I
FOUR days later I met Helen at Liverpool. She and June were among the first to land, and the meeting was about as casual as if we had been separated for seven hours instead of seven years. She had evidently been wirelessed concerning my arrival, for she said, almost without surprise: "You have come from Paris, I understand, and have seen him? Tell me how he is."
I recited the sentence I had carefully prepared beforehand: "It is serious, but by no means hopeless. We shall reach the hospital to-morrow morning, and you'll find him, I think, very cheerful."
June said, as we walked to the train: "It is ever so good of you to come and meet us like this," but Helen did not echo or assent to the remark. She merely asked me if I were proceeding to London, and when I replied affirmatively, she exclaimed: "I hope you aren't thinking of escorting us back to Paris. June and I have been travelling at all hours of the day and night for the past three months, so I can assure you——"
"As it happens," I interrupted, "I have business in Paris, and must return there immediately." (It was true enough, though the nature of the business would doubtless have surprised her.)
She made no answer, but June smiled and said she hoped we shouldn't have a rough crossing. She, at any rate, was disposed to be friendly.
It wasn't till we were in the railway luncheon-car, with the fields of Cheshire rolling past us, that I was able to take a real look at them both. And then the extraordinariness of it all came upon me—that we three, after seven years, should meet together again like this. June, during that long interval, had grown up; but Helen was almost startlingly the same at first sight, though a sharper glance revealed lines and contours that did not so much detract from her beauty as change the aspect of it. There was little conversation throughout the journey, and I was made to feel that the seven-years feud was by no means ended. June and I exchanged a few sentences—chiefly about America and kindred topics. Only once did she mention Severn, and that was (I noticed) while Helen had left us temporarily. June asked me then if I thought her father would get better, and I replied that it seemed to me quite possible that he might outlive the lot of us. It was a quibble, but she appeared not to notice it. She said, quickly: "Oh, I do hope so. He was always very good to me." And with just the faintest possible accent on the "me."
I am trying, you see, to set all this down as simply as I can. And here, perhaps, I ought to attempt some sort of a description of June. All I can say is that she had reddish hair and clear blue eyes and wasn't quite as good-looking as her mother. One thing she was, anyhow, that her mother had never been; she was English—the independent, honest, freckled product of the English boarding-school and college, plus that shy and unanalysable something that makes the difference between a girl and a woman. All the way to London I had the impression that she was doing what she could to put me at my ease, and that Helen was doing just the opposite.
We reached Euston at five o'clock, dined at the Belgravia, and caught the evening boat-train from Victoria. At Dover heavy rain was falling, and the omens for the crossing were distinctly bad. June was a poor sailor and went below immediately; I secured a cabin for her, and tipped a stewardess to make her comfortable. I suggested that Helen should join her, but she wouldn't; she could stand the roughest passage, she said, provided she stayed on deck in the fresh air. "If you'll leave me here," she said, "with a rug and a mackintosh, I shall be perfectly well. And now you'd better get a cabin for yourself or else stake out a claim in the men's smoking-room."
"You don't wish me to share the wind and the rain with you?"
She replied: "Well, frankly, since you ask me, I'm not particularly keen...."
II
There was no doubt about the weather; as soon as the harbour was left behind, the ship began to sway and shiver sickeningly. I chatted for a while with one of the stewards; he told me uncomfortingly that a storm in July was rather rare, but that when it did come it was usually severe. All the time we were talking I could hear the wind rising to gale ferocity; there were also intermittent rumblings of thunder. I felt an obligation to look after Helen, despite her rudeness to me, so I climbed on deck and met her dragging a deck-chair along one of the companionways; she handed it to me rather sulkily, remarking that she was looking for a spot that was better sheltered from the rain and spray. I said I would find one for her, and we staggered with difficulty along the heaving decks. With the port-lights falling on them, the waves looked like rolls of dark moorland peaked with snow. Then, quite suddenly, one of them lifted over the edge and mounted towards us in a huge black wall; we just managed to escape its full onrush, and were immediately and peremptorily ordered below by a ship's officer.
After that the terrible became merely the sordid. In the lower saloons the occupants were horridly inert and comatose; many were engulfed in the varying throes ofmal de mer; most were grimly unhappy. The smells of oil and stale cooking were all-pervading; intermittent crashes told of casualties in the pantries; the ship's engines groaned like the breathing of a pneumonia sufferer. All this I relate, not as descriptive padding, but to show how force of circumstances drove Helen and me together that night. I suggested first of all that she should share June's cabin, but after visiting it and finding June comfortably asleep, she returned to say that she would rather do anything than lie down. "Then," I said, "there remains the bar. It's probably the most cheerful spot on the whole boat, and French beer isn't a bad sort of tonic."
She said: "You'll have to take me then," and I nodded and took her.
We hung on to the counter and heard the bartender being violently sick behind the scenes. And she said: "I suppose you think you're heaping coals of fire on my head?"
"How so?"
"By being kind to me after I've been rude to you."
"Well—you certainlyhavebeen rude to me, haven't you?"
"Yes," she replied simply. And after a pause she added: "I rather loathe the sentimental way you assume that everything else is going to be forgotten just because of what's happened to Geoffrey."
"Well?"
"I suppose you thought I was going to welcome you with open arms on Liverpool landing-stage, eh?"
"Not in the least. I only hoped that our desire to help Geoffrey would enable us to treat each other civilly."
Her eyes flashed. "Yes, that sounds as if I'm in the wrong, doesn't it? But let me tell you this—that though Iamgoing to help Geoffrey, my feelings towards him remain exactly as they were before."
"And what were they?"
She said quietly: "I don't like him. I don't care what you think of me for saying it—it's the honest truth. And I'm not sentimental enough to think that a railway-accident can make any difference."
The beer came then, and a sudden lurch of the boat sent half of it spilling over our hands. The bartender, white-faced and dishevelled, retired again to endure his sufferings in solitude. She went on, more quickly: "Oh, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking of Geoffrey asyouknow him—how decent he's been to you, and all that. Hehasbeen decent to you, I'll admit—he's been decent enough to me inthatsort of way. But—oh, Hilton—I'm friends with you again now, and I must tell you—he's notstraight—you know what I mean, don't you? He's not the sort of man you cantrust!"
"Good heavens, I think I'd trust my life to him——"
She interrupted: "I daresay you would. I daresay a lot of people would.... Perhaps I ought to have said that he's not the sort of man his wife can trust."
And then, while the boat rolled so badly that once or twice we were almost battered from wall to wall, she told me. Oddly, perhaps, I didn't realize her complete meaning till she was half-way through—not till she said: "If he only had that one fault in the world (and perhaps he has), it would be enough to make me despise him—for I value faithfulness higher than anything."
Faithfulness! Then she knew ...?Didshe know? ... Could it possibly have come to her knowledge already ...?
She was telling me how, after her marriage, she had first of all trusted him implicitly. "There were several incidents that made me wonder a little, but I made myself believe that he wasgood. I knew, of course, that women flung themselves at him—thatwasn't his fault. And besides, he trusted me so much—he never seemed to bother where I went or who went with me. I loathed the idea of being jealous.... And so it went on—for a few years; I just had faith in him—inus—and if sometimes I got to hear scraps of gossip, I ignored them.... Then came an affair I couldn't possibly ignore, and there was a fearful row. I nearly left him, but he gave his promise, and I said I'd try to trust him again."
She said, rather pathetically: "You say you'lltryto trust somebody again, but you don't very often succeed. Personally, I don't think you ever can—it's such a far deeper matter than repentance or forgiveness. There are some people who have it in them to do certain things, and others who haven't—and if you find out that a man belongs to the first kind, then it's final—don't you think so? ... Anyhow, I stayed on with Geoffrey, and, so far as I know, he kept his promise till last year. Then I found he'd been spending week-ends with a girl at Rotterdam.... Do you know, it didn't surprise me a bit.... It didn't even hurt me.... I just felt that I hadn't a scrap of love for him, and that it didn't matter.... I didn't trouble to mention it even; I just let things go on as if nothing had happened, and then, when the fine weather came, I took June with me to America.... And I didn't ever intend to come back."
"But June—doessheknow all this?"
"She knows nothing."
"You would have had to tell her."
"I daresay.... I hadn't made any plans about that. I just made up my mind to leave Geoffrey and never see him again. But of course the accident has alteredthat. I shall stay with him now, but I can't pretend tolikehim any more."
"That seems a hard thing to say."
"Perhaps itishard. You must remember I'm French, and that makes me face the facts as they are."
I said that, however little affection she had for her husband, she wouldn't be able to stop herself from admiring his pluck and cheerfulness. She replied: "It won't matter whether I admire him or not. Admiration is nothing."
"And pity—isthatnothing?
"I have pity for anyone in misfortune. It is pity that will make me stay with him and help him."
"Perhaps, anyhow, the motive doesn't matter so much. It's what you do that will count, for it's possible—rather more than possible, I'm afraid—that he'll never be able to walk again."
That stirred her, I could see. She whispered, tremulously: "Is that really true?"—and when I nodded slowly, she just bit her lip and said nothing ... nothing at all. It was as if shecouldn'tspeak. There came just then a terrific peal of thunder, vibrant above the muffled thudding of the engines, and I think I spoke some word or phrase of reassurance. But she just stared at me blankly—staredthroughme almost; and then, in a queerly casual voice, remarked: "That was loud. I think I'll go down to June's cabin and see if it wakened her...."
She went out, staggering against the roll and pitch of the boat, and not till we were calm in Calais Harbour did I see her again.
III
After that wild scene in mid-Channel, the rest of the journey to Paris lingers in my mind as a quiet and cool aftermath. The train at Calais was packed as only a French boat-train can be packed; I managed to secure seats in the first-class coach for Helen and June, but the latter elected to surrender hers to a lady who had been very ill during the crossing. So we sat on our suit-cases in the corridor, June and I; and there wasn't much room, even there, for the holiday season was at its height, and all the well-known advertised tours to Paris were in full swing. June had passed through Paris before, but had never stayed there or seen the city. "I should like to have done," she said, "but mother was always in a hurry to get through to somewhere else."
"That's rather odd," I remarked, "considering that Paris is your mother's native place. One would have expected her to enjoy re-visiting the old familiar scenes."
June answered quietly: "That's just the sort of thing she would hate most of all. She loathes sentiment about the past. That's why she likes America—because its beauty isn't so dreadfully steeped in memories ... Palm Beach, for instance."
"You've been there? I suppose you've travelled rather a lot?"
"Well, I've always joined mother abroad during college vacations, and now that I've finished my last year I daresay we should have practically lived abroad but for this—this awful accident...." She paused for a moment, and then went on: "Mother hates England, butIdon't. Do you know, there's one place more than any other that I've wanted to visit during the last few years, and I haven't had a chance yet?"
"Where's that?" I asked, and she replied:
"My own home at Hampstead. I used to love Hampstead Heath and the walk across Parliament Hill Fields to Highgate. I can remember it all from when I was a child."
"And since then you haven't been at home at all?"
"Just odd nights now and then. As soon as the terms were over at school and at Newnham, I've always had to dash away to join my mother in Sweden or Algeria or somewhere.... Of course I've enjoyed it all—immensely—but"—she smiled—"I'd have preferred a week or two in London now and again."
The dawn was stealing in from over the grey Normandy fields, and a misty rain dimmed the windowpanes. We were silent for a few miles, and then she resumed, thoughtfully: "I feel so sorry that I haven't been at home oftener."
"Why?"
"Because I would like to have known my father better."
I looked at her and saw that her blue, tranquil eyes were shining with tears. But the tears did not fall; she had perfect control of herself. She went on: "I don't think it's been quite fair to him to leave him as my mother has done. Of course, he's awfully busy, and isn't home a great deal himself, but still—wemighthave had more to do with him."
I said nothing; there seemed nothing to say. She was evidently eager to pour out her mind on the subject, for she continued: "So you see, my father's almost a stranger to me. I've seen him perhaps once every three months or so during the past ten years, and I've always liked him.... Mostly, though, Irememberhim—just as if he were dead. I remember him teaching me to skate on Highgate Ponds, and I remember him giving me a gold sovereign on the night when he first got elected to Parliament."
"Ah—the Manchester South bye-election. That was a good many years ago."
"But I remember it quite well. I remember you visiting us a lot in those days, and also a man called Terry, who used to do chemistry experiments in the kitchen."
"Terry!" I echoed; and then, before I knew what I was saying, I had replied: "He's in Paris now."
"Is he?" she exclaimed. "Oh, I would like to see him. He must be getting quite old."
"Thirty-one. That's not old."
"It sounds horribly old to me."
I don't know what answer I made; I only know that I was thinking furiously: She's bound to tell Helen that Terry's in Paris, andthenwhat will happen? ... The blunder was clumsy and irrevocable, for I dared not face June's puzzled eyes by asking her not to mention Terry to her mother. The only thing to hope for was that he and I would be on our way to England before any complications could ensue.
IV
And that, by the grace of God, was what happened.
We reached the Gare du Nord at breakfast-time and drove straight to the Crillon, where I engaged rooms for them. After hasty cups of coffee we went on to the hospital, and there, in the corridor outside Severn's room, I left them. The sister said that there was no change in his condition, and it seemed to me that I had better leave them to visit him by themselves. Helen barely nodded a farewell, but June, though her thoughts were obviously elsewhere, was polite enough to thank me for my escort.
And so once more to the hotel in the Place du Hâvre. Terry seemed, if anything, more tired and listless than ever; but the doctor had said he could travel and so, after lunch, we left by the afternoon train for Dieppe, stayed there overnight, and went on to Newhaven by the mail-boat the next morning. Then London at last—after his seven years of absence. I wondered, as we pushed our way into a taxi, whether it meant anything to him—to return after so long an exile. I don't think it did. I think he was too tired to notice any difference between London and Paris. As we drove into Waterloo Station we saw a weekly paper's placard advertising in large type: "Karelsky on the Life-Force," and that—only that—seemed to give him a spasm of recollection. He put his hands to his eyes and said: "I wish I hadn't worked so hard out there. I seem to have made such a hash of things—getting crocked like this and wasting all your time.... It's ever so kind of you."
Two hours later the journey was over. It had been hot and rather tiresome, but it ended at the quaintest and prettiest hotel I have ever seen. It wasn't really more than a inn, and perhaps for fifty or a hundred years it had served mugs of beer to wayfarers on the road from Hindhead to Farnham. Then had come Severn with his "controlling interest," and in a single summer's afternoon a sign-painter had turned the old Brown Cow into the new Valley Hotel. Mercifully the transformation had involved little more than that.
But the interior comfort was as astonishing, almost, as the effect produced by Severn's letter of introduction. We were more than welcomed; we were fêted; and the manager, Taplow by name, assured us with great fervency that it would be a real pleasure to look after Terry and me and, indeed, everybody and anybody else who was a friend of Severn's. Severn, he informed us stoutly, was "the finest chap who ever breathed." And forthwith he served us with a dinner that was at least as good, if not so complicated, as many I have had in first-class city hotels. Even of wines and liqueurs he could provide an amazingly wide selection. "It's Mr. Severn that manages the wine-list, sir," he told me, as he brought mycordiale Médoc. "Ah, he's a real good judge of wines—and of most other things too, I should say. He had his ideas about this place right from the beginning—saw it one afternoon as he was motoring past and bought it on the spot, as you might say.... Such a pity about his accident—and I do hope he gets well again. Well, really, sir, it came as such a shock to me when I read about it in the papers, I do declare I couldn't eat my dinner after it—thatI couldn't...."
V
There comes to me now, as I think of the Valley Hotel, a sense of strange and wonderful tranquillity. For it is here, in Taplow's garden, that I am writing these words; the furious, tragic interlude is over, and all at last seems stilled in the shadow of this English inn. Counting over the pages I have written, I find that more than half are concerned with those days in Buda-Pesth and Vienna and Paris; it would stagger me if I didn't remember how packed with happenings they were.... The miles I covered and the frontiers I crossed and re-crossed—the hotels and the trains and the steamers—the days of scurry and the long nights of wakefulness! ... But all—all are over now, quenched in the glory of this autumn day at Hindhead, with the hollyhocks waving over me and the far brown hills in the sunlight.
But Terry.... After all, this story is about him, not me. The trouble is that I can only describe what he said and did; I can't pretend to see into his mind and describe what he thought. And what he said and did during those first weeks at the Valley Hotel is so easily told; he just said and did nothing. I used to visit him at week-ends, and each time I found him a little stronger-looking, a little less thin and haggard; but in all other respects unchanged. He was cordial enough, but somehow he seemed not to care very much about anything—whether I came or went or even what news I brought him about Severn.
From Taplow came information as to how he spent his time. Apparently he still slept badly, and used often to rise at dawn and take a long walk before breakfast. Then, after that, he sometimes took another walk, but more usually sat in a deck-chair in Taplow's garden and slept for hours with the sun on his face. On wet days he would haunt the sitting-room like a lost soul. "It's like as if he was tired out," said Taplow. "And yet you wouldn't think so if you was to see him walking along the road. Four mile an hour to Farnham and back—that's what he did the other day. And then he wouldn't have any supper—nothing but a smoke and a drop of whisky...."
"Good God!" I exclaimed, "do you mean to say he's begun to smoke and drink?"
Taplow nodded. "But he don't do it like an ordinary human being. Now for myself, I like a cigar and a glass of stout every night before bedtime. Buthedon't seem to have any proper habits—sometimes he'll come into the bar before breakfast and ask for a double.Before breakfast, mind you—a thing I've never done in my life. And then, after that, maybe, he won't touch a drop for days and days...."
The next time I was with Terry alone I mentioned the matter, congratulating him on having dropped what I had always considered to be the rather stupid rule of strict abstinence. He answered quickly and almost curtly: "Oh, it isn'tthat—there's no need to congratulate me. It's just that I don't care what I do."
And that, so far as I could judge, was the solemn truth. He didn't care. He had let things go, and there was no more strength of mind in him. Yet all the time, nevertheless, his strength of body was returning. After two months at the Valley Hotel he was changed, physically, almost beyond recognition; his bronzed face and arms and the broadening out of his shoulders gave a splendid impression of recovery until he began to talk. For his talk—what little of it there was—betrayed the truth—that he was tired and sad and melancholy and uninterested. The days came one after the other, an endless dull procession; his body loved the sunlight and the long walks over the hills, but his mind loved nothing, desired nothing. And I, wanting all the time to help him, was powerless to light the fire that had gone out. I remember a Sunday evening when we climbed the long hill to the cross-roads and watched the Devil's Punch-Bowl fill slowly with a vast lake of twilight. I told him then that I had had a letter from June informing me that Severn was shortly to be taken home. "She says he's wonderfully cheerful and full of plans for the future. He's going to write a book about Disraeli."
It was good news (which was the reason I had communicated it), yet it seemed to stir him painfully. He cried, in a sudden rush of words: "Oh, I know—he sent me a letter the other day—said he wouldn't ever be able to walk again.... But he doesn't care about it—or about anything.... Neither do I—it's the only way—not caring.... Buthisnot caring is somehow like bright sunlight, whereas mine's like a heavy cloud pressing down on me....Doyou know what I mean?"
"Perhaps," I said, "you mean that not caring comes naturally to him, but not to you?"
He wouldn't, or couldn't, think that out. "Idon'tcare, anyway," he almost shouted. "I've done enough caring.... If I could change places with him and take his injury, I'd do so gladly, but I can't, so what's the good of caring? It won't help him, or me either."
"And is it helping you not to care?" I asked, but his burst of confidence was over, and all he gave me was a doubtful shake of the head. We walked back to the hotel with hardly another word, and later on, as I strolled down the lane to post a letter, I caught sight of him whisky-drinking in the bar.
VI
Severn was taken home at the beginning of September, and a few days later a letter from him invited me to dinner at the End House. He wrote that he had stood the journey very well, and was delighted to be back in his own home.
Helen and June were both in the drawing-room when I arrived, and if Helen's attitude was a shade cool, June's was a shade warm to make up for it. I did not see Severn himself till we went into the dining-room; the butler then wheeled him in on a specially-constructed chair and placed him at the angle of the table that was most convenient. He was a good deal paler than I had seen him before, but his spirits were high as ever. He said that of the two occupations, walking and talking, he very much preferred the latter, which was lucky, in view of what had happened. "Fortunately, also," he added, "I was always extremely lazy, and never walked an inch when I could possibly find a vehicle of any sort to ride in. Now I can even ride in and out of my own dining-room...."
The dinner itself was quite up to Severn's usual high standard. He and I lingered over our coffee while the others took theirs on the verandah. His peculiar pose (the only unusual feature of him) suited the informal stage of the meal and made him seem almost his old self again; even when he discussed his changed future with me I found it hard to believe in the tragic reality that was behind it all. He said that the accident had settled one thing, at any rate; it had put the veto on his political career. "I might fight the next election as atour-de-force, but I could never dream of taking office—that goes without saying.... Anyhow, since he who runs may read, I suppose he who cannot run may write. There are a few much-maligned characters in history I've always had a fancy to defend, so now's my chance.... Disraeli for one ... and Machiavelli, and Robert Walpole ... and perhaps even Pontius Pilate...."
He went on: "There's another matter which has perhaps been settled by those scoundrelly French railways ... I mean—about Helen."
I said "Of course," hardly knowing what I meant; and he rejoined: "She won't leave me now, whatever happens—women are like that.... So perhaps, in the altered circumstances, it would be rather needlessly cruel to supply her with hotel evidence from Buda-Pesth."
I said eagerly that I was very glad, and hoped that he and Helen would learn to be very happy again, and so on. He soon interrupted me. He said: "You know, Hilton, you're too damned sentimental, that's what's the matter with you. You've still got the idea that I'm a very moral fellow at heart, and that all my talk is just a sort of cynical pose to cover up the gold underneath.... The fact is, you're born, in my opinion, to be a successful novel-writer. You've just got the right mixture of brains, sentiment, and conventionality."
We laughed together, and then he asked me to tell him all the news about Terry. I did so, and at the end of the recital he said: "He's an extraordinary puzzle. What possessed him to work himself to death in Vienna? What possessed him to preach at me like an infuriated missionary? What possesses him to do anything?"
"Somethingpossesses him," I admitted.
"You reckon you understand him?"
"A little, perhaps."
"Then perhaps you'll be able to understand this letter. It reached me yesterday."
He took it from his pocket and handed it to me. It was on Valley Hotel notepaper and ran thus:
"DEAR SEVERN,—Thanks for your letter telling me the bad news. I'm no good at writing, but you'll know what I mean when I just say I'm sorry. If there were anything I could do, I'd do it, but there isn't anything. You've been right and I've been wrong in our ways of looking at things, and I can see that now, though I couldn't years ago when we argued about progress. Please don't ask me to come to the End House yet—I don't feel Icouldcome. All you have done for me—and especially the chance you've given me of being here—makes me feel ashamed and a prig. Sincerely yours,"TERRY."
"DEAR SEVERN,—Thanks for your letter telling me the bad news. I'm no good at writing, but you'll know what I mean when I just say I'm sorry. If there were anything I could do, I'd do it, but there isn't anything. You've been right and I've been wrong in our ways of looking at things, and I can see that now, though I couldn't years ago when we argued about progress. Please don't ask me to come to the End House yet—I don't feel Icouldcome. All you have done for me—and especially the chance you've given me of being here—makes me feel ashamed and a prig. Sincerely yours,
"TERRY."
Severn was smiling when I had finished reading. "Can you give me some or any idea what it's all about?" he asked, with a whimsical lift of his eyebrows.
I read it through once again very carefully before I replied. Somehow Ifeltthe meaning of it right enough, but to explain it to Severn was another matter. Nor was I at all sure that I would explain it, even if I could. I said at last: "I think it shows the state of his mind more than anything else."
"Do you mean that he's off his head?"
"Oh, no—not that, by any means."
"Then what?"
"I don't know that I can tell you exactly.... It seems to me that he's in a sort of slough of despond—he's overworked and over-worried himself into a state of acute mental and spiritual depression—do you know what I mean? I can imagine he's on the verge of anything—he might suddenly take to drink, or religion, or fall headlong into some love affair, or even kill himself.... Or, of course, he might—and probably will—just do nothing at all."
Severn laughed. "Your explanation is even more bewildering than Terry himself."
"I daresay it is. It's hard to put into a sentence something that could only be properly explained by giving you the whole history of the man's life."
"All right. Give it to me. I've heaps of time to listen."
"I'm afraid it would take too long.... Oughtn't we to be joining the ladies?"
"Oh, never mind the ladies. For the moment they aren't half as interesting as Terry.... You said just now that the true explanation of him is in his life-history?"
"I certainly think it is, but I didn't say I could give it you off-hand. As a matter of fact, a good deal of it's so complicated that I don't think Icouldtell it—though I might manage to put it down on paper."
He was silent for a moment, and then the idea came to him. "My dear fellow," he exclaimed suddenly, brandishing his cigar, "the solution's staring us in the face and we haven't seen it! ... Man, it's a great notion! ...Putit down on paper, as you say—put down every word of it! Then spin it out, or cut it down, as the case may be, into a full-length novel! ... I told you years ago that you'd have to write a novel some time or other—it's expected of every literary man. Now's your big chance—a novel about Terry, giving a rational and coherent account of all his virtues, vices, and vagaries!"
I laughed, and said that the trouble would begin when other people's virtues, vices and vagaries invaded the story, as they certainly would. He answered: "That doesn't matter a bit. Change all our names and nobody will be the wiser."
"Except ourselves."
"What do you mean?"
I said, rather carefully: "Well, there are certain things that you and I know, and that Helen doesn't know, aren't there?"
"I suppose there are."
"There are also—maybe—things that Helen and I know, and that you don't know."
"Really?" His eyes suddenly sparkled. "But, my dear chap, what a splendid reason for writing the novel! Pour all these strange and exclusive secrets into the melting-pot—let's all of us know the plain unadulterated (and, if possible, unadulterous) truth about one another, and damned be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough'!"
Argumentatively it sounded all right; in practice, as I could see, it bristled with dangers and objections. And yet the idea of setting down the truth about Terry began to be just slightly fascinating, and all the rest of the evening it was vaguely on my mind. So also must it have been on Severn's, for the last thing he said when I bade him good-night was: "As soon as you get home, take a pen and a clean sheet of paper and write 'Chapter One' at the top left-hand corner.... I'm serious, mind; in fact, I shall ring you up in the morning and ask if you've done it...."
VII
Of course I didn't do it. And when, as he had promised, he rang me up the next morning, I told him that even if I did tackle the novel (which was by no means decided), it was unlikely that I should begin for some time. It was a big undertaking, I said, and would need a good deal of planning and thinking over before even a word was written.
And yet I wrote the first sentence that very evening. It was Saturday, and I had motor-cycled over to the Valley Hotel. Terry was out when I arrived, so I sat in Taplow's garden waiting for him. And there and then, since there was nothing else to do, I thought I would make a few rough preliminary notes, and I wrote, on a sheet of hotel writing-paper the words: "First met him outside the Tube Station at Hampstead." After that I felt I wanted to go on in straightforward narrative form, so I stuck an "I" in front and continued. And so, on that sudden impulse, it began.
On an equally sudden impulse I decided I wouldn't tell anyone about it—not even Severn. Secrecy seemed the only way to escape a constant battery of worrying and perhaps embarrassing questions; it would also give me freedom to throw up the business if at any moment I chose to. A secret, therefore, it had to be, and when Severn asked me about it, I lied to him quite emphatically. I told him (and his hero Machiavelli, at any rate, would have condoned the falsehood) that I was really so busy that for the present I couldn't possibly undertake any additional work. He laughed and protested and told me I was missing a grand opportunity. And I laughed and said I didn't think so, and all the time went on (in secret) adding to the pile of manuscript in my bureau drawer.
But I had to lie to Helen as well. It was at the End House one evening, when I arrived and found her playing the piano alone in the drawing-room. That, in itself, surprised me, for since our talk in mid-Channel she had carefully avoided any sort of tête-à-tête. But she began, more surprisingly still: "Is it true that you are going to write a novel about Terry?"
I shook my head and asked her (rather weakly, no doubt) who had been spreading false rumours. She answered: "It isn't a rumour. Geoffrey says he's been persuading you to do it, and I know how clever he is at persuasion."
"But not clever enough to persuade an innocent journalist into attempting what is utterly beyond him."
She struck a harsh random chord with her left hand. "I'm glad you think that. Itisutterly beyond you." Then suddenly, swinging round on the stool to face me, she asked me how he was and whether he were getting on well.
I said that physically he was recuperating splendidly though, owing to the slowness of his mental recovery, it would be a long while before he could resume work.
"And then he'll go back again to Vienna?"
"I don't know. He hasn't any definite plans."
"Do you think he wants—he would like—to be invited here?"
"I'm rather afraid he doesn't want to go anywhere."
"Or to see anybody?"
"Not at present."
I suppose my answers gave her an impression of hostility, for she said, bitterly smiling: "You don't particularly want him to see me, do you?"
"I'm not very keen, I admit."
"Why not?"
"Need you ask?"
She laughed and retorted: "Don't be afraid.... I haven't the slightest desire to see him. There are some things I can't forgive."
"Neither can he."
"What do you mean? What are the things he can't forgive?"
"The things he has done himself."
"Such as?"
"I don't think I can tell you. As you said just now, I don't know enough about him."
"Is he sorry he ever met me?"
"Maybe," I said hastily, as the entrance of Severn in his wheeled chair put an abrupt end to our conversation. Heaven knows where and how it would have ended but for that.
I didn't understand her. Perhaps I never have understood her; perhaps, if and when this manuscript is finished, she will seem a kind of incomprehensible mystery, without clue or key.... All I can set down are the things that happened, and these, it may be, are not always very significant.... One of them, fortunately, is beyond controversy—the change that took place in her way of life from the moment that she brought her husband to England. It was extraordinary; she became all at once the model wife, avoiding all social engagements and spending most of her time dutifully at home. Severn, if he had been less abnormal in temperament, might have been gratified by the change; as it was, he did his best to persuade her to enjoy herself as usual. But she wouldn't; she would stay and look after him whether he liked it or not. He on his side accepted the novel situation in a spirit of slightly sardonic good-humour. "Women are sadists," he told me once. "They love men most when their bodies are broken and helpless...." And when I suggested that there might be some other motive besides sadism, he retorted laughingly: "Oh, yes, theremaybe. But I wouldn't takeyourword for it—you're such a thoroughgoing sentimentalist...."
Sentimentalist or not, I found some of those evenings at the End House almost more poignant than I could bear. They were poignant, if you know what I mean, because Severn wouldn't let them be sad. Never had he been more cheerful; never had his wit shone more brightly; never perhaps in my life had he made me laugh so much. He made Helen laugh, and June too—we all laughed. And then suddenly, there would come a second's silence, and we would glimpse him, as it were, behind and beyond the laughter—a spirit tragically brave, chained to that wheeled chair for life.
Once he gave me a long medical lecture on the injury to his spine. It was, he said, in the opinion of every leading authority save one, entirely and absolutely incurable. The exception was a young and adventurous Chicago surgeon named Hermann. "Unfortunately, Hermann's gone with an expedition to the head waters of the Amazon, and won't be available till next year at the earliest...."
VIII
And Terry, meanwhile, lived through the summer and autumn at the Valley Hotel. Every Saturday (with few exceptions) I went down to see him and every Monday I came away; and yet, even after so many visits, the picture of him will be rather blurred. Physically he was all that he had ever been, and more; the weeks of sunshine and fine air had left a splendid mark upon him. But in other ways he seemed hardly to have begun to recover at all; indeed, it was as if the full extent of the trouble were only just being revealed. He was intensely quiet and melancholy; nothing interested him or stirred him to any expressed emotion; he had the look of one who has lost his way and doesn't particularly care whether he finds it again. All his habits were listless and slack; his not-caring invaded even the most trivial things. It was not-caring, also, that had made him take to drinking; and, since his drinks were obtained from Taplow, he very obviously didn't care how much he was costing Severn. I don't think he ever troubled to realize that a record was kept of everything he had and a bill made out in the usual way. My own habit, when accepting Severn's hospitality at the hotel, was to pay for the drinks I had, and I rather wondered why Terry didn't do the same. Then I found out one reason, at any rate.
It was a Monday morning and I was preparing to leave on my motor-cycle for town. Terry walked with me as I wheeled the machine into the lane, and then, quite suddenly, he asked me to lend him half-a-crown. It was a simple, almost a half-hearted request; there was certainly no trace of either shame or truculence in it. When I had mastered my surprise I made him take a pound, and then, leaving my machine where it was, I led him away from the hotel and asked him to tell me frankly about his financial position. He confessed (as if it didn't trouble him much) that he hadn't any money at all, and after much questioning I gathered that the journey to England and the hotel expenses in Paris (of which he had insisted on paying his own share) had swallowed every penny he possessed. Then I asked him what his salary had been in Vienna, and he named a sum which a skilled artisan would have scorned.
Even my indignation didn't stir him. But after further cross-examination I found out something of more immediate importance—that Karelsky hadn't paid him for that last and unfinished quarter. "I suppose he forgot to send it on," Terry said listlessly, and was obviously prepared to let the matter drop. But I wasn't. I said I would write to Vienna as soon as I reached town, and that until Karelsky's cheque arrived he could draw on me for whatever sums he wanted.
Karelsky didn't answer my letter. After ten days I wrote to Mizzi, asking her if she would interview him on Terry's behalf, and she replied almost by return as follows:
"DEAR MR. HILTON,—I went to see K. as you asked, but he was away, so I had to talk to his chief assistant, Herr Schubert. He said there was no money at all owing to T., because he left without giving notice. I explained that he was ill, and then S. showed me an agreement signed by T. seven years ago, when he first came here. I am afraid that this agreement, though very unjust, is quite legal, and will give T. no chance at all of getting any money. S. said that T. had caused great inconvenience by leaving so suddenly, and that K. will never have him again. If you like, I will see K. personally as soon as he returns, but I do not think it will be much good."S. sent me some of T's books and papers that were left at the laboratory, and these are now with the rest of T's things in his room here. Shall I have them all packed up and send them to you or to T. himself? Please do not think I mind keeping his room for him; it is just that I think, if he cannot return here, he may soon want his books again in England."I should like to know about T., and also about Mr. Severn. Things are just the same here, and I am quite well and remain—Deine treue, mit den herzlichsten Grüszen,"MIZZI."
"DEAR MR. HILTON,—I went to see K. as you asked, but he was away, so I had to talk to his chief assistant, Herr Schubert. He said there was no money at all owing to T., because he left without giving notice. I explained that he was ill, and then S. showed me an agreement signed by T. seven years ago, when he first came here. I am afraid that this agreement, though very unjust, is quite legal, and will give T. no chance at all of getting any money. S. said that T. had caused great inconvenience by leaving so suddenly, and that K. will never have him again. If you like, I will see K. personally as soon as he returns, but I do not think it will be much good.
"S. sent me some of T's books and papers that were left at the laboratory, and these are now with the rest of T's things in his room here. Shall I have them all packed up and send them to you or to T. himself? Please do not think I mind keeping his room for him; it is just that I think, if he cannot return here, he may soon want his books again in England.
"I should like to know about T., and also about Mr. Severn. Things are just the same here, and I am quite well and remain—Deine treue, mit den herzlichsten Grüszen,
"MIZZI."
That letter reached me on a Saturday morning, and I read it a second time by the roadside near Ripley, on my way to Hindhead. I remember smoking a cigarette and deciding that for the present, at any rate, I wouldn't tell Terry the disappointing news. I decided also that I would give him the quarter's money in cash, and let him think that Karelsky had sent it.... The plan would have been easily carried out but for a single act of carelessness; in changing my clothes when I arrived at the hotel, I chanced to drop the second sheet of Mizzi's letter on the floor of the room which Terry and I were sharing. He picked it up when he entered some time later, and, I suppose, he recognized the handwriting; anyhow, he read it and understood it quite sufficiently to learn all that I hadn't intended him to learn. He met me afterwards in the bar-parlour with a quiet, almost a bored—"So Karelsky's given me the push?" I stared at him in astonishment, and then he added: "You left part of Mizzi's letter on the floor. I didn't know it was yours till after I'd read it.... Anyhow, it doesn't really matter, does it? Have a drink?"
He didn't care! I don't know whether I was more glad than sorry that he didn't, or more sorry than glad. I was glad, at any rate, because I didn't want him to begin worrying about the future, and I was sorry because his not caring seemed such a tragic thing in itself. Not to care that he had lost his position, that he had been virtually swindled out of the money he had earned, and that for seven whole years he had been giving out his best and deepest in the service of an unprincipled rogue! Naturally I didn't lay stress on the matter, nor did I give my opinion of Karelsky. But I couldn't help protesting when he said, as if he were calmly thinking it out: "I suppose Karelsky found I wasn't any use. After all, I'd been seven years on the job and hadn't much to show for it."
I said sharply: "You know perfectly well that youhadsomething to show for it. You told me yourself that you'd nearly finished something important."
"Oh, never mind about it now," he replied, almost peevishly. "Take me on the back of your bike into Guildford and let's have a canoe out on the river."
We went, and the odd thing was that for the rest of the day he was actually more cheerful than I had known him since the beginning of his illness. The weather was perfect, and we splashed about in the Wey for an hour or two, had tea, and then returned along the Hog's Back and through Farnham.
"When you write back to Mizzi," he shouted into my ear as we were doing forty against a strong wind, "tell her to send on all my books and papers to the hotel, will you? ... Then on Guy Fawkes' Night we'll take them into Taplow's garden and make a damned great bonfire with the lot...."
He laughed loudly, and I think I have never heard so eerie a sound as his laughter then, borne far away from me by the wind and the speed....
I
IWAS out of town a good deal during that early autumn, and I saw very little of anyone. That Severn was getting more resigned to his unhappy condition I gathered from the brilliantly vivacious and epigrammatic letters he sent me from time to time. He was hard at work on the Disraeli book, which he hoped to finish soon after Christmas. "It will be something rather new in biographies," he wrote. "I shall show, if I can, that all genius has in it a touch of the flamboyant, the charlatan, if you like; and that the contrasting scrupulousness of, say, a man like Gladstone, is merely the absence of genius. No genius, for instance, can be entirely honest, or entirely truthful, or entirely faithful in marriage, or entirely anything—entireties being the stock-in-trade of the second-rate. That is why it is so astonishing to find a genius in politics, where, as everybody knows, mud is thicker than water, and a good deal easier to sling...."
Some of the letters are well worth publishing, and perhaps, some day, this may happen. The thing I remember best in them is a phrase about Terry. "He hasn't," Severn wrote, "quite got the knack of living in an imperfect world." That, I think, was the best summing-up I ever heard.
All this time Terry was still living at Hindhead, doing nothing and caring for nothing. And yet, looking back on it now, I have an idea that the sight of all his old books and papers stirred him to some sort of emotion, even though he showed none. They arrived from Vienna one roaring October afternoon of high wind and creaking trees—a Saturday, and the second unforgettable day of that autumn. I had motor-cycled from town in the morning, barely fighting through in the teeth of the gale, and after lunch Terry climbed with me to the lip of the Punch-Bowl. The wind there was terrific; the whole landscape of hill and valley seemed foundering like a ship in a wild storm. After a few shivering moments we walked briskly back to the hotel, and there, waiting for us, was Mizzi's parcel. I unpacked it for him in his room, while he sat on the bed, smoking and watching me with a curious detached interest. He made no comment except, when I had finished, an almost embarrassed: "It's awfully good of you to do all this.... The things aren't much use, but I suppose they may as well stay here as anywhere else."
We had tea, and afterwards I wrote a few letters while Terry went out, as he said, for another blow on the hill. It must have been about six o'clock when I finished writing, for I remember hurrying out into the lane to catch the last post of the day. I had walked a few hundred yards with eyes almost closed by the piercing wind, when I heard the sharp hoot of an approaching car; I should have been run down if the driver hadn't swerved smartly to avoid me. The car just grazed a gatepost and then stopped; I stopped also, composing in my mind the most handsome and abject apologies. The first thing I noticed (rather to my relief) was that the driver was a young woman; and the next thing I noticed was that the young woman was June. She climbed out of the car and viewed critically the long scratch on the door-panelling. Then she turned to me. "I suppose you know that you've had a narrow escape?" she said, before recognizing me. She added, a second later: "Oh, it's you, is it? Well, you ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"I not only ought but am," I replied, and she said: "That's right.... I suppose you're staying at the hotel?"
"Yes."
"I'm just going there. There's something the matter with the car—apart from the scratch on the door, which is your fault—and Taplow's a bit of a car expert.... Where areyougoing?"
"Only to post a few letters."
"Up to the cross-roads? ... Jump in, and I'll drive you up; then afterwards we'll go back to the hotel together. I can turn the car at the next corner."
"Sure it won't be too much trouble?"
"I shouldn't offer, if it were. I've just come over from Petersfield—had quite an exciting drive. Falling tree missed me by inches near Liphook, and I nearly ran over another man just before I met you.... But there was some excuse for him—he was drunk."
I got in the car and in a couple of minutes we were speeding up the hill at thirty miles an hour. We chatted desultorily during the short run, but all I remember is that when we were nearing the summit she suddenly cried out: "Ah, there he is—the man I nearly ran into.... Why doesn't somebody take him home, I wonder?" And she pointed ahead to a man who was staggering drunkenly along the middle of the road towards us.
I shouted: "Good God, it's Terry!"—and nearly, in my astonishment, jumped out of the car. She braked sharply to a standstill, and nothing, I think, was ever so typical of her as the calm way in which she did everything and said everything then. "Terry?" she echoed, and then added: "Oh, yes, I know about him. We'd better tell him to get in, hadn't we?"
She left the car and came with me, and in the end it was she herself who made the arrangements. She didn't wait for me to introduce her; as soon as we were barely within speaking distance she said: "You're Terry, aren't you? I remember you years ago—you used to do chemistry experiments in our kitchen at Hampstead.... But I don't suppose you know who I am."
He wasn't too drunk to answer; the drink had, in fact, rid him of his usual shyness at meeting a stranger. "I know who you are," he said, with a sort of truculent facetiousness. "You're the young lady who nearly ran me down just now, aren't you?"
"Serve you right," she retorted brusquely, "if youwillget drunk and go rolling along the roads.... Get in the car now, and I'll take you where you belong. Otherwise somebody else'll drive along and knock you down."
He obeyed without another word, and I sat with him in the rear seat while June drove us up to the post-box and then back to the hotel. She was the embodied spirit of calmness; it struck me then that she had all her father's coolness without any of his cynicism. And, incidentally, she was the only woman-driver of a car who ever made me feel perfectly safe in her charge.
At the hotel she paid little attention to Terry and me, but sought eagerly for Taplow; and the chief impression I have is of the two of them stooping to examine the car's interior mechanism and exchanging technicalities. The trouble, whatever it was, did not take long to rectify, for at seven o'clock I heard her asking Mrs. Taplow to make her some sandwiches for the journey. She wanted to be in Hampstead by nine, she said, and would have no time for dinner.
Before leaving she came hurriedly into the sitting-room where I was reading and Terry was dozing in a chair. "Good-bye," she said to me, taking off her furred gauntlet glove to shake hands. Then she went over to Terry and touched him sharply on the arm. "Wake up," she cried, "and thank me for saving your life!"
He opened his eyes and stared stupidly at her; I daresay he was as surprised as he had ever been. "Do you play tennis?" she asked, before he had time to speak.
He stammered that he didn't, and she said: "Well, you ought to—it's better than boozing, anyway ... Good-bye—I'm off now."
She waved her hand and hurried out, but even her hurry had in it some curious quality of calmness.
And that, grotesque as it may be, is a plain account of their first meeting since she was a child. Taplow told me afterwards that Terry had had no more drink than on many previous occasions—certainly not enough to make an ordinary man stagger along a road. But perhaps he had been—just then, at any rate—an extraordinary man. Perhaps, as I suggested awhile back, the receipt of Mizzi's packagehadstirred him, and at a time when any sort of emotion was rather more than he could bear.
He made very little comment when June had gone. In no way did her visit seem to affect him; he just lived on as usual, letting the days slip idly by, with no care for what he did with them or for what they did with him. Anything, almost, would have been a welcome change from the monotony of his indifference; I would rather have had him swear vengeance on Karelsky, or even steep himself in despair because June had seen him drunk. But he had no energy for either; and all the while the bill for Severn to pay was piling up to quite a formidable sum.
Chiefly, of course, I was concerned for what Severn might think; the money itself was of small consequence. I should have tackled Terry pretty frankly, had he not been overwhelmed by a belated realization of the facts. News of that reached me from June, whom I chanced to meet one frosty morning in Piccadilly. She said instantly: "Come for a walk—I want to tell you something." We strolled into Green Park, and she told me that she had just met Terry.
"In Charing Cross Road," she said. "He was trying to sell some books, and I watched him go in and out of half-a-dozen shops without any luck. Then I went up and spoke to him. At first he wouldn't tell me what he was doing, but I asked him to tea and wriggled it out of him."
"Well?"
"It was a good job Ididask him to tea. Otherwise he'd have gone without—for he hadn't a penny on him—nothing but the return ticket to Haslemere.... He'd thought he'd get quite a pile of money for the books, but the dealers wouldn't even make an offer—no market for scientific treatises in German, they said.... He couldn't understand it."
"But why did he want to sell the books at all?"
"That's what I asked him.... It seems he saw the bill that Taplow was making up for father to pay. He hadn't had any idea he was costing so much. He said he felt it couldn't go on any longer—that he must find work of some sort and put an end to it."
"But surely he would need his books for his work?"
"No.... He wasn't thinking ofthatkind of work. He was prepared for anything—to take a job in the colonies—to go to sea—anything...."
"That would be no use."
"I know. I told him he had far better stay at the hotel till he was well enough to carry on with his research work."
"And what did he say to that?"
"Nothing. You can't get him even tothinkof his work—not yet.... But I made a beginning. I said I would go down to Hindhead next Sunday and teach him tennis...."
II
There was a hard court within a quarter of a mile of the hotel, and on this she gave him his first lesson. I was away that week-end, and when I returned to town there was a short note from her awaiting me on my desk. Nothing sensational. Just to say that she had tried him, and that he would probably make a decent player after practice.
And he did practise. I don't know quite why. I don't think it was because he was at all keen to become a decent player. I don't think it was even to pleaseher. Maybe he found that the hard use of his body helped to calm his mind, or perhaps it was just that he had nothing else to do.... Anyhow, he practised, and when he couldn't find a partner, he 'served' over the net by himself. As always, he went terrifically to extremes; the hours he spent on that tennis-court must have made many people wonder what had happened to him. Whenever I paid him visits, it was to the court he led me straightway; it was as if he had no thought for anything else. On those scowling December afternoons we played for hours, with hardly a word between us; he always beat me, for I am excessively bad at all games. When one set was over, we began another; and so on, until dusk made play impossible. It was martyrdom of a sort for me, but what was it for him? That's what I find so hard to decide.
June, however, seemed satisfied with the progress he was making. She spoke of it so much from the point of view of the athletic coach that I told her candidly on one occasion that it wasn't his body that needed help, but his mind. "If your tennis means nothing to him but just tennis," I said, "then it's not much better than getting drunk, or taking long walks over the hills, or other things he used to do. What he wants is a new mental eagerness—something that will send him back to his work."
That was during a motor run from Hindhead at the beginning of the following March. June, furred and gauntletted, and driving very prettily as usual, shrugged her shoulders and smiled. "I'm afraid I'm not such a subtle analyst as you are," she said. "I can't help being glad that he's improving his game."
"Oh, of course." And I disclaimed all intention to sneer at tennis in any way. "All I mean," I said, "is that when you tell me his volleys are getting faster, it doesn't make me want to caper about and cheer enthusiastically."
"No?" A little laugh and several miles of silence. And then, as we were nearing Ripley: "By the way, whatwouldmake you want to caper about and cheer enthusiastically?"
I said it would have to be some news that showed a complete change in Terry'smentalattitude.
"Such as a return to work—even in a small way?"
"Well, yes. That would be the best sign, no doubt."
We travelled on a few more miles, and it was in the main street of Cobham that she remarked: "Suppose I told you that hehadalready begun to work again?"
"I should be delighted, of course, if it were true."
"It is true."
"Youmeanthat? You mean that he's actually gone back to his books—his old research work——"
"He'sbeginningto go."
"How—beginning?"
"I'll tell you in a minute."
She drove on till we were out of the village, and then, on the straight stretch of road between Cobham and Esher, she gave me details. "We were playing some hard games yesterday," she said, "and for the first time he beat me—and I'm pretty good, you know." (It was like her to say that, so calmly and confidently.) "I told him that if he went on improving he'd have to enter for some tournaments when the season began, and he said he'd most likely be at the other side of the world before then. We argued about it, and I found out he'd been answering all sorts of advertisements for jobs. Nobody, of course, would have him—without experience, references, or anything.... So after a while I just said—'Look here, Terry, why don't you carry on for the time being with your old scientific work? It's the best job you can do, and probably also it's the only job you'll get....' Better to be frank with him, I thought. He said he'd think about it, but I didn't want him to think about it—I wanted him to begin right away. So when we got back to the hotel I went up to his room (what on earth Taplow thought I don't know), and we began sorting out all his old notebooks and papers. There's at least a fortnight's job in that."
"And you really think that he intends to get on with it himself?"
"We're both of us going to get on with it. It looks to me as if he's done quite a lot of work in Vienna, only it wants getting together, classifying, typing out, and so on."
"Andyou'regoing to do it?"
"No,no.... We're both going to do it, I tell you. I shan't do more thanmyfair share, anyway. He'll have to dictate while I do the typing. Taplow's lent us a downstairs room, so that we shan't shock the proprieties."
And there it was, so calmly settled by this girl with the blue eyes and the reddish hair and the brown, freckled face. She did everything so simply and directly; she was an angel rushing in where fools feared to tread. I hoped, without really believing, that she would succeed.
III
I wish I had seen them at work together. Circumstances prevented me, and it is only from Taplow that I know anything of what happened. He told me that June used to come two or three times a week and stay for the whole day, alternating the typing with fierce bouts of tennis.
Wasshe succeeding? There came an evening in early April when she banged at my door and demanded an interview. "I want to talk to you about lots of things," she said, settling herself in my bachelor-armchair and accepting a cigarette. The first thing, apparently, was Karelsky's approaching visit to England. Had I heard about it?
I hadn't.
"He's due to arrive next week. There's going to be an international medical conference, or something of the sort, and he's one of the star turns.... Another is Hermann, the spinal fellow—you've heard of him, haven't you? Father's going to consult him, and if there's the least chance of a cure by operation, he says he'll take the risk."
She went on: "I suppose I'm getting to know my father for really the first time in my life. It's queer ... I keep on thinking—'What sort of a manareyou?'—and I can'tquitemake up my mind.... But I like him. He'sgame." She gave me a sharp upward glance and added: "Perhaps you think I'm heartless to be able to talk about him so calmly? Most people seem to imagine I ought to be coddling and making a great fuss over him ... Icouldn'tdo it—I'm not made that way. And neither is he."
That was as much as I ever heard her say about him. I don't think she would have said even that but for an unwillingness to drive too abruptly to the main object of her visit, which was to ask me questions about Terry. And the first question, when at last she came to it, was: "What's happened in his past life to make him like—likethis?"
"Like what?"
She paused for a short while and then said: "It's as if he's had one blow after another until he doesn't care any more about anything—that's my impression. He does what I ask him to do, but still he doesn't care."
"And you want him to care?"
"Of course I do. And you can help me—you've known him for years. Tell me what's happened to him. What's been the real cause of his breakdown?"
I gave her as carefully as I could a summary of all that I could possibly tell her. I stressed the hard work that he had been doing, and Karelsky's shabby treatment of him, and the shock of hearing about her father's accident. And when I had got to the end, she said quietly: "Is that all?"
"I think it is."
"Won't you tell me the rest?"
"The rest? I don't know that there is any rest."
"All the same, I have an idea there is." She stared at me unflinchingly, and then added: "Never mind—if you won't tell me, then you won't. Let's talk of something else."
And we did.
IV
Throughout all the early months of that year I was almost heading for a breakdown myself. I certainly hope that I shall never have to work so hard again. In a sort of way it was Severn's fault, though he meant well enough, just as he had meant well enough in getting Terry fixed up with Karelsky. But Severn was like that; he'd help you so carelessly that unless you used remarkably shrewd judgment of your own the help might turn out to be a hindrance. On this occasion he got for me the editorship of a rather decadent weekly that had already killed or bankrupted my predecessors and would have done the same to me if I hadn't thrown up the sponge after three months' hard labour. The wretched thing gave me no proper time for meals and sleep, let alone for Hindhead week-ends and the novel about Terry. From Christmas till Easter I don't think I added a word.
There was, perhaps, another reason for this besides pressure of business. Terry's continued slackness and inertia disappointed me, and (I may as well confess it) I began to wonder if he were altogether the man I had taken him for. Anyhow, if he were going to stay on indefinitely at the Valley Hotel, I didn't see how I could write a readable novel about him, unless I chose to end it fictitiously. I remember, during the few spare moments I had during those days, making drafts of such possible endings; one of them was that Severn should die under an operation, and that Terry and Helen, after suitable novelistic adventures, should marry and end the book happily. Another dragged Mizzi back into the story, and I think this was the one I should have favoured, chiefly because the character of Mizzi always appealed to me But I hadn't time for any of them, which was perhaps just as well.
Karelsky landed, I recollect, in mid-April, and from his first moment on English soil was never without a posse of newspaper-men at his heels. I had several chances of meeting him professionally, but avoided them all; it wasn't possible, unfortunately, to avoid the constant references to him on placards, in the press, and from platform and pulpit. For over a week he had Fleet Street positively begging him for copy, and all he gave in return for fabulous cheques was a vast quantity of worthless self-advertisement. I found myself loathing the man and his methods so intensely that I even tried to persuade my proprietors to let me run a campaign against him in my paper; fortunately for me, in view of what happened subsequently, they refused.
On the opening day of the Conference the furore of newspaper adulation rose to an impassioned shriek. In my little office in Gough Square I took as small notice of it as I could; I wanted to forget, if possible, that Karelsky existed. But when I went out for my usual cup of tea in the afternoon, the newsboys were rushing up Bouverie Street with placards announcing "Karelsky's Great Speech" and "Sensational Scene at Medical Conference." For the first time for many years I didn't buy any evening paper at all; I felt that to read of some new self-advertising stunt of his would be almost unendurable. I worked at my office until nearly eight, and then strolled quietly through Lincoln's Inn to my rooms. There was a strange peace in that walk; the old Inn buildings and the trees just budding into leaf were everything that Karelsky was not.... I was calm by the time I climbed my own staircase and unlocked the door. Roebuck was out, and in the letter-box there was a telegram.
It had been handed in at Glasgow at six-thirty that evening, and ran: "Can you meet me four a.m. to-morrow Crewe Station urgent will look out for you June ..."
V
Of course I went. As I packed a small hand-bag I thought of that other telegram that had summoned me, less than a year before, to Vienna. Crewe, at any rate, was not so far, and there was a suitable express that left Euston at midnight. But I hadn't the faintest idea why June could want me, and why she had been to Glasgow, and why she was coming back to Crewe, and why, above all, she had thought the outrageous hour of four a.m. most convenient for the appointment.
Nor is Crewe Station an altogether delightful rendezvous before dawn on an April morning. My train dumped me down soon after three, and for over an hour I walked up and down enormous lengths of platform and watched mysterious shunting operations that seemed to provide the maximum of noise with the minimum of result. Then a train came in from the north, and out of it stepped June.
"I knew you'd come," she greeted me, smiling. But the odd thing was that she was nervous; I could deduce that from the way she talked. "It's so good of you," she went on, "although in the train I was wishing you wouldn't be here, and that I hadn't sent you that wire, and—oh well, youarehere, anyway, and it's no use arguing about it."
"The question is rather whyyouare here."
"Me? Oh, that's easily explained. I've been doing business for my father in Scotland, and to-day I've got to do some more for him in Liverpool. I thought Crewe would be a good meeting-place."
"Charming," I assured her, and then we both laughed and said no more till we were at a table in the refreshment-room. There her manner altered; she became more serious and less nervous; her cheeks, too, were slightly pale beneath their open-air tan. She declined food, saying that she would take an early train to Liverpool and breakfast there. And so, over cigarettes and cups of that dark and bitter liquid sold by railway companies as coffee, she told me why she had sent for me.