She never did. And it was just as well, thought Christopher, for
Catherine had, most astoundingly, taken it into her head to be jealous
of her. She wouldn’t admit she was, and professed immense admiration for
Miss Wickford’s beauty, but if the emotion she showed after that dinner
wasn’t jealousy he was blest if he knew what jealousy was.
It amazed him. She might have heard every word he said. Miss Wickford
was extremely pretty and quite clever, and why shouldn’t he like talking
to her? But he was very sorry to have made Catherine unhappy, and did
all he knew to make her forget it; only it was suffocating sort of work
in hot weather, and he felt as if he were tied up in something very
sweet and sticky, with no end to it. Rather like treacle. It was rather
like being swathed round with bands of treacle.
He came to the conclusion Catherine loved him too much. Yes, she did. If
she loved him more reasonably she would be much happier, and so would
he. It was bad for them both. The flat seemed thick with love. One
waded. He caught himself putting up his hand to unbutton his collar.
Perhaps the stuffy weather had something to do with it. July was getting
near its end, and there was no air at all in Hertford Street. London was
a rotten place in July. He always walked to his office and back so as
to get what exercise he could, and every Saturday they went down to his
uncle for golf; but what was that? He ached to be properly stretched, to
stride about, to hit things for days on end, and his talk became almost
exclusively of holidays, and where they should go in August when his
were due.
Lewes was going to Scotland to play golf. He had gone with Lewes last
year, and had had a glorious time. What exercise! What talk! What
freedom! He longed to go again, and asked Catherine whether she wouldn’t
like to; and she said, with that hiding look of hers--there was a
certain look, very frequent on her face, he called to himself her
<i>hiding</i> look--that it was too far from Virginia.
Virginia? Christopher was much surprised. What did she want with
Virginia? Short of actually being at Chickover, she wouldn’t see
Virginia anyhow, he said; and she, with her arms round his neck, said
that was true, but she didn’t want to be out of reach of her.
This unexpected reappearance of Virginia on the scene, this sudden
cropping up of her after a long spell of no mention of the girl, puzzled
and irritated him. They would, apparently, have gone to Scotland if it
hadn’t been for Virginia. Must he then too--of course he must, seeing
that he couldn’t and wouldn’t go away without Catherine--be kept hanging
round within reach of Virginia? She was the last object he wished to be
within reach of.
He was annoyed, and showed it. ‘Why this recrudescence,’ he asked, ‘of
maternal love?’
‘It isn’t a recrudescence--it’s always, Chris darling,’ she said,
looking rather shamefacedly at him, he thought--anyhow queerly. ‘You
don’t suppose one ever leaves off loving somebody one really loves?’
No, he didn’t suppose it. He was sure she wouldn’t. But he wasn’t going
into that now; he wasn’t going, at ten in the morning, to begin talking
about love.
‘It’s time I was off,’ he said, bending down and kissing her quickly.
‘I’m late as it is.’
He hurried out, though he wasn’t late. He knew he wasn’t late, only he
did want to get into what air there was,--into, anyhow, sunlight, out of
that darkened bedroom.
She too knew he wasn’t late, but she too wanted him for once to go,
because she had a secret appointment for half-past ten, and it was ten
already; a most important, a vital appointment, the bare thought of
which thrilled her with both fear and hope.
She didn’t know if anything would come of it, but she was going to try.
She had written to the great man and told him her age and asked if he
thought he could do anything for her, and he had sent a card back
briefly indicating 10.30 on this day. Nothing more: just 10.30. How
discreet. How exciting.
She had read about him in the papers. He was a Spanish doctor, come over
to London for a few weeks, and he undertook to restore youth.
Marvellous, blissful, if he really could! A slight operation, said the
papers, and there you were. The results were most satisfactory, they
affirmed, and in some cases miraculous. Suppose her case were to be one
of the miraculous ones? She hadn’t the least idea how she would be able
to have an operation without Christopher knowing, but all that could be
thought out afterwards. The first thing to do was to see the doctor and
hear what he had to say. Who wouldn’t do anything, take any pains, have
any operation, to be helped back to youth? She, certainly, would shrink
from nothing. And it sounded so genuine, so scientific, what the doctor,
according to the papers, did.
The minute Christopher had gone she hurried into her clothes, refused
breakfast, hadn’t time to do her face--better she shouldn’t that day,
better she should be seen exactly as she really was--and twenty minutes
after he left she was in a taxi on the way to the great man’s temporary
consulting rooms in Portland Place.
With what a beating heart she rang the bell. Such hopes, such fears,
such determination, such shrinking, all mixed up together, as well as
being ashamed, made her hardly able to speak when the nurse--she looked
like a nurse--opened the door. And suppose somebody should hear her when
she said who she was? And suppose somebody she knew should see her going
in? If ever there was a discreet and private occasion it was this one;
so that the moment the door was opened she was in such a hurry to get in
out of sight of the street that she almost tumbled into the arms of the
nurse.
It gave her an unpleasant shock to find herself put into a room with
several other people. She hadn’t thought she would have to face other
seekers after youth. There ought to have been cubicles--places with
screens. It didn’t seem decent to expose the seekers to one another like
that; and she shrank down into a chair with her back to the light, and
buried her head in a newspaper.
The others were all burying their heads too in newspapers, but they saw
each other nevertheless. All men, she noticed, and all so old that
surely they must be past any hopes and wishes? What could they want with
youth? It was a sad sight, thought Catherine, peeping round her
newspaper, and she felt shocked. When presently two women came in, and
after a furtive glance round dropped as she had done into chairs with
their backs to the light, she considered them sad sights too and felt
shocked; while for their part they were thinking just the same of her,
and all the men behind their newspapers were saying to themselves, ‘What
fools women are.’
The nurse--she looked exactly like a nurse--came in after a long while
and beckoned to her, not calling out her name, for which she was
thankful, and she was shown into the consulting room, and found herself
confronted by two men instead of one, because Dr. Sanguesa, the
specialist, could only say three words in English--‘We will see’ were
his words--so that there was another man there, dark and foreign-looking
too, but voluble in English, to interpret.
He did the business part as well. ‘It will cost fifty pounds,’ he said
almost immediately.
In a whole year Catherine had only ten of these for everything, but if
the treatment had been going to cost all ten she would have agreed, and
lived somehow in an attic, on a crust--with Christopher and youth.
Indeed, she thought it very cheap. Surely fifty pounds was cheap for
youth?
‘Twenty-five pounds down,’ said the partner--she decided he was more a
partner than an interpreter--‘and twenty-five pounds in the middle of
the treatment.’
‘Certainly,’ she murmured.
Dr. Sanguesa was observing her while the partner talked. Every now and
then he said something in Spanish, and the other asked her a question.
The questions were intimate and embarrassing,--the kind it is more
comfortable to reply to to one person rather than two. However, she was
in for it; she mustn’t mind; she was determined not to mind anything.
In her turn she asked some questions, forcing herself to be courageous,
for she was frightened in spite of her determination and hopes. Would it
hurt, she asked timidly; would it take long; when would the results
begin?
‘We will see,’ said Dr. Sanguesa, who hadn’t understood a word, nodding
his head gravely.
It would not hurt, said the partner, because in the case of women it was
dangerous to operate, and the treatment was purely external; it would
take six weeks, with two treatments a week; she would begin to see a
marked difference in her appearance after the fourth treatment.
The fourth treatment? That would be in a fortnight. And no operation?
How wonderful. She caught her breath with excitement. In a fortnight she
would be beginning to look younger. After that, every day younger and
younger. No more Maria Rome, no more painful care over her dressing, no
more fear of getting tired because of how ghastly it made her look, but
the real thing, the real glorious thing itself.
‘Shall I <i>feel</i> young?’ she asked, eagerly now.
‘Of course. Everything goes together. You understand--a woman’s youth,
and accordingly her looks, depends entirely on----’
The partner launched into a rapid explanation which was only saved from
being excessively improper by its technical language. Dr. Sanguesa sat
silent, his elbows on the arms of his revolving chair, his finger-tips
together. He looked a remote, unfriended, melancholy man, rather like
the pictures she had seen of Napoleon III., with dark shadows under his
heavy eyes and a waxen skin. Every now and then his sad mouth opened,
and he said quite automatically, ‘We will see,’ and shut it again.
She wanted to begin at once. It appeared she must be examined first, to
find out if she could stand the treatment. This rather frightened her
again. Why? How? Was the treatment so severe? What was it?
‘We will see,’ said Dr. Sanguesa, nodding.
The partner became voluble, waving his hands about. Not at all--not at
all severe; a matter of X-rays merely; but sometimes, if a woman’s heart
was weak----
Catherine said she was sure her heart wasn’t weak.
‘We will see,’ said Dr. Sanguesa, mechanically nodding.
‘The examination is three guineas,’ said the partner.
‘Three more, or three of the same ones?’ asked Catherine, rather
stupidly.
‘We will s----’
The partner interrupted him this time with a quickly lifted hand. He
seemed to think Catherine’s question was below the level of both his and
her dignities and intelligences, for he looked as if he were a little
ashamed of her as he said stiffly, ‘Three more.’
She bowed her head. She would have bowed her head to anything, if these
men in exchange would give her youth.
The examination could be made at once, the partner said, if she was
ready.
Yes, she was quite ready.
She got up instantly. They were used to eagerness, especially in the
women patients, but this was a greater eagerness than usual. Dr.
Sanguesa’s sombre, sunken eyes observed her thoughtfully. He said
something in Spanish to his partner, who shook his head. Catherine had
the impression it was something he wished interpreted, and she looked
inquiringly at the partner, but he said nothing, and went to the door
and opened it for her.
She was taken upstairs into a sort of Rose du Barri boudoir, arranged
with a dressing-table and looking-glasses, and another nurse--at least,
she too looked like one--helped her to undress. Then she was wrapped in
a dressing-gown--she didn’t like this public dressing-gown against her
skin--and led into a room fitted up with many strange machines and an
operating table. What will not a woman do, she thought, eyeing these
objects with misgiving, and her heart well down somewhere near her feet,
for the man she loves?
Dr. Sanguesa came in, all covered up in white like an angel. The
partner, she was thankful to notice, didn’t appear. She was examined
with great care, the nurse smiling encouragingly. It was a relief to be
told by the nurse, who interpreted, that her heart was sound and her
lungs perfect, even though she had never supposed they weren’t. At the
end the nurse told her the doctor was satisfied she could stand the
treatment, and asked when she would like to begin.
Catherine said she would begin at once.
Impossible. The next day?
Oh yes, yes--the next day. And would she really--she was going to say
look nice again, but said instead feel less tired?
‘It’s wonderful how different people feel,’ the nurse assured her; and
Dr. Sanguesa nodded gravely, without having understood a word, and said,
‘We will see.’
‘He hasn’t tried it on himself, has he?’ remarked Catherine, when she
was in the Rose du Barri room again, dressing.
The nurse laughed. She was a jolly-looking young woman,--but perhaps she
was really an old woman, who had had the treatment.
‘Have <i>you</i> been done?’ asked Catherine.
The nurse laughed again. ‘I shall be if I see I’m getting old,’ she
said.
‘It really <i>is</i> wonderful?’ asked Catherine, whose hands as she fastened
her hooks were trembling with excitement.
‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ said the nurse earnestly. ‘I’ve seen men of
seventy looking and behaving not a day more than forty.’
‘That’s thirty years off,’ said Catherine. ‘And supposing they were
forty to begin with, would they have looked and behaved like ten?’
‘Ah well, that’s a little much to expect, isn’t it,’ said the nurse,
laughing again.
‘I’m forty-seven. I wouldn’t at all like to end by being seven.’
‘Your husband would pack you off to a kindergarten, wouldn’t he,’ said
the nurse, laughing more than ever.
Catherine laughed too. She was so full of hope that she already felt
younger. But when she put on her hat before the glass she saw she didn’t
anyhow look it.
‘Don’t I look <i>too</i> awful,’ she said, turning round frankly to the
friendly nurse, who, after all, was going to be the witness of her
triumphant progress backwards through the years.
‘We’ll soon get rid of all that,’ said the nurse gaily.
Catherine quite loved the nurse.