The Dangerous Years (32 page)

The last cry was one of anguish, and helplessness so absolute that Mary felt tears of tenderness fill her eyes. But she was too distressed on his behalf to allow herself to add to his emotional outburst.

“I know, darling,” she said quietly; more quietly than she felt. “But we'll think it out together. Whatever happens, I shall stay with you, Tom.”

She left him then, retreating to her own room defiant of the whole world. Her love was strong enough to conquer every difficulty. After all, she told herself, I'm not a young girl. I know what are the consequences of giving oneself, as I have given myself to him. He can, and shall rely on me, and I'll bring him through.

The resolution lingered in her mind while she dressed, took her coffee, and went off with Tom, after he had telephoned to his brother about borrowing a car for the day. Luke was spending all day at the hospital, and offered the large Citroën. He was at home when they reached the flat, and Mary had a few moments alone with him while Tom went into the nursery to announce himself
to his sister-in-law, who was writing letters before she went off on her round of appointments.

Mary was inclined to be doubly self-conscious. She had not been alone with Luke since her intimacy with his brother. Here was the friend of her husband. What was he thinking? And here too was the obstinate father whose scruples about the career of the marvellous child were preventing Tom from making a fresh start in life just at a moment of severe trial, if not of disaster. She felt that Luke might be prepared to criticise her on both accounts.

She stood, hesitant, watching him as he lingered, pad in hand, looking down the list of his hospital appointments. She noticed again, the easy poise of his shoulders, and the way in which his whole person appeared to hang from them, so that his clothes, and the body inside them, were carried with an air of grace, of strength in reserve. The patience implied in that poise was also apparent in his face, and his deep-set eyes. The likeness to Tom was only accentuated by the spiritual difference. She realised that he
knew;
Tom did not. It made her jealous for her lover; more determined to fight for him.

“It was my suggestion that we should go to Chartres to-day,” she said, with just a hint of defiance.

“Quite so, Mary. I may call you Mary, now, I hope?” He smiled as he spoke, putting an equivocal emphasis on the ‘now', for her to take as she liked.

Mary did not reply. She was still suspicious of him, and expectant of criticism, even of hostility. Dr. Batten continued.

“I believe you are making a mistake, Mary.”

She looked at him, and he was smiling.

“I am not sure that you have a right to say so,” she said. “Your brother and I are not children. We are willing to be responsible for ourselves.”

“Ah! Then you must know him better than I do. But I was not referring to that when I said you were mistaken.”

She suspected that he was playing with her, and she began to grow angry.

“I don't understand you, Dr. Batten!”

He raised his eyebrows, and she saw his gaze concentrate on her, with an added touch of severity.

“Your mistake, Mary, is in expecting me and my wife to be disapproving. That is what I have wanted to say to you from the beginning of this—this autumnal adventure of yours. For it is autumnal, is it not? and you must not expect too much from it, or for too long. I am cruel to say that. But I can see that you, at least, and Tom too I expect, have thrown judgment to the winds for the time being. It doesn't matter, except that it may hurt you. That is what we want to avoid. And I will say this now, my dear. I am grateful to you, or rather to the happy chance, if it is chance, for bringing this new force into my brother's life. You see, I
do
understand him, so far as one can. He is not the man he was, Mary. That slight wound in the head, the scar of which you see down his face, was not serious. But the circumstances in which he received it were very serious.”

He studied her sadly now. She was frightened, bewildered. What was he leading to? But she commanded her fear, recalling her resolution to carry Tom through to a new life, to a fulfilment of himself. She refused to be intimidated.

“What do you mean?” she said, very quietly. “We know what we propose to do.”

“I am sure you will succeed, Mary. That is why I want to give you my assistance. And you must know what are the facts. That is where Tom is not always capable now. He has lost something. He has lost the ability to face facts. It may be a matter of nervous energy, of sheer animal vitality. He looks fit enough. But that wound remains as a reminder of what he went through. He caught that scratch at the same time as he was buried for
some hours in a dug-out after a direct hit had filled it in. He was unconscious for two days after he was rescued. The situation is, Mary, that he has never since quite recovered full consciousness. There is a small part of him left in that dug-out, and refusing to come out. You know he resigned from the Service?”

He contemplated her so benevolently that she felt courage returning, to replace the flood of anger.

“Yes, he has told me that. And I know about his wife, how she has turned Catholic and refuses to divorce him.”

Luke smiled wanly.

“Unhappily, there have been no grounds for divorce, as far as I know. He has just taken everything sitting down, as one might say. Nothing positive has happened to him since that moment of terror froze him. It's common enough, you know. There are hospitals full of men in that condition, or rather worse. But you have to realise, Mary, that though Tom appears to be a normal man, he is not quite so. I say this for your protection, not his. You are the one who may suffer. That would not be fair to you unless you were fully informed, and had chosen to take the responsibility. I do not say this to frighten you off. That again is what I want to emphasise. I think my wife may not quite agree with me here, for she is a Catholic too. And Catholics are supposed to welcome self-sacrifice, in the cause of orthodoxy. I do not, Mary.
I do not
.”

He took her hand, and held it, trying to say something difficult to put into words. She stood waiting, looking incredulously at the hand clasping hers. It was hardly larger than her own; white, shapely, nervous. The thumb was exactly the same shape as Tom's, rather firmer than the rest of the hand. Her heart warmed to this inexplicable man, and she looked up at him, her eyes full of tears.

“I know about that too. I am determined to fight for him, you see. I am not content to let him drift on in this
unsatisfactory way, with no aim in life, no attachment, nobody to … to maintain his self-respect. Isn't it that? The need, I mean; the need to restore his self-respect? He is dignified; but I have found out what lies behind that, or rather what doesn't lie behind it.”

“You are a perceptive woman, Mary. What has given you this insight? I think I know the answer. You are profiting from many years of objective devotion. Now, even in abandonment, you have not lost that asset.”

“Abandonment?” The word shocked her. “But I love him, that is all.”

“All and enough,” said the doctor gravely, dropping her hand. “That is why I am grateful. For he means much to me, Mary. He is a gallant fellow, after all. And he has broken a promising career; or had it broken for him. He has not died of wounds, you understand. He
lives
of wounds. He doesn't know it. But you have apparently discovered it, and are willing to take him on those terms. I say you are willing to take him. Am I wrong?”

She did not reply immediately. This revelation, confirming her perplexity over the character of her lover, had sharpened her recognition of what she was undertaking.

“I have already told him what I intend to do. Nothing shall separate me from him now.”

“Well, you know, Mary, that brings us down to the immediate practical issue. I have more or less forced him to come over to Paris, to get away from a situation in London that might be too much for him. I feel myself responsible because I persuaded him to go into the City, as a possible means of rehabilitation. He has tried several outlets, but they have all petered out. Now he has got caught in this last, which is more serious because it looks as though his innocence, or incapacity, has made him fall foul of the law; or so it seems. He ought, you know, to be there, facing the music with the other members of this
board of directors. But I just have not dared to let him face the consequences; an appearance in the dock, perhaps. I don't fully know; but the lawyers here and in London are dubious, and have been trying to keep him out of it. And I don't quite trust him to make the best of his case. Yet if he stays here indefinitely, it is as good as a confession of complicity in the dubious commercial conduct, whatever it may be. You see what I fear?”

Mary stood, fully confident again. Here was something tangible that she could attack. She knew at once what she wanted to do, and intended to do.

“I will go back with him, Luke. I will stay with him whatever happens. But surely nothing
can
happen? He was merely foolish in signing blindly, that night after he got back to England?”

“But we have to prove that. A man in his position pleads ignorance with some difficulty. It does not sound too convincing.”

“No. But I see we should go to London. That is good enough.”

To her surprise, Luke raised her hand and kissed it.

“Thank you, Mary.” Then he smiled, mischievously. “And you must forgive me for not falling in with the other plan. That is because I believe I am wiser than you, and Tom, and that not too welcome American, Aloysius Sturm. Adrian is a heavy responsibility, you understand? I am grateful to your daughter over that. And we have not said anything about her, have we, until this moment.”

He studied Mary quizzically, waiting for her to confess that she was embarrassed, at least, if not even frightened, by her daughter's disapproval. Mary now presented what she believed to be her trump card.

“I have had a wonderful letter from her,” she said, almost purring. “All the differences between her and John have been forgotten. I can't tell you how relieved I am. The marriage was breaking up. I could see that,
and it has distressed me from the beginning. Why they could not have discovered earlier what was wrong, I shall never understand.”

“No, I am sure of that, Mary.”

Luke was still smiling indulgently at her.

“I don't know what you mean!” she said sharply.

“I mean that
you
would have no inhibitions of that kind.”

“Of what kind?”

“Come now, we need not be evasive, my dear. You still suspect me of criticising you. It is just the other way. I am no Manicheean. I do not accept this monstrous and destructive idea of the conflict between the flesh and the spirit. On the contrary, I believe they should be one, and that the sickness and the evil lie in their division. That again, Mary, is the reason for my objecting to my son's education being thrown out of proportion. If he is truly the unique musician that he promises to be, nothing will prevent him from ripening in that direction; nothing, except forcing, and the neglect of his other needs, his fulness as a man. You see what specialists are doing for us in this dreadful modern world; the specialists, the experts, the big stars and their insane systems? The charlatan, the politician, the maniac are all three flourishing on this commercialisation of human gifts. We are losing our sanity and our capacity for balanced work, Mary.”

He had suddenly grown emphatic, his grey eyes lighting up, his cheeks faintly flushing. But he stood there, still easefully poised, half-hesitant and reluctant, almost deprecating his own burst of enthusiasm. Mary found that her self-protectiveness had suddenly vanished. She wanted to confide everything to him, to tell him how she felt quite shameless in her passion for Tom, this unexpected re-awakening of natural desire, in the autumn of life.

She had no time to reply, however, for he took her arm,
and steered her towards the door to the smaller room where Tom and Mrs. Batten could be heard in conversation.

“Yes, my dear Mary. I know it would have been a good thin for Tom to have a success in America; but not at somebody else's expense; especially his own nephew's. That would not have restored his self-confidence. What
will
restore it, I am certain, is your surrender to him. It is a complicated matter to prove this. Only results will prove it. I am confident. We shall see. He has to face this wretched business in London now. I had not dared to let him do so before. But you can help him there. You will bring him through it. There can be no question of a conviction, I'm sure. But I have been playing a delaying game, with the help of the two sets of lawyers (expensive allies). I am not altogether sure that I did right; but I was afraid. You have got rid of that fear. Another reason why I am grateful to you.”

Mary stopped, before they passed into the little room. She faced the doctor, her resolute purpose enhancing her beauty. Even as she spoke, with quiet determination, she was aware of his admiring attention. The morning sunlight through the french windows touched her, glinting in her silver hair, her warm brown eyes, her mobile mouth. She was a symbol of warmth, of life.

“We propose to live together as man and wife, whatever the circumstances may be,” she said.

“You are a brave woman,” said the doctor, moving aside for her to precede him.

“No, not brave. But we are desperate and both starved. We are claiming a little happiness, so very late,” she said.

Tom stopped talking to his sister-in-law as they entered. Mrs. Batten rose from the writing desk and to Mary's surprise, kissed her quite unceremoniously. It was a gesture of acceptance. Tom, meanwhile, openly took Mary by the arm, as though presenting her to the family.

“We're off now, then,” he said. “To make the most of the daylight. It's a good run to Chartres, and we want to have an hour or two to look round the cathedral and the old town.”