It was an exciting life during the next week,--so much to plan, so much
to arrange, and she herself buoyant with hope and delight. She couldn’t,
of course, leave London during her treatment, so to Christopher’s
astonishment she urged him to go to Scotland without her.
‘But Catherine----’
He couldn’t believe his own ears.
‘Go and have a good time, Chris darling.’
‘Without you?’
‘I must stay in London.’
‘In <i>London</i>?’
‘Yes. Virginia may want me.’
‘Now what in God’s name, Catherine, is all this about Virginia. The
other day----’
Then she told him, secure in the knowledge that she was so soon going to
be young again--she didn’t in the least mind being a grandmother if she
wasn’t going to look like one; on the contrary, to look like a girl and
yet be a grandmother struck her as to the last degree chic--that
Virginia was expecting a baby in September, and as babies sometimes
appeared before they ought she must be within reach.
Well, that was all right; he understood that. What he didn’t understand
was Catherine’s detachment. Why, she seemed not to mind his leaving her.
He couldn’t believe it. And when it became finally evident that such was
her real attitude and no pretence at all about it, he was deeply hurt.
Incredibly, she genuinely wanted him to go.
‘You love Virginia more than me,’ he said, his heart suddenly hot with
jealousy.
‘Oh Chris, don’t be silly,’ said Catherine impatiently.
She had never since their marriage told him not to be silly in that
sensible, matter-of-fact way. What had come over her? He, who had been
feeling he couldn’t breathe for all the love there was about, now found
himself gasping for want of it. The atmosphere had suddenly gone clear
and rarefied. Catherine seemed to be thinking of something that wasn’t
him, and once or twice forgot to kiss him. Forgot to kiss him! He was
deeply wounded. And she was so unaccountably cheerful too. She not only
seemed to be thinking of something else but seemed amused by it, hugging
whatever it was with delight. She was excited. What was she excited
about? Surely not because she was going to be a grandmother? Surely that
would make her brood more than ever on the difference in their ages?
‘She wants me to go to Scotland with you,’ he said, bursting in one day
on Lewes. ‘She wants me to go away without her. Doesn’t care a hang.
Four solid weeks. The whole of August.’
‘How sensible,’ said Lewes, not looking up from his work.
‘It’s that beastly baby.’
‘Baby?’ Lewes did look up.
‘Due in September.’
‘What? But surely----’
‘Oh, don’t be a fool. Virginia’s. She won’t leave London. Why she can’t
go somewhere round near Chickover, where I could go too and be with her
and get some golf as well--Lewes, old man, I believe she’s fed up with
me.’
And he stared at Lewes with hot eyes.
In his turn Lewes told him not to be a fool; but the mere thought of
Catherine, his Catherine, being fed up with him as he put it, sent him
rushing back to her to see if it could possibly be true.
She was so airy, so much detached.
‘Now Chris, don’t be absurd. Of course you must have a good holiday and
get out of London. It’s lucky that you have your friend to go with----’
That was the sort of thing.
‘But Catherine, how can you want me to? Don’t you love me any more?’
‘Of course I love you. Which is why I want you to go to Scotland.’
This was true. The treatment was being gone through for love of him, and
he must go to Scotland because of the treatment. She was to have as much
quiet as possible during it--‘No husbands,’ said Dr. Sanguesa--‘You’ve
got to be a grass widow for a little while,’ interpreted the nurse--‘You
must go to Scotland,’ still further interpreted Catherine.
But he couldn’t go at once. It was still only July. The first two
treatments took place while Christopher was still in London, and as it
was impossible without rousing his suspicions to keep him entirely at
arm’s length, she wasn’t surprised when the effect of them was to make
her feel more tired than ever.
‘It’s often like that to begin with,’ encouraged the nurse. ‘Especially
if you’re not having complete rest from worries at home.’
Did she mean husbands by worries, Catherine wondered? There certainly
wasn’t complete rest from that sort of worry, then, for Christopher, as
Catherine apparently cooled, became more and more as he used to be, and
possessed by the fear that he was somehow losing her rediscovered how
much he loved her.
He had, of course, always intensely loved her, but he had felt the need
of pauses. In her love there had been no pauses, and gradually the idea
of suffocation had got hold of him. Now, so suddenly, so unaccountably,
she seemed to be all pause. She tried to avoid him; she even suggested,
on the plea that the nights were hot, that he should sleep in the
dressing-room.
Whatever else he had tired of he hadn’t yet tired of the sweetness, the
curious comfort and reassurance, of going to sleep with his arms round
her. Since their marriage there had been no interruption in his wish to
cling at night; what he hadn’t wanted was to be clung to in the morning.
One felt so different in the morning; at least, he did. Catherine
didn’t; and it was this that had given him the impression of stifling in
treacle. Now she not only showed no wish at all to cling in the morning,
but she tried--he wouldn’t and couldn’t believe it, but had to--to
wriggle out of being clung to at night.
‘Catherine, what is it? What has come between us?’ he asked, his eyes
hurt and indignant,--when Catherine had asked this sort of question, as
she had on first noticing a different quality in his love-making, he had
been impatient and bored, and thought in his heart ‘How like all
women,’ but of course he didn’t remember this.
‘Oh Chris, why are you so silly?’ she answered, laughing and pushing him
away. ‘Don’t you feel how hot it is, and how much nicer not to be too
close together? Let us be sanitary.’
Sanitary? That was a pleasant way of putting it. She was going back to
what she used to be at first, when he had such difficulty in getting
hold of her at all,--going back into just being an intelligent little
stand-offish thing, independent, and determined to have nothing to do
with him. How he had worshipped her in those days of her
unattainableness. Her relapse now into what threatened to become
unattainableness all over again didn’t make him worship her, because
that had been the kind of worship that never returns, but it lit his
love up again, while at the same time filling him with a fury of
possessiveness. A thwarted possessiveness, however; she evaded him more
and more.
‘I can’t go to Scotland and leave you. Damn golf. I simply can’t,’ he
said at last.
And she, as cool as a little cucumber and as bright as a gay little
button--the comparisons were his--told him he simply had to, and that
when he came back he would find they were going to be happier than ever.
‘You’ll love me more than ever,’ she said laughing, for though the
treatment was extraordinarily exhausting her spirits those days were
bright with faith.
‘Rot. Nobody could love you more than I do now, so what’s the good of
talking like that? Catherine, what has happened to you? Tell me.’
And there he was, just as he used to be, on the floor at her feet, his
arms clasping her knees, his head on her lap.
All this made Catherine very happy. She began to see benefits in the
treatment other than the ones Dr. Sanguesa had guaranteed.