Chapter Eight
Afterthat, the two affairs in one sense ran concurrently, so far as the outer world was concerned. In that other world, of course, that I have called the inner life, they were on altogether different planes.
As far as I know, Bill Patch and Mrs. Harter knew no hesitations at all. The day after that evening when they had gone up Loman Hill he said to Mrs. Fazackerly that he could not come to the rehearsal and that he wanted to be out all day. At nine o’clock in the morning he was at the house in Queen Street, where she was waiting for him.
He saw her, as he crossed the road, sitting at the execrable little bow window of the dining room, her hands clasped in her lap, quite obviously looking down the street, waiting. When he reached the three steps, she got up and opened the front door and said to him, “Let’s get out of this!” jerking her head backwards at the linoleum floor and tiled walls of the tiny entrance.
She was wearing her outdoor things, all ready.
As they walked down Queen Street together MaryAmbrey passed them. She stopped, with some question for Bill about the play. Mrs. Harter stood by, and after one look at her Mary suddenly remembered Martyn’s words:
“That woman hard? I wonder what we were all thinking about!”
Captain Patch, in a way, was always joyous, and that morning he only looked younger than ever, but, to Mary’s perceptions, there was something about them both that almost made her catch her breath.
They looked, she said, somehowdazed. Mary never told me or anyone else about this brief meeting until some time afterwards, but then she said that, whenever anyone condemned either or both of those two people who caused so much talk in our small community, she remembered that morning and the strange impression she received of sheer, dazzling happiness. Captain Patch told Mary that they were going up to the moors—some twelve miles away. He never, either then or afterwards, attempted the slightest concealment of the fact that they went everywhere together. Neither did Mrs. Harter, but then she was not by any means on friendly terms with the whole of Cross Loman, as Bill Patch was, and her manner towards the people whom she did know always held the same semi-contemptuous reticence.
It was only a very few days later that people began to talk about them.
It began, I have not the slightest doubt, at Dheera Dhoon. The Kendals, like so many other people who are temperamentally good, take an impassioned interest in those things and people which they consider bad. But, as a matter of fact, it was Lady Annabel Bending from whom I first heard about it.
“That is a nice youth who is staying at the Cottage with old Mr. Carey. But they tell me that he is running after that very common-looking woman who sings.”
Lady Annabel never sees things from her bedroom window or hears them over the counter from Miss Applebee, like the rest of us. She obtains all her information from a mysterious and unspecified source. “They” tell her, or she “is informed.”
No doubt this is another relic of the Government House days.
“Mrs. Harter must be a great deal older than he is, surely, and what can they possibly have in common?”
“Music,” said I feebly.
Not for one instant did I suppose that Bill Patch and Mrs. Harter walked twelve miles on a hot day in order to talk about music.
Lady Annabel showed me at once that neither did she believe anything so improbable.
“From what I have heard of Mrs. Harter, Sir Miles, I should think that music is the last thing to occupy her mind. I think I told you that a good deal is known about her, though it reached me only through entirely unofficial channels. But Captain Patch is a very nice young fellow indeed, and one can’t help feeling it’s a pity that he should be victimized.”
“Perhaps he isn’t victimized. He may admire her.”
“So much the worse,” said Lady Annabel in her lowest, gentlest and most inexorable voice. “Surely there are plenty of nice, innocent girls to choose from without running after a married woman. The Rector’s position makes it difficult for me to speak about these things, as you know. But, if you remember, I said some time ago that it was a most unwise proceeding to invite a person like Mrs. Harter to take part in your theatricals.”
“She has, up to the present, come to no rehearsals, so the theatricals can hardly be held responsible for bringing them together.”
Lady Annabel bent her head. I knew, however, and she meant me to know, that this was mere courtesy on her part—not acquiescence.
She was not the only person to talk about Mrs.Harter and Captain Patch, of course. It is never only one person who talks; these things get into the air, no one knows how.
Mrs. Kendal spoke to Claire, and Claire reported what she had said to me.
“I have seen them myself, walking about the town,” said Mumma impressively. “They actually went into the butcher’s together. Of course, I suppose she does her own marketing, living in rooms. And I distinctly saw them go into the butcher’s together.”
Claire said that it seemed an unromantic sort of trysting place.
“It shows how intimate they are, their going like that to the butcher’s together. None of my girls would ever dream of taking a gentleman to do their household shopping,” said Mrs. Kendal with absolute truth. “I should think less of it, in a way, if Captain Patch and Mrs. Harter went to the theater, or even to the cinematograph, together. But when it comes to their going together to the butcher’s, I ask myself what it all means.”
Mrs. Kendal had not been content only to ask herself what it all meant. She had asked several other people as well, including her four daughters and her son.
“It means,” said Dolly, with her most uncompromisinglysensible expression, “that Mrs. Harter is trying to get up a flirtation with Captain Patch.”
“She’s old enough to be his mother, I should think,” said Aileen.
When the twins had made these scathing statements, I think they felt that the situation had been exhaustively analyzed. At any rate, although they thereafter talked round and round the subject with tireless persistency, the sum total of their observations never amounted to more than that Mrs. Harter was trying to get up a flirtation with Captain Patch and that she was old enough to be his mother.
I did not think it worth while to point out that twenty-eight cannot be the mother of twenty-six.
It was odd, and to me profoundly interesting, to compare the comments which the situation evoked.
Mary Ambrey, of course, made none, and was, I should imagine, almost the only person in Cross Loman of whom that could be said.
Sallie and Martyn, with their strange, passionless habits of dissection, were coldly and impersonally interested.
I remember one exposition of their views. The spirit of it impressed itself upon my consciousness so clearly that I can almost remember the letter.
“There’ll be a scandal over Patch and the fascinating Mrs. Harter one of these days,” said Martyn.
“She’s not fascinating,” Sallie asserted.
Her brother raised his eyebrows slightly, and she understood and laughed.
“Flat contradiction is rather uncivilized, I admit. And besides, she probablyisfascinating, to some people.”
“She certainly is to Bill Patch.”
“I know. As a matter of fact, there’s more to it than that, I believe. I mean, he’s more than just attracted by her.”
“Really? You once said he was a temperamental romantic, I know. Are you trying to justify that now by building up a mountain out of a molehill?”
“I am not. Events are simply confirming my previous psychological deductions, that’s all,” said Sallie with bland dignity.
I was glad that Claire was not in the room. Like all egotists, she is driven nearly to frenzy by a display of egotism in anybody else.
“In all this,” said I, “there is one person who is never mentioned. What about Mr. Harter?”
There was a pause. Then Martyn remarked: “Negligible, I should think.”
“Possibly, as a personality. But as a man and ahusband, he exists. It is even conceivable that he has feelings.”
“Oh,feelings!” said Sallie and Martyn, more or less together.
The tone of each expressed the utmost contempt.
“Some people might even go so far as to say that he has rights.”
“To a certain extent, so he has,” said Sallie, evidently determined to be broad-minded.
“Presumably she made the usual undertakings when she married him. But from all accounts, they’ve each gone their own way ever since they married. From a sentimental point of view, it can hardly matter what she does now. Perhaps she’s working up for a divorce.”
“If so, it’s bad luck on Patch. He can’t want to marry her.”
But to that Sallie replied thoughtfully, “I’m not so sure.”
“Are they together a great deal?” Martyn queried. “Mrs. Kendal speaks as though they were never to be seen apart, but she bases that upon their having gone into the butcher’s shop at the same time, which she appears to regard as peculiarly incriminating.”
“He takes her for a walk every day and sees her home whenever they’re at the same parties, but I can’t personally see why he shouldn’t do that,” Sallie declared.“All this gossip and tittle-tattle makes me sick. Whatever they do it’s their own business and nobody else’s.”
Again I mentioned Mr. Harter’s name, and it met with as little acclamation as before.
“He’d better come to England if he doesn’t like his wife to have friendships.”
“Do you suppose she writes and tells him about them?” asked Sallie ironically.
“One has links, as Lady Annabel would say. He’s probably heard all about it, and rather more than all, from some officious soul who thinks he ought to know. After all, Mrs. Harter was Diamond Ellison, the plumber’s daughter, and pretty well-known, at least by name, to everybody here, let alone that she’s the sort that always does get talked about.”
“She interests me a good deal, as a psychological study,” said Sallie. “But as a matter of fact, I don’t consider that she’s behaving well.”
“You mean that what she’s doing—getting herself talked about with Patch, while her husband is abroad—is anti-social?” Martyn suggested.
“Yes, exactly. I’ve no feelings, personally, as to the rights or wrongs of anything, from an ethical point of view, but I do bar the sort of thing that can only be called anti-social.”
They are both perfectly satisfied once they have found a label, and affixed it, to any situation.
I should like to see Martyn or Sallie—but especially Sallie—in love. There are times when I believe that she is quite incapable of it. She would pin down and analyze every symptom of her condition and then discuss it exhaustively, and very likely write a book about it. Perhaps passion could survive all this. I am not prepared to say that it could not, for I am conscious that the understanding of one generation cannot project itself into that of another, whatever Claire may say about the experience of a lifetime, which in reality has nothing whatever to do with it.
Once upon a time, Martyn Ambrey did bring a very young girl, with shingled hair and most beautiful slim ankles, to stay with his mother for a week-end. They went out on his motor bicycle all Sunday, and that evening—when the girl was out of the room—Martyn said casually to Mary and Sallie:
“Lois has plenty of brains, but I didn’t realize how conventional her upbringing has made her. She’d insist upon having her children baptized.”
On Monday morning he took her away again on the carrier of his motor bicycle, and that—so far as I know—was the end of it.
Mary said that Lois, from start to finish, remainedas demure as a Victorian school girl. They have their own standards, no doubt. Mary says so, and leaves it at that. But Claire says, in one and the same breath, that the Lois and Martyn type do not know the meaning of reality, and are incapable of recognizing it when they meet it, and that their attitude of detachment is all a pose.
Perhaps she envies them their undoubted immunity from the perpetual emotional turmoil in which her own life has been spent.
But, on the other hand, there was bitter and passionate envy in her condemnation of Mrs. Harter.
I could understand that, in a way. Claire, like many another woman who is more or less incapable of self-command, holds the theory that this lack of discipline constitutes a special and peculiar claim upon Providence. Only a supreme call, they hold, can bring forth the supreme response of which they feel themselves to be capable. Failing that, it is impossible that they should fulfil themselves. They go through life with a sense of frustration.
Claire has far too much perception not to appraise an atmospheric value very quickly. She knew quite well that Bill Patch and Mrs. Harter were not engaged upon the odious pastime, so odiously described by Dolly Kendal, of “getting up a flirtation.”
Bill Patch himself, quite unconsciously, made one see that. He did not very often speak Mrs. Harter’s name, but when he did, it was like an electric spark in the room.
“What will happen?” Nancy Fazackerly murmured to me once, so vaguely that I half wondered if she knew that she was speaking aloud.
“You think somethingwillhappen? Sometimes these things die of themselves, you know.”
“Sometimes. But this won’t. I can’t bear to think of it. You know, one gets very fond of Bill.”
I knew.
But I doubt if anyone else would have added, as Nancy did, “And I’m so sorry forher.”
“Why?” said Christopher, who was beside her as usual. He was one of the people who did not admire Mrs. Harter.
“Well, she is married, isn’t she?” Mrs. Fazackerly suggested. “I suppose things may be rather difficult, perhaps, when Mr. Harter comes to England.”
One could not help remembering that Mrs. Fazackerly had the best of reasons for understanding how difficult things could be made by the return of a husband, even although the late Mr. Fazackerly had had no serious grievances to provoke his habits of violence.
“I know nothing about Mr. Harter,” said Christopher, “but if he’s coming here, mark my words, there’ll be trouble.”
Mrs. Fazackerly may or may not have marked Christopher’s words—probably she did—but it was quite evident enough without them that the arrival of Harter in Cross Loman would precipitate a crisis.
“Is he coming here?” I asked.
Mrs. Fazackerly nodded.
“When?” I said, and Christopher Ambrey at the same moment said, “Why?”
“Very soon. And he’s coming because—” Nancy paused and then said in a slightly awe-stricken way: “She’s written and asked him to come.”
“Did she tell you so?”
“Captain Patch did.”
“And did he tell you why she did anything so astonishing?”
“Not exactly. I got an impression, though.” She hesitated.
“I think I’ll tell you. I think, in a way, he rather wanted me to tell people—especially if anyone is talking about them.”
“Everyone is talking about them,” I assured her. “Please add to the number.”
All the same, I knew that what she wanted to saywas, by comparison with the tittle-tattle that was going on, something serious.
“Diamond Harter has written to her husband and asked him to come here. She is very unhappily married—everyone knows that—and I think she is going to try and put an end to it.”
“Put an end to it?”
“A separation, I suppose, or—or a divorce, perhaps.”
“And where, exactly, does Bill Patch come in?”
“I should have thought that was obvious,” muttered Christopher.
“That’s exactly where you’re mistaken, my dear fellow. There’s nothing obvious about any of it. Neither of them are obvious people, and I distrust profoundly the combination of an obvious situation and two such unobvious protagonists. It is quite impossible to predict what their reactions may be.”
I felt rather like Sallie as I spoke, and I also knew that Christopher, by instinct, dislikes and distrusts the use of polysyllabic words.
He looked at me rather disgustedly, but did not say anything.
Nancy Fazackerly went on.
“Of course, it’s impossible not to see that she and Captain Patch are—are always together. But reallyand truly I believe she’s written—or they both have—to Mr. Harter.”
“To tell him that they’re making themselves the talk of Cross Loman? How considerate!”
“It seems rather a brave sort of thing to have done,” Nancy said wistfully.
Her own strong point is not moral courage.
“Of course, she’s older than he is, and besides, she’s married already, and—and there are other things as well. But I can’t help being very sorry for her. And I am fond of him.”
I thought Christopher Ambrey looked rather anxious, at that, and that I had better give him the opportunity of going into the question of the exact degree of fondness that Captain Patch had inspired in Mrs. Fazackerly. So I left them together.
Their love affair was progressing very, very slowly, and I did not even then feel sure that it was destined to a successful fulfilment.
Claire, I knew, would use all her influence to prevent it, which seemed to render it rather more likely to happen, but old Carey was capable of working seriously upon his daughter’s feelings to the extent of making her think it her duty to remain with him.
There was no doubt that Christopher, hitherto singularlyunsusceptible, was attracted by her. He always turned over the pages of her music for her at rehearsals, and once he had given her a bunch of lilies of the valley.
There were pauses in his courtship, during which he evidently thought over the next stage before embarking upon it, but on the whole the affair was going forward.
Nancy Fazackerly was looking prettier than I had ever seen her. She had one or two new frocks that summer, too, as though she thought it was worth while to look her best.
“Nancy Fazackerly doesn’t look like a widow,” Mrs. Kendal said, about this time. Her tone was not exactly disparaging, although neither was it enthusiastic. But her wide, opaque gaze rested quite blandly upon Nancy as she spoke.
“What does a widow look like?”
Mumma is not apt at definitions, and she only replied that a widow generallylookedlike a widow, and that Nancy Fazackerly didn’t.
“So much the better,” said I.
“She is very young,” Mumma said tolerantly. “And I believe it is a positive fact that her first husband was in the habit of throwing plates at her head.”
She paused for a moment, and then, as far as Mumma’s large face can express anything, it expressed confusion.
“When I say her first husband,” she incredibly remarked, “I mean to say her late husband.”
I really thought that I had better not hear this at all, and so I turned the conversation abruptly to “The Bulbul Ameer.”
It was very easy to do this, since everyone who knew anything at all about the play, and many who did not, appeared to hold very strong views about the manner of its production and to be eager to advocate them.
Mumma was no exception.
Bill Patch and Nancy, however, were the joint authors of the piece, and so the conversation gradually veered round to personalities again.
Mrs. Kendal said that it was a great pity about Captain Patch and that she had always thought him a nice young fellow, before.
I declined, tacitly, to unravel these implications, and on the whole I was relieved when she worked her way back to the Nancy Fazackerly theme once more.
Everybody’s inflections, if not their words, were friendly and hopeful when they talked about NancyFazackerly and Christopher Ambrey. Almost equally universal were the characteristics of the words and inflections applied to Mrs. Harter and Captain Patch.
These were either condemnatory or regretful—and sometimes both.