Hetty Dorval (10 page)

Paula was very sweet when she found me absent-minded. She knew, of course, about Father.

W
hen I got back to my boarding-house it was dinnertime and I went straight to the telephone in the hall. This was going to be difficult, very unprivate in the hall. “Rick,” I was going to say, “Look, I think I should tell you that the charming person we met this afternoon isn’t really a friend of mine though she sounded like it. I’m telling you this on account of Molly. She charms birds off trees, but truly I don’t think you’d like … I mean I don’t know an awful lot about her, but I’m telling you that I think she’s no good …” and maundering on like that, not disturbing the memory of the late Sir Terence particularly. All I knew against Hetty was hearsay except for her two semi-admissions to me, once when I was a child and said good-bye to her years ago in Lytton, and again in her hurried secret words on the ship – and of course her note was also some kind of admission. I told myself, “Oh no, it was not Richard whom I was warning off Hetty, but Richard for Molly.” And having had that warning, for Molly of course, Richard would have to do what he liked about it. I shut firmly away any personal concern about Richard. Perhaps.

I heard the bell ring in Rick’s rooms, the little strident sound shrilling to the empty air. Rick and Molly had not returned. And when I telephoned again late at night they still had not returned. The very fact of ringing had eased my mind a bit, as if telephoning could of itself constitute a sort of warning to them. I finished packing, went to bed, fell asleep, and at about three o’clock woke up, awake at once, and filled with apprehensions. At that dread hour when the normal swells and darkens to the tentacled abnormal; when a sore throat or a pain in the chest leads logically to death, burial and disintegration; when an omission becomes a disaster; when a mishap to the beloved one becomes fatal – at that dread hour I sat up in bed and looked into the darkness and saw the amiable Hetty menacing our peace. The pattern fell into place again on the black and invisible counterpane –
“Frankie!”
with delight, “Is your Mother in England?” and softly, “You know that Terence died?”, the emanating look, and the facts that an hour later Hetty was whisked away by Rick and Molly, that Molly was in an obvious state of incipient infatuation, while I, who was the only person who had reason to think that Hetty was poison, was leaving for Paris at once. It was I who had unintentionally brought them together, but it would be my responsibility if they – or Richard – were not warned. I could see Rick looking at me crossly, “Why didn’t you tell me? Because Molly …” And yet, warn Richard? Suddenly that seemed fatuous and insulting. Was Rick to be protected from Hetty Dorval by me, an inexperienced schoolgirl with very little to offer in proof? Nevertheless, I argued with myself, if seven years ago Father was thoroughly upset because I went to see Hetty, I was certainly right in assuming that she was not a good person for Molly to become fond of. “Oh but,” said that other self who sits opposite and argues disturbingly at three
o’clock in the morning, “that was all a very long time ago; are you going to continue to hold an old story, of which you indeed know nothing, against Hetty forever?” I needed that sane little arbiter, my mother. And when I thought of Mother, all constancy, courage and sparkling sincerity, up came the words, “Good is as visible as green.” In my mother, good was visible. I thought of others in whom good was as visible as green, but it was not visible in Hetty. I could not see Hetty plainly. I could not tell what Hetty was really like. I was subject to all her charm, but I felt no confidence in her. I would stop agitating myself, I would lie down. I would go to sleep. I would not be an idiot. I would turn over on my right. I would turn over on my left. I would telephone Rick first thing in the morning. I would not telephone Rick at all. I was making much out of nothing. Hetty was not so insidiously potent. I was all cockeyed, yet I needed advice. But Rick was off to Edinburgh at once and Molly was going home. They would never see Hetty again, and if they did, what did it matter? I would telephone Rick. Oh, go to sleep! You’re off to Paris in the morning!

Before Paula’s father called for me, after early breakfast, I again telephoned to Rick’s room, feeling by this time rather self-conscious and a simpleton; because with London daylight, and tea and toast, and traffic in the streets, Hetty Dorval had dwindled to moderate size. However, telephoning made no difference because the small voice told me aggravatingly that the line was out of order. Thus the Telephone Company took the fates of several people straight out of my hands. However, I thought, I shall drop a line to Rick in Edinburgh, and then I can do no more and shall enjoy Paris with Paula Fairfax, with never a faint nor stirring thought of Hetty Dorval … “Oh, Mr. Fairfax, there you are, isn’t it thrilling?
Hello, Paula, how many have you got? I have two and the hatbox!” Oh, beaming sun and frabjus day! Along Bayswater Terrace! Into the Bayswater Road! Into the train! Here’s Newhaven; here’s the Channel and the grey waves tossing indifferently; here’s Dieppe, the Customs, the train filled with French people, the air filled with the French language. Paris! Paula, isn’t it divine? – And I forgot to write to Rick until we’d been in Paris for nearly a week.

“Dear Rick,” I then wrote all in a rush, “I meant to tell you before I left, but I hadn’t a chance, that Lady Connot isn’t as much of a friend of mine as she sounded. But she used to be at Lytton and …” And what? But I forged ahead and said that Lady Connot was probably not a good friend for Molly. I boggled at words like reputation and mistress and even Shanghai, because they looked so damning when written, much worse than if I had spoken them. But I damned her a bit just the same and, that done, wrote about Paris. I mailed the letter to Rick care of Gillespie & Gillespie, Engineering Works, with their office on Princes Street, to catch him in Edinburgh, and then forgot that Hetty existed.

And then, three weeks later, bang! – two letters arrived by the same post that turned my three-o’clock-in-the-morning fears to true malignant prophecy, and up rose Hetty blotting out with her blasted good looks the Arc de Triomphe, the bridges of the Seine and the gargoyles on Notre Dame. And Cliff House.

Richard had not gone to Edinburgh after all, Molly told me, and so she had stayed up in town with him for ten days. And they had seen Lady Connot every single day and wasn’t she wonderful? And she (Hetty) had told her (Molly) to call her “Hetty.” And every evening they had been to the theatre or dancing or had just gone to Hetty’s and Hetty had sung all
evening. Wasn’t that heavenly?
(Yes, indeed, Molly, I remember well, it was
.) And next holidays Rick was going to bring her down to Cliff House. “And Frankie, I do believe Rick’s fallen in love at last. And isn’t she brave, because her husband had only his pension?” And on and on for six heart-sinking pages.

And then a letter from Mother. Mother was still in Victoria but it was plain that she wanted to be at home again. “I shall stay here,” she wrote in her usual galloping way, “till May when Jean will come to me again and we will go to the ranch and help to see Mr. Baker over the summer. He may buy the ranch next year Frankie – I don’t know. I haven’t quite made up my mind. How do you feel about it? But if I do sell it I shall put the little bungalow in order and get it ready for you and me to live in when you come back. At least, I shall live there darling and you shall come and go as you will. Wasn’t it extraordinary, Frankie, that Father and you and I were all there together then that one day, and that Father saw it and looked at those very hills and ate his lunch there and even lay down and slept there? I’m so thankful. I can’t explain but that makes the bungalow into home for me. I shan’t feel a bit strange there dear. Oh Frankie the bungalow reminds me. You remember The Menace? Dear dear what an afternoon! I had tea with Eleanor and a friend of hers from Shanghai, a Mrs. Kennerly-Corbett, and she and Eleanor spoke of a school friend and Eleanor said She married a Frenchman in Shanghai didn’t she, and Mrs. K-C said My Dear Didn’t You Know and Eleanor said No what? And then Mrs. K-C really began. It doesn’t matter telling you because Mrs. K-C would tell anyone with pleasure. And here’s the story as she told it to us.

“Eleanor’s friend and her husband were awfully happy, a sweet couple, and they rode a lot and kept their horses at a riding stable. And then the girl was going to have a baby and
didn’t ride so much and just at that time a most beautiful creature came from goodness knows where and gave lessons at this riding stable. And my dear this young Frenchman went completely mad about her and it appears that he left his wife and the girl lived with him and then dreadful things happened and in the end the wife, Eleanor’s friend, took her own life, she was so unhappy. And then of course the husband was distracted but the girl calmly left him and went away without any warning on one of the
Empress
boats with a rich oil man. She was a most extraordinary girl, Mrs. K-C said, because some people knew her and said that simply if a situation wasn’t pleasant she just walked out on it wherever she was and nothing and nobody else disturbed her – their feelings I mean. And Mrs. K-C said how lovely she was to look at and with an angel face and a selfish monster and suddenly I thought, Mrs. Dorval! And then Mrs. K-C said to me Oh don’t you come from the Upper Country? We heard that she didn’t go with this man to California at all but that he set her up somewhere in British Columbia where the riding was good and then for some reason she up and left him. So I said Yes that must be Mrs. Dorval. But she said she didn’t think Dorval was the name but it must have been the same because I described her. I told her that as far as I knew she was married now. Mrs. K-C was frightfully excited to think that I’d actually seen her and knew of her. Eleanor kept on saying How awful, poor Jeannie. She really is astounding, Mrs. Dorval I mean, to have lived through so much storm and fury and caused it too, and not a sign on her face. She simply can’t
mind
. I wonder if you’ll ever see her again.”

By this time Mother must have received a letter from me, crossing hers, telling her about meeting Hetty but not stressing it much. Things always look more important or more
foolish, you never can tell which, when they’re written, and I had not enlarged on the implications of the meeting.

Now what to do? Probably Rick had never received my letter, but if he had,
after
he’d fallen for Hetty, how he would loathe me.

Paula put her head into my room. “Well? Finished? Hurry up. Aren’t you coming out?” and then she came in and stood looking at me. “Why, what’s the matter?”

“Oh, Paula,” I said, “I think I’ll tell you all about it.” And I did, from the first time that I rode with Hetty over the sage and along the dusty road from Lillooet, down to the time that she went off in the cab with Richard and Molly, right down to Molly’s revealing exuberant letter, and to Mother’s story.

Paula regarded me with her hard, wise, impudent face grown serious. “What shall I do?” I said. “I’ll
have
to go back, Paula. I’ve got to see Hetty. I can’t see Rick now, he’ll just hate me. And I couldn’t do anything with Molly. Uncle David, perhaps. No, I’ve got to see Hetty but probably the harm’s done. If it is harm, and I think it is.”

“Frankie, you must go, at once,” said Paula. “We’ll go out and get your tickets now and you beat it. That’s what you’ll do.”

I left for England.

A
s the train slid towards London I recognized within myself from time to time the startling nature of this journey for me, inexperienced as I was. At some moments I seemed to be a straw in a stream of cause and effect; but I knew that this was not so and that the very nature and strength of the decision to leave a planned course and come to London alone, to tackle the experienced Hetty alone and try to see her as she was, and to battle her if necessary showed that I had more force than I had given myself credit for. This gave confidence. But Hetty was
terra incognita
and I could not yet estimate my powers there. I said to myself: “Hetty arms herself in silence and withdrawal. So can you. Don’t let her silence reach you.” The strength of Hetty’s silence would be this – that her friend (could she really have a friend?) or lover or antagonist would waste himself in emotion and talk, and Hetty would remain serene and unwasted. Having taken the decision to come to London and seek her out, I no longer felt adolescent. I was armed and adequate, but I was wary enough to suspect the queer exhilaration that I felt. This exhilaration did not come from any power that new knowledge of Hetty
had given me. I was not even glad to have this power because, mistrust her as I might, I yet could not dislike Hetty and did not escape from her attraction. The knowledge which I had, served only to make clear my way. The situation had resolved itself. There was Cliff House, infused always by the mutual trust and affection of people who would never expose each other to grief or shame. And there was Hetty who did not feel the responsibility that love engenders, and for whose complete selfishness her beauty and charm could not atone. Hetty could enter a life and then leave it like the seven devils. And I was sure that if Hetty in an idle or lonely moment entered the integrity of Cliff House, she would later as idly depart and leave wreckage behind. And it would be on Rick that the desolation would chiefly fall. Feeling along this frightening unfamiliar path I found a touchstone. If, when I should see Hetty and show her my mind, she should become either angry or distressed, then I should have to believe that in so far as Hetty could be moved, she was moved. I should then have to believe that she loved Richard, and – although she knew what knowledge I held – that she still was determined to marry him and perhaps to make and to keep him happy. But if Hetty should look at me with her gentle unrevealing look and keep silent, and, presently, rise and leave me and shut a door between us, then it would be plain that Hetty remained the Hetty of Shanghai and of Lytton and of how many more places, and that Menace was still her true name. That, at all events, was the way that the light shone on the path I had taken and was now treading.