face, and his curious tail, which was curved like a sickle. Then they bound the sore pad and took him downstairs; after which Mary wanted to know all about him, so Stephen unearthed an illustrated dog book from a cupboard under the study bookcase.

‘Oh, look!’ exclaimed Mary, reading over her shoulder, ‘He’s not Irish at all, he’s really a Welshman: “We find in the Welsh laws of Howell Dda the first reference to this intelligent spaniel. The Iberians brought the breed to Ireland…” Of course, that’s why he followed me home; he knew I was Welsh the moment he saw me!’

Stephen laughed: ‘Yes, his hair grows up from a peak like yours—it must be a national failing. Well, what shall we call him? His name’s important; it ought to be quite short.’

‘David,’ said Mary.

The dog looked gravely from one to the other for a moment, then he lay down at Mary’s feet, dropping his chin on his bandaged paw, and dosing his eyes with a grunt of contentment. And so it had suddenly come to pass that they who had lately been two, were now three. There were Stephen and Mary—there was also David.

That October there arose the first dark cloud. It drifted over to Paris from England, for Anna wrote, asking Stephen to Morton but with never a mention of Mary Llewellyn. Not that she ever did mention their friendship in her letters, indeed she completely ignored it; yet this invitation which excluded the girl seemed to Stephen an intentional slight upon Mary. A hot flush of anger spread up to her brow as she read and re-read her mother’s brief letter:

‘I want to discuss some important points regarding the management of the estate. As the place will eventually come to you, I think we should try to keep more in touch…’ Then a list of the points Anna wished to discuss; they seemed very trifling indeed to Stephen.

She put the letter away in a drawer and sat staring darkly out of the window. In the garden Mary was talking to David, persuading him not to retrieve the pigeons.

‘If my mother had invited her ten times over I’d never have taken her to Morton,’ Stephen muttered.

Oh, but she knew, and only too well, what it would mean should they be there together; the lies, the despicable subterfuges, as though they were little less than criminals. It would be: ‘Mary, don’t hang about my bedroom—be careful…of course while we’re here at Morton…it’s my mother, she can’t understand these things; to her they would seem an outrage, an insult…And then the guard set upon eyes and lips; the feeling of guilt at so much as a hand-touch; the pretence of a careless, quite usual friendship—‘Mary, don’t look at me as though you cared! you did this evening—remember my mother.’

Intolerable quagmire of lies and deceit! The degrading of all that to them was sacred—a very gross degrading of love, and through love a gross degrading of Mary, Mary…so loyal and as yet so gallant, but so pitifully untried in the war of existence. Warned only by words, the words of a lover, and what were mere words when it came to actions? And the ageing woman with the far-away eyes, eyes that could yet be so cruel, so accusing—that they might turn and rest with repugnance on Mary, even as once they had rested on Stephen: ‘I would rather see you dead at my feet…’ A fearful saying, and yet she had meant it, that ageing woman with the far-away eyes—she had uttered it knowing herself to be a mother. But that at least should be hidden from Mary.

She began to consider the ageing woman who had scourged her but whom she had so deeply wounded, and as she did so the depth of that wound made her shrink in spite of her bitter anger, so that gradually the anger gave way to a slow and almost reluctant pity. Poor, ignorant, blind, unreasoning woman; herself a victim, having given her body for Nature’s most inexplicable whim. Yes, there had been two victims already—must there now be a third—and that one Mary? She trembled. At that moment she could not face it, she was weak, she was utterly undone by loving. Greedy she had grown for happiness, for the joys and the peace that their union had brought her. She would try to minimize the whole thing; she would say: ‘It will only be for ten days; I must just run over about this business,’ then Mary would probably think it quite natural that she had not been invited to Morton and would ask no questions—she never asked questions. But would Mary think such a slight was quite natural? Fear possessed her; she sat there terribly afraid of this cloud that had suddenly risen to menace—afraid yet determined not to submit, not to let it gain power through her own acquiescence.

There was only one weapon to keep it at bay. Getting up she opened the window: ‘Mary!’

All unconscious the girl hurried in with David: ‘Did you call?’

‘Yes—come close. Closer…closer, sweetheart…

2

Shaken and very greatly humbled, Mary had let Stephen go from her to Morton. She had not been deceived by Stephen’s glib words, and had now no illusions regarding Anna Gordon. Lady Anna, suspecting the truth about them, had not wished to meet her. It was all quite clear, cruelly clear if it came to that matter—but these thoughts she had mercifully hidden from Stephen.

She had seen Stephen off at the station with a smile: ‘I’ll write every day. Do put on your coat, darling; you don’t want to arrive at Morton with a chill. And mind you wire when you get to Dover.’

Yet now as she sat in the empty study, she must bury her face and cry a little because she was here and Stephen in England…and then of course, this was their first real parting.

David sat watching with luminous eyes in which were reflected her secret troubles; then he got up and planted a paw on the book, for he thought it high time to have done with this reading. He lacked the language that Raftery had known—the language of many small sounds and small movements—a clumsy and inarticulate fellow he was, but unrestrainedly loving. He nearly broke his own heart between love and the deep gratitude which he felt for Mary. At the moment he wanted to lay back his ears and howl with despair to see her unhappy. He wanted to make an enormous noise, the kind of noise wild folk make in the jungle—lions and tigers and other wild folk that David had heard about from his mother—his mother had been in Africa once a long time ago, with an old French colonel. But instead he abruptly licked Mary’s cheek—it tasted peculiar, he thought, like sea water.

‘Do you want a walk, David?’ she asked him gently.

And as well as he could, David nodded his head by wagging his tail which was shaped like a sickle. Then he capered, thumping the ground with his paws; after which he barked twice in an effort to amuse her, for such things had seemed funny to her in the past, although now she appeared not to notice his capers. However, she had put on her hat and coat; so, still barking, he followed her through the courtyard.