Sir!' She Said (25 page)

“But how can we? My work's in London.”

“I know that. I'ld much rather, of course, we could go abroad and stay away till it had all blown over. But since we can't——”

“What are you suggesting, then?”

“The next best thing. That we should take a flat or house and brave it out in London.”

“That would mean you being cited as intervener.”

“That wouldn't worry me.”

“But the publicity!”

“Publicity! That's only what other people think of one, and I'm long past caring about that. No, no, my dear, there's only one thing for us to do. This has all gone on much too long. You do see that, Leon, don't you?”

He hesitated. There was a dubious calculating look upon his face, as though he was searching for the exact words that would express what he had to say; a look that puzzled Julia. What on earth's the matter with him, she thought.

“You do agree with me, Leon, don't you?” she repeated.

But still he hesitated.

“It's not quite as simple as you seem to think,” he said. “It's. . .” he paused. “Dearest,” he went on. “I've been in this world a good twelve years longer than you have. And I know just what a mess a divorce can be.”

It was said so quietly and so affectionately that Julia did not realise at first its implication.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“That divorce is about the wretchedest thing that can come to anyone. It's like a bad apple in a basket. It poisons everything it touches. One can never escape from it. And you're so young; you've the whole of your life in front of you. I don't want
you to be involved in anything like that through me.”

There was no doubt about his meaning now.

“Are you trying to tell me,” Julia asked, “that now you are free to marry me you don't want to?”

“I'm trying to tell you that it would be a ghastly mistake for a person like yourself to be involved in a divorce suit.”

She looked him straight in the eyes. His voice had been soft and wooing. But in his eyes she could read one thing only. Terror. Terror lest she should make a scene. That was all he was thinking, all he was caring. And in another minute, if she let him, he would be telling her that love was independent of official ties: that love was the wind that blew: that they would still go on loving one another: that whatever happened they must remain friends: that she must be brave in the future as she had been in the past. Bravery! These married men who messed your life up; who wearied you with tales of how good their wives were and then when they'd kicked you downstairs, said, “My God, the girl's got pluck.” In another minute, the relief that she had made no scene would have loosened the full flood of eloquence. And she could not stand it. It was just too much. She rose to her feet and reached for the bag that she had hung over the opposite chair.

“What are you doing?” Leon asked.

“I'm going.”

“Oh, well. Yes, perhaps it is as well. Look here, I'll ring you up tomorrow.”

“You can do anything you like,” she answered.

With fast furious steps she walked back to Brooke Street. So that was that, then. He did not want her. He had had her youth, her constancy, her love. For his sake she had left her home, had abandoned the comforts of home for a poky little fourth floor flat: had spent her days working instead of playing: had ruined for his sake, the carefree years that should have been the jolliest in her life. And this was her reward. He had talked about marriage in the days when he had been free to talk about marriage, because there had been no danger of his being taken at his word. But now that he was free to marry her, he made excuses. It was the old story. He had had her and had enough of her. Leon was not going to upset his life for the sake of something he had already had. He might talk about the damage of a divorce suit to a young girl. But who ever thought of anything except themselves. That was all there was to it. He had had what he wanted and he was through. And all he had cared about, after all they had shared together, was her not making a scene in public.

Jean Ryland welcomed her return with extreme astonishment.

“You've not been away half an hour. Not much of a lunch, that.”

“I wasn't hungry.”

And with an angry concentration Julia set herself to the task of arranging a new stack of models. Slowly the afternoon wore on. The telephone rang every few minutes. Clients came in and were difficult about refittings. Julia's head ached and her eyes ached, and her legs. She was tired, tired, tired.
Then just before half-past five, Prew Catholic herself came in flustered and agitated. Some parcel or other had been misdirected. A client had written personally to complain.

“It's really absurd,” she said. “It's the kind of mistake that a fourteen year old clerk from a board school wouldn't make.”

It was the last blow. She had had enough. She was not going to stay in a position where people like Prew Catholic could abuse her. If people were going to be through with her, well then, she could be through with them. She made no reply. She walked through to the mannequin's dressing-room; took down her hat and bag and walked back into the shop, looked for a moment Prew Catholic steadily in the eyes, then turned away.

“I quit,” she said.

Drowsily Julia turned over in her bed. The room was dark, but the luminous clock on her bedside table pointed at half-past ten. As late as that, she thought, as she lifted her hand and pressed the bell push behind her head. Lazily content she lay back, watching the maid turn back the heavily brocaded curtains, letting a stream of faint March sunlight flood with amber light the large high room with its soft brown wallpaper, and black framed etchings, its mirrored wardrobe and deeply cushioned chair; lay there, while the maid turned the switch of the electric fire, and later set at her side the breakfast tray with its coffee, iced grape-fruit, crisp toast and marmalade; remembering as she lay there how nine months earlier she would have felt, waking on such a morning at a quarter to eight to the clatter of the alarm clock, heavy-eyed after five hours' dancing and four hours' sleep, with the knowledge that she had to be at work at half-past nine, and that if she were not to have her bath before the slattern who “did” for her arrived, there would not be enough gas to heat the range. “I can never have really enjoyed a dance in those days,” she thought. “I must have always had the feeling that there was going to be hell next morning.”
Though even as she said it she knew that it had not really been like that. She had thought, “It's going to be awful, but it's worth it,” and the knowledge that next morning it was going to be awful had made these last hours the more worth while.

On her breakfast tray were two letters beside her copy of
The Times.
One was in Prew Catholic's handwriting.

“Julia, dear,” the letter ran, “I suppose it is no good asking you, but I am going to open another shop and I do wish you would run it for me. I was terribly sorry about the quarrel last July. It was my fault, all of it. Although I don't suppose you will want to, I just had to ask you before I asked anyone else. We would do it on a partnership basis.”

Pensively as she read, Julia tapped the hard edge of the envelope against her teeth. It was a nice letter; it flattered her. And perhaps she was getting a little tired of doing nothing. It had been marvellous at first to be rid of the responsibilities of the flat, the hours of strenuous and exacting work. At first it had been like a holiday long overdue; but one wearied of holidays after a while, one had to be doing something. And if this new shop were to be run on a basis of partnership, there would be a considerable inducement to throw her lot into it. It might be fun; it might be worth it. Anyhow, she was not going to refuse it at once.

The other letter was from Melanie.

“Dearest,” it ran, “I know you will be pleased. I want you to be the first to know I am going to have a baby, and I want you to promise to be its godmother. I think it will be a son.”

With a smile Julia dropped the letter to her knees. How unnecessary, after all, that worrying of hers about Melanie had been. How nearly she had ruined her sister's chances for her; how nearly she had ruined her parents' faith in her. It was natural, though, that she should have felt like that, seeing how her own life was going, how the lives of half her friends were going, Jean Ryland's and all the rest. It would have been worth anything to have spared Melanie all that.

She turned after her breakfast to
The Times.
She opened it always at the Court page first. As she did so she gave a start. At the head of the column was Jean Ryland's name; below it the announcement of a marriage to take place shortly, and beside it a name unfamiliar to her, a name that Jean had never spoken; the name of some one, as likely as not, that Jean had only met in the last few weeks.

It would be like Jean, that, to get engaged to marry in a hurry, just as she had fallen in love with Gavin Todd, at first sight almost. What had happened about Todd, she wondered? She had read in the papers of his visit to America, his victories in New York, of the fight he had put up in the open championship. She knew that all right, but as to what had happened between Jean and Gavin, that she did not know; that she would never know. While it lasted it had been real enough, but whatever it was, it was over now; Jean had got over it, had begun again, just as sooner or later every one began again. Just as she herself would. Nine months back she had thought her life was over. But it
wasn't. It would begin again just as Jean's had done.

At that moment, somewhere in the world there was a person waiting to begin it again for her. It was curious that, when you came to think of it, that at that moment somewhere, some one was being brought to you by the invisible forces of effect and cause, was coming to revolutionise your life for you, as you were going to revolutionise his for him. At that moment, not thinking of you or dreaming of you, he was in his office working. In London, perhaps, or Italy or New York or France. On a liner, maybe, being brought to meet you. On a long transcontinental train rattling through the cold miles between Omaha and Ogden. In another hemisphere, perhaps, in another longitude, on the other side of the world; somewhere where it was not day but night. In Penang, perhaps, sitting over gin and bitters on a long balcony, in the close of the swift tropic twilight. Curious to think that there would come a time when you would say to some one, who had become and was to remain your entire life: “What were you doing, tell me can you remember, at eleven o'clock on Thursday, March twenty-third?” For there was such a one somewhere, on his way to meet her, she knew that.

Broodingly she settled back among the pillows. Her real life had not started yet. She had only known the prelude. Childhood had been a prelude, as school days had been, and the year of travelling and the years in London when she had worked in Brooke Street; the flat, the wretched slattern; Leon Carstairs, even he, all preludes. They had said, the Victorians,
that such an experience as she had had ruined you for life, that it maimed you, marked you, twisted you; it didn't, though, not really. No one could ruin your life for you except yourself. You went on with it in spite of, not because of, things. Though she would have given anything she possessed to preserve Melanie from such an experience, she did not really regret Leon Carstairs. He had helped to make her what she was. She would rather it hadn't happened. But since it had, it had become a part of her. You had to accept yourself, as the man had to who married you. He took you for what you were and what you were to become. “I'll make him a good wife,” she thought.

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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Copyright © 1930
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ISBN: 9781448200306
eISBN: 9781448201624
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