The Jury (15 page)

He had the impression that she was repeating a lesson she had taught herself. But he said nothing, waiting for her to go on.

“If you want a divorce, and not to see me any more,” she said presently, “well, you must have it. That's obvious.”

Resisting his impulse to repudiate the project, he answered carefully: “And if I don't want a divorce, and yet do want to go on seeing … her. What then?”

“Well, why not?” She forced a smile. “You'd better have your own way, Rod. Anything to put an end to this everlasting talking about it.”

His release from darkness was like a new birth. But something of shame mingled with his gratitude. He felt that he had stood out for unreasonable terms and had got them. His victory made him feel shy and a little mean. Now that the point was won he longed to distract Daphne's attention from it and to make her happy, happier than she had ever been.

“You're very generous,” he mumbled.

“I'm very hungry,” said Daphne. “In fact I'm starving.”

“My dear child! When did you last have a meal?”

She grinned penitently. “I had a little lunch.”

“Good God, and it's nearly half-past eight.” He jumped up and helped her to her feet. “Come on, we'll feed. I've had nothing since five myself.”

“We can't ask Mrs Hewitt to prepare food at this time of night,” said Daphne.

“We'll feed at the hotel. And … I suppose they'll collect
my bag from the station, if I ask them?” A momentary embarrassment revisited him.

“Yes,” agreed Daphne, without much conviction. “Of course,” she added, with careful neutrality, “you
could
stay the night at Mrs Hewitt's.”

“Well, yes,” said Roderick. “Why not?”

“I've brought Mrs Tucker with me. Tucker's looking after the house at home.”

Roderick did not answer for a moment. He was in the grip of a sudden misgiving. It was good to be friends again, very good. But the lamentable fact remained that he wanted Elisabeth, and the prospect of seeing her again seemed somehow to have receded. Victory? Yes, Daphne had conceded everything: no man could ask more. But what that victory was worth remained to be seen. Ungenerous fears, he thought: Daphne's too good for me. He held out his hand to her with a laugh, and they broke into a run together.

DESPITE all its agitations and disappointments, Elisabeth Andersch had enjoyed her English summer. She had rested much, soothed by the odd charm and tranquillity of this foreign countryside; she had walked much, both with Roderick and alone; and her occasional recitals in London, and in those other towns of England where music may be heard, had enhanced her professional reputation. And now, with September well advanced, she found in herself an unusual reluctance to move on, to proceed with the next part of her programme, which was America. The warm days were over, the beechwoods changing colour. At dusk, and an hour before dusk, the air had a tang more rich and subtle than the blended fragrances of summer: the flow of time was like the slow movement of the Seventh Symphony. She was resolved yet reluctant. The episode of Roderick must be left unfinished. He had delighted her, and she knew herself to be permanently enriched by his extravagant adoration, as one may be by a piece of literature or the sight of a new country;
but the book had been snatched out of her hand before she had done justice to it. After his reconciliation with that so logical wife of his, his visits to herself had at first been hurried and infrequent, full of protestations and apologies; and during the past six weeks, for the sake of his happiness no less than her own, she had divided her time between the cottage at Frendham and a town flat, a flat from whose upper windows Chelsea Bridge could be seen, and, on misty autumn mornings, seen much as Whistler saw it.

Elisabeth's flat was only a little more expensive than she could well afford, but to Blanche Izeley, who was owner and tenant of a tiny four-roomed cottage near Barnes Common, it would have represented the height of unspiritual luxury. A small, vivacious woman, with grey in her bobbed hair but a dancing lightness in her step, Blanche Izeley sped home this morning after her shopping, carrying with her a busy world of thought and dream, hunger and pride. In the foreground of her mind was displayed, as upon a counter, the frugal but dainty lunch that she would prepare for herself and Janet. ‘Dainty' was one of her favourite words: forced by the perfidy or ill-fortune of her husband to make do on next to nothing a week, a sum supplemented by Janet Ensworth's forty-five shillings, she had accustomed herself to a diet that was sparing but ‘dainty', both in substance and style. And so far from admitting defeat or even disaster, she was conscious of being a person of finer sensibility, of a more delicate spiritual apprehension, than those who from habit or appetite consumed their two or three square meals a day. It was not, she explained, the gross food, it was the attitude that was harmful. Attitude indeed was everything. At the moment Janet's attitudes were causing Mrs Izeley anxiety, particularly her attitude to Trevor Thaxted. She herself had met Trevor Thaxted, six months ago, at dear Nancy's house. He was in search then of a large bare room that could be used as a studio, and Blanche, by the happiest chance, had knowledge of just such a place within a stone's throw of her own cottage. It was quiet, spacious, cheap; it was precisely what he wanted; and Blanche, by a friendly conspiracy with the landlady, had contrived to give the place those Deft Womanly Touches which make all the difference.

Trevor Thaxted was not only an artist, but a poet too; not only a poet, but a thinker; and not only a thinker, but a listener. He was a young man of independent mind; clever, with much good in him. But he was a seeker after Truth: not, like Blanche, its custodian. He needed a guiding hand, and a guiding hand was precisely what Blanche could joyfully supply. Affectionate, unselfish, overflowing with eager vitality, she was ready to wipe away the world's tears, and, with her lucid spiritual theory, smooth out the wrinkles from its puzzled little brow. “You need the truth: I have it,” said her patient smile. She had been made perfect by suffering; the fires of affliction had purged her of all unwisdom and left her pure gold. Affliction's other name was Paul: Paul who had wearied of listening to the Truth, even from the lips of the pretty young woman he had married; Paul, who was sunk so deep in Mortal Error as to declare, with crude emphasis, that the human body did not exist solely for the purpose of being explained away; Paul who at last, blind to the Immortal Beauty of Real Love as personified in Blanche, and unaccountably preferring the visible illusion to the unseen reality of which he had heard so much, ran off to live a life of quite unspiritual happiness with another woman. Since then, supported only by a sense of her own rectitude, Mrs Izeley had had a hard struggle to live, being compelled to supplement Paul's meagre and unpunctual remittances by typing manuscripts at a shilling a thousand words. She was proud to remember all she had suffered, proud of her courage, proud of her humility, proud of the youthful spirit that shone in her, during these middle years of life, as brightly as when she had been Trevor's age.

It was small wonder that with so rich a harvest of wisdom she should be apt to regard her fellow-creatures, one and all, as ignorant lovable children who, with patience and tact, must be taught better. Yet she was eager to learn, too. The knowledge that is to be had from books was something she knew herself to be somewhat deficient in, and for that reason she took pleasure in the conversation of the expensively educated Trevor. But most of all she recognized in him a kindred spirit. Janet had been holiday-making when Trevor first took possession of his new studio, and the glad tidings were
conveyed to her in a twelve-page letter from Blanche. “It will be very pleasant for me to have him for a neighbour. We shall have gorgeous conversations about everything in the world. Though he is a good deal younger than I am, younger in years and younger still in experience of life, he has a brilliant, eager mind. It will do me a lot of good, there are so few people one can
really
talk to, and I do hope, dear Janet, that you will manage to get some reflected benefit from this new friendship of mine. The more
I
get out of it the better it will be for
you
, dear. And
he
won't be the loser either, because I feel that he is at a stage when a good influence will make all the difference to him. And by a good influence, as you know, dear, I mean someone who can lead him towards the Truth. …”

Dear Janet was such a nice simple girl: not clever or subtle, like Blanche, but wonderfully good and loyal, with clear wholesome little intuitions, sterling integrity of character, a ready and docile intelligence, and no intellectual pretensions or poses of any kind. It was this humility, this willingness to learn, that Blanche so much valued in her. The broad fair brow knitted in thought, the quiet alert attention, the patient endeavour to understand Truth—what mentor could fail to be touched by these things? Not Blanche certainly. Her warm heart grew warmer with every session of sweet silent listening; she had endless patience, she encouraged questions, she made every allowance for the girl's quaint (but really rather delightful) plainness of mind; she had never had a more ductile pupil. With Trevor Thaxted it was different; for with Trevor there was always the clash of opinion, the sharpening of mind on mind, the gaiety of intellectual battle. Trevor was stubborn in his errors. And when, as sometimes happened, Blanche's persistent endeavour to wean him from them was witnessed by the silent Janet (all eyes and ears she seemed then), his mental agility was somehow increased, and the speciousness of his arguments less easy to demonstrate; and before long Blanche found herself entertaining a definite fear that Janet's young unformed mind might be infected by the Wrong Thoughts that figured all too conspicuously in his conversation. And though she knew, none better, that anything in the shape of fear was itself a Wrong Thought, that
knowledge failed to have the desired effect. Her anxiety grew.

Trevor was far from being the only potential source of such infection, for as secretary to the matron of a large London hospital Janet spent every working day of her life in an atmosphere saturated in error, and, perhaps for that reason, continued to be perplexed by Blanche's dogma of the essential unreality of sickness and death. Blanche had therefore a special reason for hoping that Trevor would gain no ground in Janet's mind. But for that, she told herself, it would have been a delightful surprise to see these two getting together and having a nice friendship. A surprise it was: for what interest could Trevor have in a mind so unfurnished and unremarkable as Janet's? Once or twice, when it chanced that Blanche herself was unavailable, the young man had taken Janet for a turn round the Common: and once, dropping in during Blanche's absence, he had been entertained by Janet to tea. On these occasions, when she learned of them, Blanche smiled benevolently, with the air of saying that Janet was getting quite a big girl and beginning to acquire grown-up behaviour. But secret misgivings came thick and fast. The thing was absurd, and yet it was happening: a definite relationship, independent of herself, had come into existence between her two friends. Blanche was the last person in the world, she assured herself, to stand in the way of such a friendship, unless it was manifestly her duty to do so. On that point she was firm: no matter what it cost her, she would do her duty. A little thought made it clear to her that Trevor was a Bad Influence. For herself it did not matter: she was impervious to that kind of influence. But Janet was anything but impervious; moreover, it became more and more possible, as the weeks went by, to entertain the impossible idea that Janet was in danger of losing her head: the modest little hedge-sparrow was being dazzled by this bird of bright plumage. Natural enough, though pathetic. But what had put it into Trevor's head to bestow so much attention on the little hedge-sparrow? That was no part of Blanche's plan, and she searched her mind busily for an explanation. It might be that he thought the child wanted taking out of herself; he had once said as much; but such kindness is dangerous, and if
misinterpreted by the recipient can become even cruelty. What could he see in her? In her mind and conversation, nothing. Then what else?

There was always, of course, Animal Magnetism to be considered. Blanche had learned a great deal about Animal Magnetism from her religious preceptors, and she refreshed her memory from time to time by consulting the relevant passages in their scriptures. To set against that hypothesis there was the somewhat reassuring fact that Janet was not after all so very young, and not precisely beautiful. She had, of course, Beauty in the true sense, but Blanche's experience of Paul had taught her that it was not this True Beauty that men were apt to run after. Her conception of Janet varied with the purposes of the argument. Sometimes she was Just a Young Thing, untouched by experience; sometimes she was a gaunt and placid spinster of twenty-nine: the first was intellectually more gauche, and the second physically less attractive, than Blanche herself had ever been.

The air was fresh this morning, and Mrs Izeley bounced lightly on her way, winged with the thought that Janet, who had a few days' holiday, would be waiting for her return. Entering her little front garden, latchkey held ready between forefinger and thumb, she flashed a shrewd glance at the window of Janet's ground-floor room. Meeting no answer, her glance travelled with appreciation over the whole domestic exterior. She loved her home, every brick of it: it stood in her mind for the stability and solace that she had somehow failed, unaccountably, to find in her personal relationships, but was beginning to find in Janet herself.

“Hullo,” said Janet.

“Ah!” said Blanche. “So she didn't keep you long today, dear?”

“No,” said Janet.

“I'm glad. And now you're away from her—for ten days, is it?—you'll be yourself again.”