This Was Tomorrow (10 page)

“I’m not angry, Victor, I only—”

“Or is it because of Evadne that you go suddenly to arm’s length again? I tell you I am interested in this—so-called Cause. It seems to me to have significance. Perhaps it may not have quite the same results that Evadne so confidently expects. It might even be that her ideas of the most desirable results might undergo a change. Nevertheless its effects might be—extremely useful.”

“Useful to whom?”

“Why, to—everyone. In the interests of peace, of course.” Under her steady gaze, his eyelids flickered once. “In any case, Evadne is anxious to try how it goes on in Germany, and—”

Rosalind rose and stood behind the tea-table looking at him across it.

“You will please let Evadne alone, Victor.”

He stared back at her, suddenly furious.

“How can you say that?” he demanded, and added as she did not immediately reply, “You are an unnatural woman. You choose to make an enemy of your son.”

“My son was born an enemy.”

“This is what I cannot understand about the English!” he cried irritably. “So soft—so meek—so loving-kind—and then no feeling at all!
None,
at all!”

“I think you’re making rather a fuss about nothing, Victor. You come here uninvited, and take offence because you are not welcomed with open arms. I have tried to explain to you that for several reasons it will be quite impossible for you to have the freedom of my husband’s house, and you choose to be offended and hurt. What is more, I refuse to be a party to any further acquaintance between you and Evadne.”

“Why now am I warned away from Evadne? Surely she is old enough, the way you run this country, to choose her own friends? And anyway, surely that is the business of her own family first?”

“Yes, it is. But I know how Virginia feels, and I do not intend to make it easier for you to get round her by coming here. Besides, when you return to Germany we are none of us likely to meet again—”

“I do not return to Germany with the delegation. I am posted to the Embassy here.”

There was a silence.

“Oh,” said Rosalind faintly.

“I confess to you that when I came here I was determined to hate you, along with the English blood which is my curse. I must be—it is essential that I am wholly German. And what happens? After Evadne, saying we must all trust and confide in each other—and not only saying it but
believing
it—and after Camilla, looking tantalizing and amused, as though she knew some secret—now I find you, the way you are. Had I known what you are like, perhaps I would not have come near you at all. That is”—he hesitated and seemed to recollect—“I should have preferred not.”

“I really don’t quite—”

“Ask Camilla!” he said roughly, with a rather one-sided smile. “Camilla knows well the battleground I am! But always the German in me wins, do you hear? There is nothing you can do now, you and Evadne, to change that. Camilla knows!”

“Victor, you must realize that Evadne takes everything very hard, very—seriously. You must not—”

“Toils and snares!” he said curtly. “I have seen women as beautiful before. I have my work to do.” He passed a hand theatrically across his eyes like a man coming out of a trance. “You must forgive me if I say all the things wrong,” he began on a lower note. “It almost sounds as though I did not any longer wish to be friends, doesn’t it. That is not true. But it upsets one to find that one has been—misled. You see, I am frank with you. That is not diplomacy.” He stood a moment, watching her, and his eyes were puzzled and calculating. “There is that link between us, isn’t it. You feel it. I know, because I feel it. Believe me, I am as unwilling as you that it exists. You do not deny.”

She looked back at him steadily.

“But I cannot—encourage it.”

“Cannot?”

“Will not.”

“Did you hate him so much?”

“Hate is not the right word.”

“What word, then?”

“I just—didn’t love him. He would never let me. It is the same with you. There would be—glimpses of a man I could love. Nothing more. You are the same.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because you are his son. Never mine. Because you say yourself the German in you always wins. Because you want it to win.” There was a pause. “Don’t you,” she said, and it was not a question, and his answer was slow to come.

“Yes,” he said.

She made a little gesture of helplessness and finality and turned away from him to the window above the lawn.

“I think you had better go now,” she suggested quietly.

“You really wish me not to come here again.” His tone was thoughtful, with an underlying incredulity.

“I see very little point in it. My husband finds it disturbing, and I—”

“Your
husband
owes me a little something, I think,” he said with the faintest stress on the word.

“Owes you—”

“It is only recently that he is your husband.”

“Yes, but surely you aren’t implying that you had anything to do with—” Her eyes widened. “Or are you?” And then, as he stood looking at her enigmatically: “Victor, how did he die?

“He was found guilty of conspiracy against our Leader. There can be but one answer to that. More than once I warned him, which it was not in my duty to do. Finally I had to act on the too self-evident facts.”

“You—betrayed him?” she said slowly. “Because of
you
—he was executed?”

“It was not an execution. He fired the shot himself. But for me, in the circumstances he would not have had the gun.”

“You—”

“I gave him mine.”

Her hands came up before her face. She stood motionless, turned away from him.

“It was a sentimental risk I felt obliged to take,” he explained unemotionally. “I put it down to the English blood in me. No one else but you ever knows whose gun he used.”

The clock on the mantel ticked.

“Please go now,” she said, muffled.

“You perhaps do not appreciate—” He paused, gazing at

her motionless figure. “It is a shock, no doubt,” he conceded magnanimously. “But believe me, it was better that way than it might have been. He had privacy, which was what he asked for.”

“I do not want to see you again,” she said, behind her hands.

“But I thought you would be pleased that I— It was a risk,” he repeated, and waited.

She did not move, and the clock ticked a full minute. Standing with her face hidden, she heard his footsteps cross the floor to the door, heard a car drive away.

Mab and Jeff were down by the stream which bordered the lawn at Farthingale, when Victor’s car swept up the drive and braked sharply in front of the steps. By a mutual impulse they remained silent and made no effort to attract his attention while he jumped out and banged the car door and entered the house.

“Temper,” said Mab then, in a half-whisper.

“Mm-hm,” said Jeff with visible satisfaction. “Whatever it was, it didn’t work.”

“Now he’ll tell Evadne all about it,” said Mab, “and she’ll take it to God. Wouldn’t you think He’d get
sick
of them?”

Jeff looked at her with interest and respect.

“Maybe you’ve got something there,” he said.

“Not but what if there’s something I want very much I don’t hesitate to ask for it myself,” said Mab ruefully. “Like going to Williamsburg.”

“Oh, that,” said Jeff easily. “That shall be given. I’ll see to that myself.”

“You’re so
comforting
,”
said Mab impulsively, looking up at him with an almost tearful gratitude. “It’s such a
satisfaction
to talk to you, Jeff, you make everything seem so simple, as though even miracles can happen.”

“Well, how do we know they can’t?” he asked unargumentatively. “Look at radio. You’ve known about it all your life. I’m not doddering yet, but if anyone had described an ordinary drawing-room radio set to my mother the year I was born it would have sounded to her like a miracle.
Anything
can happen, Mab. Don’t you ever forget that.
Anything
can happen.”

Anything? Mab thought. Even time for me to grow up? Dare I ask even God for that? Could Jeff
mean
that? He knows so much, does he know that too? Does he mean he’ll wait for me to grow up? And Jeff, who had not meant anything of the kind, because of Sylvia, was wondering again at the ageless companionship and devotion between himself and the appealing little creature at his side—like a sister, was it, or a daughter, almost, or even a woman, if she had been older…. If she were Sylvia’s age, he thought with astonishment, I would say I was falling in love. But that’s fantastic. I’m in love with Sylvia. I always have been. Mab is a child….

“There’s Hermione,” she remarked with a sigh, glancing across the lawn. “Oh, bother, she’s seen us.”

Hermione strolled towards them, carrying some long sprays of pale blue delphinium which she had just cut from the herbaceous border. She wore a pensive, far-away air, and doubtless hoped that the effect was decorative. But there was no doubt about her bearing down on them. Jeff, who because of the share-letter had contrived pretty well to avoid her
since his arrival from Paris, resigned himself to being overtaken at last, and was thankful for Mab’s presence at the encounter.

“Virginia said I might gather a few of these for Evadne’s room,” said Hermione as she came up to them. “The roses in her vases have faded. Aren’t they a lovely colour?”

“Very nice,” Jeff conceded guardedly, and Mab thought, showing off. Picking flowers for Evadne’s room. Thinking Of Others. She’s changed, and she wants us to know it. Anybody can pick flowers.

“Victor has come back, I see,” Hermione went on, as nobody else contributed to the conversation. “I do hope it went well at Cleeve.”

“We thought he looked a bit miffed,” Mab suggested hopefully.

“What a pity. It meant so much to him that Rosalind should meet him half-way.”

“I don’t see why he cares,” objected Mab. “He’s grown up without her. He can get along now, I should think.”

“We must try to sympathize with Victor and understand how he feels,” Hermione reminded her patiently. “Evadne hopes that we can get him to go to our meetings.”

“A
German
?
”
Mab grinned. “Getting
changed?
It wouldn’t last!”

“Lots of Germans have been changed,” Hermione insisted with dignity. “Changed individuals mean changed nations. That will bring peace to the whole world. You didn’t answer my letter, Jeff.”

“Well—er—no, I—”

“That wasn’t very kind of you.” She gave him a look which was almost arch, if he could believe his eyes.

“I’m sorry, I—just couldn’t think of anything to say. That is—I’m perfectly willing to bury the hatchet if you are. But don’t go round trying to convert me, because I’m hopeless.” He thought as he spoke that he sounded ungracious and tried again. “One doesn’t have to join the Cause to behave decently, you know,” he added, making things no better, but
instead of taking it up with him, Hermione gave her small, tight smile.

“Of course not,” she said sweetly. “But it’s nice to know we have made a step in the right direction and can help each other from now on instead of wasting all that time and energy hating each other.”

“Oh, come, it wasn’t as bad as that, was it?” he said uneasily. “We had some fights, maybe, but they didn’t go as far as hating. That’s a big word.”

“You know, Jeff, you’re not half bad when you try.” Again the look, copied from Evadne’s unconscious, fleeting coquetry, and badly done.

“Well, thanks, the same to you!” he replied, somewhat flabbergasted, though Virginia had warned him that something had brought Hermione out.

“I’m glad we’ve had this talk,” she went on with another smile. “It always helps to get things straight, doesn’t it. And there’s something I want you to back me up on. Did Evadne speak to you about the flat?”

“She did, and I don’t think it’s at all a good idea.”

“Well, really, Jeff, I might have known—” For a moment the old enmity looked at him again from her eyes. “You’re always against anything I suggest,” she said.

“Now, look, Hermione, it’s got nothing to do with who suggested it. As a matter of fact, I thought it was her own idea. In any case the thought of you and Evadne running a London flat with no one to look after you makes my hair curl.”

“We’d have a char to look after us, every morning. It’s all very new and modern, sitting-room, two bedrooms, a tiny kitchen, and a tiled bath, all self-contained. The woman I’m letting it from, she’s an American, has a Mrs. Spindle, isn’t that a lovely name, who comes in and gets breakfast, clears away, and cleans, and is gone by noon. If I let her know before Thursday, I can get her to stay on with us and—”

“It’s not the char I mean.”

“Very well,
be
difficult, we don’t need your consent! If Evadne can’t pay her share I can manage the whole thing
myself, and she can stay there whenever she likes, just the same!”

“Have you told Oliver?”

“Not yet. But they won’t mind getting rid of me for a while. It’s only for six months, Miss Adams has to go back to New York till the first of next year, and I’ve practically promised to take the place off her hands.”

“Where is this flat?”

“In Bayswater. Near Whiteley’s.”

“It would be.”

“There’s no need to take that tone. It will be very convenient.”

“Well, if it’s all settled, why did you bring it up?” The old animosity was at work between them again.

“Because I thought just possibly you might have the decency to put in a word for us with Virginia! I was wrong, of course!”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Simply tell her that you think Evadne is old enough to come and live with me in London.”

“She’s old enough, but you’re bound to get into all kinds of trouble between the two of you, sharing a flat. This Victor business, for one thing. You can’t have a Nazi always hanging about the place. Ask Camilla.
He’s
not changed.”

Hermione appeared to consider this.

“Do you think there’s any chance of Evadne’s falling in love with him?” she asked.

“God forbid!”

“Well, for once we agree. I don’t think it’s suitable,” said Hermione. “I spent all my quiet time on it this morning, and it seems I’ve been Guided to take the flat because I can keep an eye on things better that way.”