Nuns and Soldiers (51 page)

‘It’s not my fault,’ said Anne. ‘I’m just a messenger. If there’s this unpleasant rumour you would be bound to hear of it in the end from someone, and isn’t it better that you should hear it at the start from me? Please don’t be so cross, my dear.’

‘I’m not “cross”! I’m - it’s unspeakable! And so
silly
- You and the Count are incredibly naïve - but I’m surprised at Manfred - Anyway I still don’t understand. You say you
saw
this woman? What’s her name?’

‘Daisy Barrett. Ed heard this story from Jimmy Roland who you say is Tim’s friend. Roland said Tim and this woman -’

‘Yes, yes, yes, don’t keep repeating it, had arranged that Tim should marry me to keep them in comfort! Anne, Anne, just
think
!’

‘I know it sounds insane,’ said Anne, immobile and looking up. ‘I’m not saying it’s true! But something must have started the story. The bit I was able to check seemed to fit in -’

‘How did you find the woman?’

‘I got her address from a pub she goes to, Roland mentioned the pub to Ed. She said she’d been Tim’s mistress for years, she implied she still was, she said there had been such a plan - Of course she may have been lying on all these points. My impression of her was that some of it was true. But hadn’t you better ask Tim? If the whole thing’s a malicious invention, it had better be scotched straightaway.’

‘ “Scotched”, odd word,’ said Gertrude. She could not, even at a moment of extreme emotion, resist a habit, caught from Guy, of commenting on words. She seemed a trifle calmer. ‘Yes, OK, I know it’s not your fault. What’s she like?’

‘Shabby, mannish, thin, rather haggard. Seemed educated. Is supposed to be a painter but says she’s a novelist. Lives in a very nasty flatlet near Shepherd’s Bush. Drinks a lot.’

Gertrude was thoughtful. ‘Of course she’s lying. She may be someone Tim knew years ago. Perhaps she heard of his marriage and invented all this so as to get money out of us - though I can’t for the life of me see how she thinks it’s to be done.’

‘I can’t either,’ said Anne, ‘and somehow she didn’t strike me as the sort of person who would invent something to blackmail people. I rather liked her.’

‘You
liked
her?’

‘Yes, why not, one gets involuntary impressions of people.’

‘You say she’s a drunk?’

‘I thought so. She may be irresponsible, a bit dotty, I mean sort of wild - she’s certainly an eccentric -’

‘You
liked
someone who is maligning my husband in the most repulsive way imaginable?’

‘No, well, I shouldn’t have said that. I just mean I don’t see her as an obvious paranoid or a vindictive liar. Gertrude, I don’t know what to think. I’ve said all I have to say.’

‘You’re enjoying this. You’ve always been against Tim, you’ve always hated him and worked to denigrate him and diminish him -’

‘I’m not enjoying it!’ Oh if you only knew how little, thought Anne. If you only knew with what diligent thoroughness I am working against my own interests!

‘You despise Tim.’

‘I don’t. I only thought, and think, that he’s not good enough for you.’

‘You know nothing about him, you don’t understand him, you’re just
jealous
, meanly
jealous
-’

‘At least I’m not after your money,’ said Anne.

The china monkey cellist descended to the floor and smashed to pieces. Anne stood up. The two women looked down at the fragments upon the green tiles of the fireplace.

Anne’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Darling, I’m very sorry.’

‘I’m sorry too,’ said Gertrude, moving away. ‘I’m suffering from shock. I feel attacked. I don’t blame you. But you produce this awful crazy story - with a sort of glee - or perhaps I’m imagining it-I know you don’t
want
to hurt me. I suppose if people are talking, someone had to tell me. I just wish it hadn’t been you. I wish it had been the Count.’

‘The Count - yes - oh if only you had married
him.
’

There was a sound outside which made them both stand frozen, then turn to each other staring and quickly dashing away traces of tears. The sound was that of a key inserted in the front door lock.

 

 

Tim entered humming, then came on into the drawing-room, carrying his packages.

‘It’s me. Oh hello, Anne.’ He stood looking from one to the other. ‘What’s up?’

‘I’ll go,’ said Anne quickly.

‘No, Anne, don’t go. I want you to hear Tim deny all this filthy nonsense.’

‘What is it?’ said Tim. He looked alarmed, then terrified.

‘Tim,’ said Gertrude, ‘have you had a long love affair with a woman called Daisy Barrett and have you been with her since - since France - and did you make a plan together that you should marry a rich woman?’ Her eyes were red, her lips were moist, but Gertrude spoke sternly and coolly.

The effect on Tim was violent and instantaneous. He dropped his parcels on the floor, and a blaze of scarlet flowed up into his neck, into his face and brow. His mouth opened and he gazed at his wife with appalled wretched eyes, the very image of guilt and speechless terror.

Anne ran past him and out of the room. She ran through the hall picking up her black convent mackintosh. She let herself out and raced down the stairs and ran away along the road as fast as she had run yesterday to escape from Daisy Barrett.

‘Oh Tim -’ said Gertrude and her eyes overflowed with tears. Her words sounded like some hollow echo of a final doom.

‘So you know about Daisy -’ said Tim. Confusion, stupidity, misery, and a sort of vindictive rage against fate, against himself, muffled his mind.

‘So it’s true,’ said Gertrude. Her desperate word spoken, she was now again cool, stern, frightful. She searched for a handkerchief in her pocket, then turning from him, in her handbag. She mopped her eyes, then began to pick up the pieces of the china monkey and arrange them on the mantelpiece.

‘Well, yes,’ said Tim, ‘I mean, I don’t know what you’re asking me. I ought to have told you ages ago, I was going to tell you. I know I’ve been very stupid but I think I haven’t been bad, well, I suppose I have been bad, but you see -’

‘You were going to tell me that you had been cold-bloodedly deceiving me?’

‘I ought to have said, only I didn’t think it would matter, I thought I’d wait, it wasn’t like deceiving you, well, I suppose it was -’

‘You’ve been living for years with this woman?’

‘Yes, but -’

‘And you’re still with her, she’s your mistress?’

‘No!’

‘You’ve been with her since we - fell in love - ?’

Like many instinctive uncalculating liars Tim was too lazy to think out his lies with care, and faced with exposure tended perhaps as a token gesture to his conscience, to tell the literal truth. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Then it’s all over, isn’t it,’ said Gertrude. ‘All over between you and me. All finished.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Tim. ‘I
did
leave her, I did really leave her, and then I saw her again, but it was, it wasn’t -’

‘And you planned with her that you should marry a rich woman to keep you and your mistress in comfort.’

‘We
talked
of it,’ said Tim, ‘but it was simply a joke, it was a
joke
between us, we never -’

‘A joke between you,’ said Gertrude. ‘A joke which you have carried rather far. So you joked about marrying me!’

‘No. You haven’t understood,’ he said. He was trying now to remember what he had said in the last few minutes. ‘It’s true that I saw Daisy after you -’

‘And made love to her?’

‘Yes. After you sort of dismissed me, after you said it - it wasn’t on-I went back to her -’

‘You went home to her, you’d never left her at all.’

‘I had!’

‘I never said it wasn’t on,’ said Gertrude. ‘I meanI-I was discouraged and unhappy and - and
bereaved
- it was a bad time-I needed you most of all just then - and you ran off and -’

‘But it’s over, it’s
over
, I haven’t seen Daisy -’

‘Where have you been this morning?’

‘Gertrude! I’ve been at the shops buying - Oh God - buying paints and crayons - and I got a little-a little present for you - Gertrude, you
can’t
think that I would do - you know I wouldn’t -’

He was holding out his hands towards her but she would not look at him. She stared at the china pieces and pushed them about.

‘I’ve lost my faith in you,’ she said wearily. ‘I think you’re a liar. At any rate you’ve told me some very important - and damaging - lies - You’ve been deceiving me, perhaps you still are. Everyone said you were a liar and a worthless man -’

‘Gertrude, darling, my love, don’t talk to me like that -’

‘You’d better go back to Daisy. From what Anne says about her she should suit you better than I do.’

‘
Anne?
What’s Anne got to do with this? It’s all Anne’s doing, she hates me -’ For the first time Tim began to wonder how it had all happened to him.
Why
had the world suddenly collapsed on him now, so dreadfully, so unfairly, like this?

‘Anne went to see your Daisy Barrett and your Daisy Barrett said it was all true. I didn’t believe it. Now I do.’

‘But it isn’t true!’

‘You said it was just now.’

‘Yes, but not like that - and I
have
left her - oh it’s all such a jumble -’

‘So it seems. I dislike jumbles.’

‘But
Anne
- seeing
Daisy
- how could it be?’

‘Your friend Jimmy Roland met Ed Roper in Paris and told him all about it. That’s how we heard. Then Anne found out where your mistress lived and visited her. It’s quite simple.’

‘But Gertrude,’ said Tim, ‘have you known about this for a long time - ?’

‘No, of course not! I’m not an actor and a liar like you. Could I have been with you - as I have been - if I’d known of this - foul deception? Anne told me this morning. Apparently everybody knows. I’m just the last to be told. At any rate they’ll all have the satisfaction of saying “I told you so”.’

Terror was depriving Tim of his wits. ‘But, Gertrude, surely it doesn’t matter all that much, my not telling you about Daisy, I know I ought to have -’

‘Not matter that my husband is using my money to keep a mistress? ’

‘But I’m not, I’m
not
, I’m NOT -’

‘I can’t trust you, Tim,’ said Gertrude. ‘I don’t know what you planned or half planned or intended or half intended. You just aren’t mine any more.’

‘I
am
! Oh damn the money -’

‘Why damn it? Didn’t you marry me for it?’

‘No.
I love
you. You
know
that -’

‘Maybe. But it seems that you love her more.’

‘I don’t, I
don’t
-’

‘Shouting won’t help. We’re finished, Tim.’

‘But it was all ages ago-I mean not very long ago but -’

‘Yesterday perhaps or this morning. It’s a bit late to cashier her now, just because you’ve been found out. Besides it isn’t fair to her. Don’t you think she has rights? How many years have you been with her?’

Tim was silent. Then he said, ‘Many years.’

‘Well, then -’ said Gertrude. She looked at him at last, and for a moment they were both silent.

The telephone rang. Gertrude picked it up. ‘Hello, Manfred . . . Yes . . . Yes, Anne told me. I’d like to see you, now if possible . . . No, I’ll come to your place . . . Yes, lunch, but I don’t exactly feel like eating. And do you think you could get hold of the Count and Moses? . . . Yes, I shall be needing Moses’ advice. Thank you for ringing. I’ll be with you in about half an hour.’ She put the ’phone down.

‘But, Gertrude, we’re having lunch here, you and me, I’ve been looking forward to it all the morning. I’ve got some plums and Caerphilly cheese and I want to show you your present -’ For a moment Tim seemed to have forgotten what had happened.

‘No. Poor Tim,’ said Gertrude in her weary voice. She crossed the room, making a detour to avoid him. She went into the bedroom. Tim followed her and stood at the door. She was packing a suitcase.

‘Darling! Don’t be
mad
, don’t leave me, don’t go to
them
!’

‘You’ve left me.’

‘I haven’t! I can’t think what we’ve been talking about, a lot of different things got mixed up together, you’ve got the wrong idea, don’t go away now in this awful way, I can explain, I haven’t been bad, I haven’t, I swear -’

‘Oh never mind how bad you’ve been,’ said Gertrude. ‘You’ve been bad enough. If I was a different sort of person it mightn’t matter. But I’m not that different person. I’m me. I can’t sort of share you, on any terms, with a mistress you’ve had for years and years. I can’t just say OK and go on - even if you say you’ll leave this woman.’

‘I’ve left her!’

‘I can’t necessarily believe you. I can’t live wondering all the time where you are and what you’re doing. I gave you all of myself. I don’t want just a part of you.’

‘You haven’t got just a part! Gertrude, I haven’t told you lies - I mean, I just didn’t tell you the truth soon enough, and it’s
not
all the things you said - won’t you
listen
, and then forgive what needs to be forgiven?’

‘You haven’t understood,’ said Gertrude. ‘There isn’t any question of forgiving or not forgiving. This thing between us is broken, it’s not there any more.’

‘But I can
explain
- Oh don’t stop loving me or I shall die.’

‘Don’t appeal to me like that,’ she said, doing up her suitcase. ‘It’s just emotion. Do you think I don’t feel emotions too? I loved you and I married you against the advice of everyone I trusted. And when I was still in mourning. How do you think I feel now? If we were to weep and fall into each other’s arms it would all just be to do again.’

‘But Gertrude, where are you going, when will you be back? You must let me defend myself, you’ve got it all wrong, or partly wrong anyway, it’s
different
from what you think, and -’