Late and Soon (31 page)

His self-control was slipping from him and he was growing loud and angry.

“I'm not saying anything against him, except that he probably knows which side his bread is buttered as well as the next man, but it's utterly unsuitable. There's no
sense
in it. And if it's true that he's been carrying on with Primrose, it's perfectly outrageous. Not that I believe it is true.”

He fixed anxious, furious eyes upon her face.

“What do you propose to do, may I ask? Keep this chap at Coombe, or go off and live in some Irish bog in that damned disloyal country of his?”

“Rory is in the Army now, and will be until the war's over. I don't know what will happen afterwards. Who does?”

“Very well then. Don't do anything until the war's over,” triumphantly barked the General. “Call yourself engaged to him privately, and leave it at that. That gives you a chance to think things over. There's a devil of a lot to take into account, Val, mind you. Marriage is a serious business. Have you the slightest idea what this man's family is like, where he comes from, what sort of chance he has of making a living after the war?”

“He has a profession.”

“Drawing and painting,” said the General doubtfully. “I suppose he's a Catholic?”

“Yes, he is.”

“Venetia hates the idea. Personally, I don't know that it matters very much one way or the other. I'd rather a man had any religion than none. But frankly, Val, you've pitched on a man who isn't—isn't exactly in your own walk of life so to speak, and I think that's a mistake. I may be old-fashioned but all this levelling-up never has appealed to me. You'll find there are a lot of things you take for granted that he won't understand.”

“He'll find that about me, too,” Valentine said. “We've taken it all into account, Reggie. I know it seems to have happened very quickly—and indeed it has—but I know it's all right. I don't expect you to believe me.”

The General groaned.

He began to move down the avenue again and Valentine walked slowly beside him, her head bent in a vain endeavour to find some protection from the piercing cold.

“How soon— When do you intend to announce this?”

“I think we shall marry immediately, Reggie. There'll be nothing else to announce.”

“Well,” said the General violently,” I've always been told that the later in life these infatuations take hold of people, the stronger they are. But I must say, I've always thought you were a sensible woman, Val. Not the kind to lose her head. Venetia says that's the sort that gets it worst—and upon my soul, it looks as though she was right. One's always hearing of middle-aged women running off with the chauffeur, or the leader of a dance-band or something, and sooner or later coming to smash—usually sooner. Infatuation, that's what it is.”

Valentine made no reply.

As she had expected, the General in another moment offered a kind of grumbling apology.

“Not that I mean to say Lonergan's all one with somebody's chauffeur. He's a Colonel in the British
Army, and a decent enough fellow, no doubt. I don't dislike him, in fact. What about turning back? Get the wind behind us.”

Valentine turned obediently.

“I suppose you were in love with him when you were a girl?”

“Yes.”

“Still, you haven't been keeping it up ever since.”

“Oh no, Reggie. But I suppose that was one reason why it happened so quickly.”

The General made a sound that might pass for a grudging assent.

They were nearing the house when he spoke again and his voice then had become mild and meditative.

“Extraordinary, the way things come round. I can remember mother writing to me from Rome about you and an affair with some Irish fellow that nobody knew anything about, and saying how pretty you'd grown.”

“Did she?”

Valentine was surprised and touched. Her mother had loved her, possessively and emotionally, but she had never praised her. Valentine had grown up believing herself to be uninteresting and unattractive.

The General nodded.

“Yes, I remember her writing that. I was at Simla when I got the letter. I remember feeling a bit surprised at your being old enough for that kind of thing. I suppose I was still thinking of you as the kid in short frocks I'd seen on my last furlough. It's a funny thing, that chap's name coming back to me directly I heard it, Lonergan. Well—I always say I never forget a name.”

They reached the double-doors of the house and General Levallois performed the difficult feat of balancing himself and his supporting sticks whilst carefully wiping his boots against the ancient iron scraper.

They went into the lobby and the General pushed open the glass swing-doors and they passed through them.

“I'm glad we've had this talk about it, old girl.”

“So am I, Reggie.”

“Think over it, before you go and do anything silly,” the General advised her. “Have a talk with Venetia. She's a good sort, and she knows what's what.”

He moved slowly towards the staircase.

“Nearly time for the One O'Clock News. I shall go up and listen to it in Madeleine's room. One can't hear oneself think when young Jess and that dog of hers are anywhere about. Besides, if Spurway gets in my light I shall want to give him a kick in the pants. Can't understand his mother having a boy like that. She was a Herbert-MacDowell of Acres. I remember her, and her sister Edith too. Pretty girl, Edith.”

He shifted his sticks, grasped the banister rail and began to climb upwards.

Valentine, gazing after him, thought that she had little more to fear from Reggie. His anger had spent itself, and his inelastic mind would for ever refuse to admit the full implications of all that Primrose had tried to force upon his understanding.

Watching his slow, creeping progress up the stairs Valentine remembered, for a moment, her eldest brother as the ambitious and successful soldier that he once had been before illness had turned him prematurely into an old man.

Now there was nothing left for him, except the oddly trivial remembrances on which his mind for the most part dwelt, the creature comforts of which he could still avail himself, and the devotion and kindness of Madeleine.

Madeleine will always look after him, she thought gratefully and with confidence.

Hughie Spurway, following Jess about like a dog, stood at her heels as though seeking protection in her sturdy normality while she announced for him:

“Mummie, Hughie says he absolutely must and will
go to Plymouth directly after lunch. I suppose that means aunt Venetia'll go back to London by train. I hope she's really leaving here to-morrow, like she said. She makes me sick. Fancy if I had to travel up to London with her! I might, you know. I could be called up any day now. They never give you more than about five minutes' notice.”

Primrose came in.

Hughie turned a sallower, more evil colour than before at the sight of her and he picked up a book from the table beside him and looked fixedly into it without stirring whilst Jessica glibly repeated her announcement of his departure.

“So what?” said Primrose.

“I was thinking how awful it'd be if it just happened that I had to report to Victory House to-morrow and had to travel to London with aunt V. Except that I suppose she'd pay for me to get in first class with her, but even then it wouldn't be worth it.”

Jess chattered on and Valentine wondered exactly how far she realized that she was helping them all through an embarrassing and even painful hour. Jessica might be naïve, but she was also shrewd, and the inherited sense of social responsibility that Primrose so violently and consciously repudiated had not passed her by. Knowingly or not, she recognized it as a part of human intercourse and conformed to it, on her own terms and in her own way.

Throughout luncheon Hughie hardly spoke at all, Primrose addressed her few, discontented comments on the cooking and serving of the food into space and the conversation lay between Lady Rockingham, the General and Valentine, Jess keeping up a running under-current of talk that seemed mostly to be concerned with the dogs.

As they left the table she suddenly enquired of Hughie Spurway:

“Could aunt Sophy and I come as far as the post
office with you in your car, and then be dropped? We'll walk back.”

“Certainly,” he answered, looking startled.

“I can call for the second post,” Jess explained. “I've got a terrific feeling there may be a letter telling me to join up.”

“I'll get the car round,” Hughie muttered.

He looked, for the first time, at Primrose but she made no movement at all and he went upstairs.

“Are you going to forgive him before he goes?” Lady Rockingham asked lightly of her niece. “It's really all your own fault, darling, for upsetting the poor wretch so that he lost his head. He looks half dead with shame, this morning.”

Primrose made no reply.

“When you do
that
with your mouth,” Jess observed to her sister dispassionately, “you look exactly like a camel. I wish I could.”

Primrose was still wearing the same expression when Hughie Spurway took his leave.

He stammered something inarticulate to Lady Rockingham, who laughed and waved her hand at him without touching his.

“Ring me up at the Dorchester one of these days, my dear. I can't promise I'll be there because one's so run off one's feet these days, don't you know what I mean, but we can but hope for the best. Don't forget.”

Her little nod dismissed him as coldly and deliberately as had her unmeaning phrases.

Valentine moved forward in time to prevent Hughie from attempting whatever difficult speech he had prepared for her.

“I'll come with you to the door,” she said. “I hope your bag has been taken down.”

“It's in the car.”

Valentine looked at Primrose.

She was lying back in an armchair in the furthest corner
of the hall, a cigarette between her lips, her head bent over the crossword puzzle in the daily paper.

Jess spoke the words that Valentine had lacked the courage to utter.

“Hughie's just going.”

Primrose lifted her yellow-curled head. Her long, narrow face was expressionless except for the curve of the ironically-arched thick eyebrows that so expressively suggested her arrogant contempt for her surroundings.

Hughie advanced, stood stock-still in front of her, and said in the unnaturally loud voice of one who has been afraid that he will not be able to speak at all:

“Well, goodbye. It's been grand, seeing you.”

“'Bye,” said Primrose. The monosyllable seemed to drop from one corner of her mouth and she did not raise her eyes.

“Goodbye,” repeated Hughie. “I'll be writing to you from Plymouth, I expect.”

“I shouldn't bother,” said Primrose.

Her pencil hovered over the paper, then filled in one of the little blank squares.

For the third time Hughie said goodbye and this time she made no answer.

He turned away and followed Valentine and Jess to where the car stood waiting beside the moss-grown stone pillars at the entrance.

“Fancy, someone's mended the chain,” said Jess, and she put up her hand and pulled at the rusty iron links.

The chain immediately broke again.

“I bet it was Charles who did that and thought himself awfully clever,” Jess remarked, unperturbed, as she pushed the broken length of chain into her coat-pocket. “I'll just show him that when he comes back to-night. Come on, aunt Sophy. You can sit on my knee.”

She climbed into the car.

“Goodbye,” said Valentine, and she held out her hand to Hughie, smiling. “Don't worry, please.”

She felt that the words were very inadequate but his chilly fingers grasped hers in a painful effusion of gratitude.

“Thanks frightfully, Lady Arbell. I'm afraid it's—I've—oh, God, I can't say what I mean.”

“Aren't you
coming
?” Jess called.

Valentine drew back and the young man turned his haggard stare away from her, took his place at the wheel and drove off down the winding avenue, away from Coombe.

A fleeting arrow of compassion shot through Valentine's mind, and the next instant she was giving herself up joyously and with profound excitement to the thought that her lover would be with her again that evening.

In a very little while—in a day or two—they would marry.

Rory and I will belong to one another in every way there is, she thought, and for a little while she, whom the years had taught to be neither optimistic nor enterprising, gave herself up to the day-dreaming that had coloured all life for the girl, Valentine Levallois.

The ringing of the telephone bell sounded through the hall.

Certain that it was Lonergan, Valentine went to answer it and found her certainty justified.

“Yes?”

“Ah, thank God it's you, dearest. Listen, could you meet me the way you did before, at the Victoria Hotel? I've to talk to you.”

“I'll come, Rory. What time?”

“As soon as you can, love.”

She thought that she could detect hesitation in his voice.

“What is it? Has something happened?”

“You're terribly quick. Listen, love. I've got forty-eight hours' leave, from to-morrow. We all have.”

Her heart seemed to stop, and then to race.

“Is it embarkation leave?”

“It is, my darling.”

There was an instant of silence and then his deep, musical voice came over the air again with a note of great urgency.

“Val, my sweet, are you all right?”

“Yes. Tell me what you want me to do.”

“I want you to come to the Victoria Hotel, now. We'll talk, then. I can take an hour, with any luck. We've everything to settle.”

“You can't tell me anything …?”