The Balliols (79 page)

During her lonely hours when she lay awake night after night, she would tell herself that she was being silly, that she was being disloyal, that however lightly people nowadays might take divorce, however much freedom of a second chance might be allowed to those who had made one mistake, there could be no excuse for the woman
who broke up a marriage that had survived happily and successfully the test of twenty years. She would think that, then. But when daylight came, when she felt the magnetism of Roy's personality, saw him and heard his voice, “It must be all right. It's got to be. It shall be,” she told herself.

She would look first at Roy, so fit, so strong, so healthy; then at Fane, lovely in her way, but languid, middle aged: no fit companion for a man like Roy. Helen could see how it had been: a boy and girl romance marriage when they were both in the early twenties. The start had been an idyll. But now Roy was being forced into a blinkered middle age at the very point of his maturity, when he should be blossoming and expanding.

Fane had no ambition for him; which was why he had no ambition for himself. He needed someone young to spur him on, to inspire him, to pace him down the course. She could do so much for him. She could give him a son to carry on his name. It would be hard on Fane; but she had her daughters.

So Helen argued with herself; at one moment deciding one way, at the next the other.

“I'll decide over the week-end,” she said. They were going to picnic on the moor: it had been Fane's idea: a kind of good-bye party.

“I'm tired of these dinner dances,” she had said. “Let's go to Farleigh. I've always wanted to. Everyone says its charming. There's only one way to see the moor properly. That's to live on it; to spend two or three days watching the way it changes. Let's make a party and spend our last week-end there.”

A dozen of us had been invited. It was the date that Helen had marked on her mental diary.

She would have, she knew, many opportunities of being alone with Roy.

“I think it
is
to be yes,” she thought.

She was even more certain that evening as they walked together after tea over the rough heather of the moor. It was the first time they had been alone, really alone, together. Here, with the vast space of the moor about them, they could feel that there was nothing in the world beside themselves. As they stood looking out over the wild moorland, that contained as far as the eye could see not one roof, not even the high signal of a telegraph pole, it was easy to believe in one's capacity to forget the past, here, with nothing to remind one of it. He put his arm about her shoulders.

“Little one, I think you'd better say ‘yes,' hadn't you?”

She looked up, her eyes brimmed with tenderness, with adoration. He was so strong; she felt so safe committing herself into his hands.

“I suppose I had.”

“I'll be very good to you.”

“Please; you'll be all I've got.”

She had imagined that such a moment would be the prelude to a long, close-locked embrace. But the moment for that had passed. They stood quietly, hand in hand, not looking at one another, gazing out over the strange and darkening countryside, wondering at the destiny that awaited them.

“Let's go back,” he said.

They returned in silence. He was breathing heavily with effort. She looked at him anxiously. His face wore a strained look, that woke a protective pity in her. She was sorry for him. He had a more difficult task ahead of him than she had. The parting with his wife would not be easy.

“Dearest, we'll be going back on Monday to the Eastpoint,” she said. “Let's leave decisions about everything till then. I don't want anything said to anyone to-night. I want to-morrow to think over things in quietly.”

He started to reply, but the words caught in his throat. He choked and began to cough. It was a short, sudden spasm that flushed his cheeks and brought a film of moisture to his forehead. His fingers on her elbow tightened. He shook his head, laughed.

“I have fits like that sometimes.”

She looked at him apprehensively. She wished she could spare him the immediate worry. She would make it up to him later on.

“I'm going to my room,” she said.

As she walked through the hall there was in her eyes such a brightness as she had seen in her sister's fifteen years before.

I had no doubt as to her decision now, no argument of mine could have deterred her. And it might be that her feet were as she believed, set on the road of happiness. It is vain to prophesy the outcome of any marriage. The marriages that seem foredoomed, survive; and young people who seem destined for one another are within twenty months witnesses in the divorce courts. And again there are certain people whose susceptibilities, whose sensitiveness become blunted by a happy marriage, while there are others who appear to reach self-fulfilment only at the cost of a distracted home. It might well be that Helen's recklessness would seem justified in ten years' time.

The hotel at which we were staying was little more than a summer camp. It was closed during the winter. It was wooden, draughty, with verandas running round it. It had only a dozen rooms. It was barely furnished, the fare was ample and nourishing but simple. Painters went there, authors, reading parties, an occasional recluse. There was fishing of a kind, in a stream that ran at the foot of its garden; but it was chiefly patronized during August and September by people like ourselves from the Eastpoint: who wanted for a few hours to be in touch with the primitive. Besides ourselves there were in the hotel only a couple of hikers, one of whom had a blistered instep and was resting.

It was close upon supper-time when Helen came down into the lounge. The Rickman party was grouped in the window-seat, round a bottle of sherry. There was laughter and an incessant flow of chatter. But on Roy's face was the same strained look that she had noticed as they had walked home. Now, as then, he was breathing slowly and with effort. He was not joining in the conversation which ordinarily he would have dominated. She looked at him apprehensively. Had he broken his promise? Had he spoken to Fane already?

A glance at Fane proved conclusively that that had not happened. She was her usual gracious, smiling self. The smile with which she welcomed her was as friendly and gracious as it had ever been.

“Let's go in to supper,” and as she rose she stretched out her hand to Helen.

“Now I want you to sit at the far end, my dear. Look after Mr. Barlow and Mr. Montague.”

Mr. Barlow did not need much looking after. He was in an advanced state of calf-love and was content to sit gazing at her in open-mouthed adoration. Charles Montague, on the other hand, was very much more interested in the girl who was seated on the other side of him. And anyhow, Helen was in no mood to look after anyone. She was worried and puzzled at the change in Roy. What was the matter with him that he should sit there, his breath coming in low, heavy gasps? His breathing was so heavy that you could hear it like an undertone of muffled drums. What was the matter with him?
She watched him anxiously. As she looked away she saw that Fane had been watching him as well. Their eyes met. Fane made a sign to her that said: “It's all right. Don't bother. I know what it's all about.”

And from the way Fane Rickman turned to the man next her, continuing her conversation readily, Helen knew that her rôle was to pretend that nothing was happening: that she was aware of nothing: to conceal from the others her knowledge that there was something wrong.

She turned towards young Barlow and began to talk to him with an eagerness that filled that young man with an optimism that her previous behaviour had done nothing to encourage. Eagerly though she talked, assiduously though Fane kept the ball of conversation rolling, it was not possible to keep from the general company for long an awareness that something definite was wrong.

Roy's breathing grew heavier every moment. His chest lifted with every breath he took. Sometimes he would wheeze. It was a faint, penetrating squeak like the sound of an unoiled hinge, alternating with the soft rumbling purr of a contented cat. The effort to breathe was clearly testing him. His forehead was damp and shining. His cheeks were scarlet, his mouth hung open. It was impossible to ignore his condition. In the attempt to pretend that they did not notice, the party made their talk louder, their laughter unnecessarily hearty. But the effort could not be prolonged. They were all watching secretly the struggling man. Suddenly, in the way that general conversation will, there was a lull, and no one knew how to take up the thread of talk. There was a silence. Then three of them began a sentence simultaneously, giggled foolishly, and returned to silence. Roy lifted his head, was aware of everyone staring at him. He raised his hand to his throat, fingering it nervously.

“It's this confounded asthma. I'm sorry. Did you bring any Himrod with you, Fane?”

“I'm afraid I didn't.”

“You should have. One shouldn't travel without it, ever. If I could only burn some of it, I might be all right. As it is. …”

He looked at her angrily, ill-temperedly, with an expression on his face that Helen had never seen before; of which she had not believed him capable.

He rose to his feet.

“I'll go out. A change of air may put me straight.”

He shuffled rather than walked towards the door. His chest creaked and groaned with every breath he took. The moment the
door had closed behind him a quick buzz of talk broke out. Everyone began to interrogate Fane. Was he all right? Oughtn't something to be done? Shouldn't someone telephone for a doctor? The inn wasn't on the telephone. Shouldn't someone motor in for a doctor? Surely it might be serious?

Fane shook her head.

It was very kind of them, but really it wasn't as serious as all that. Roy was subject to these attacks. He had been, since childhood. It was what had stood in his way all along. He could have gone so much farther but for it. But asthma was one of those unaccountable things for which there really was no cure. You never knew when you would get it. One side of the road you'd have it; the other side you wouldn't. It came without any warning.

“Poor Roy,” she explained to Helen. “It's made things so difficult for him. I don't know how he stood the war. He couldn't have, of course, if I hadn't managed to get him on the staff quite early. He never knew I arranged it. But I did. I had to. The war made it very much worse. It's cut him off from so much. There are so many amusing things that he's not been able to do, so many things that have been spoilt for him. We've often gone away for house-parties and had to come back at a moment's notice. It's been such a handicap. He's been so brave about it. It's not good trying to do anything about it. He's rather touchy about it. He likes to be left alone. We'll go in and see him in a minute.”

Helen listened with astonishment. She had never pictured Roy in any terms other than those of health and strength. She could not see him as an invalid. Yet that was what he was. And all these years Fane had been a kind of nurse to him. Fane had talked about how this illness had spoilt things for him, but what about the way in which it had spoilt things for her?

“Does he often get these attacks?” she asked.

“Not so much now. We're very careful. We've found out the places that are safe; we don't run risks. To begin with, of course, things like this were always happening. It was silly of me to have risked to-day. I thought as he was all right at Eastpoint he'd be all right here. It's that stream, I suppose.”

I watched Fane closely as she spoke. There was a curious intonation to her voice, a curious expression on her face: a kind of tranquil triumph: as though carefully-laid plans were maturing in the way she had intended. “So you did know,” I thought. “You were waiting for your moment. You were resolved to show Helen what Roy was really like. That's what you meant when you talked about
winning at your own game. You knew that a place like this would give Roy asthma. You were content to wait.”

Helen stared at her incredulously. She could picture the life that Fane had led: that any wife of Roy's would have been bound to lead. The constant anxiety for health, the surrender of carefully-chosen plans at a second's notice, the playing for safety, the refusal of all that was adventurous and unexpected, of all that stood for glamour. She shuddered. Her health and love of health revolted as health is revolted by sickness. She sat silent during the remainder of the meal. As she followed the others towards the lounge she was nervous for the first time at the thought of meeting Roy. He had become a new person to her.

A newer and stranger person than she had thought it possible to expect.

As the door opened, a harsh voice that she scarcely recognized, snapped angrily:

“For heaven's sake put that cigarette out. Smoke's the worst thing possible for me.”

He was standing beside the open window, the light falling full upon his face. His hands were hanging limply by his sides. His chest rose and fell, creakingly. He was fighting for every breath. Sweat was falling from his forehead, drawing long lines from cheek to chin. His face was flushed and puffy. His eyes half closed, with pouches lifted under them. His mouth lay open, with a dribble of saliva in the corners.

Helen could not believe it was the same man she had vowed to love. She had thought of him as strong, and he was weak; that he was healthy, and he was ill; that he was young, but it was an old man who stood in front of her. She had thought she could rely on him, that he would look after her; but it was she who would have to nurse him. This was not the man she had fallen in love with.

Their eyes met.

Certain deep looks absolve one from the need of words. In the same way that the look they had exchanged on the evening of the dance had said, “Yes, there's no need to speak. We both feel the same way about it,” so now, could they read the other's thoughts. Just as he saw in her eyes horror and recoil, so did she read in his eyes resentment that she should have surprised and seen his weakness, coupled with an anger against the whole situation that had rendered him liable to detection; that had undermined his dignity; for the youth-fulness that had caused this party; for her, since she was associated
with that youthfulness. In his tortured sickness he wanted one thing only, to be rid for ever of everything that had contributed to that sickness.