THE VICTORY
"Get back into bed," said G.J., having silently opened the window in
the sitting-room.
He spoke with courteous persuasion, but his peculiar intense
politeness and restraint somewhat dismayed Christine. By experience
she knew that they were a sure symptom of annoyance. She often, though
not on this occasion, wished that he would yield to anger and make a
scene; but he never did, and she would hate him for not doing so. The
fact was that under the agreement which ruled their relations, she had
no right to telephone to him, save in grave and instant emergency,
and even then it was her duty to say first, when she got the
communication: "Mr. Pringle wants to speak to Mr. Hoape." She had
omitted, in her disquiet, to fulfil this formality. Recognising his
voice, she had begun passionately, without preliminary: "Oh! Beloved,
thou canst not imagine what has happened to me--" etc. Still he had
come. He had cut her short, but he had left whatever he was doing
and had, amazingly, walked over at once. And in the meantime she had
hurriedly undressed and put on a new peignoir and slipped into bed. Of
course she had had to open the door herself.
She obeyed his command like an intelligent little mouse, and he sat
down on the edge of the bed. He might inspire foreboding, alarm, even
terror. But he was in the flat. He was the saviour, man, in the flat.
And his coming was in the nature of a miracle. He might have been out;
he might have been entertaining; he might have been engaged; he might
well have said that he could not come until the next day. Never before
had she made such a request, and he had acceded to it immediately!
Her mood was one of frightened triumph. He was being most damnably
himself; his demeanour was as faultless as his dress. She could not
even complain that he had forgotten to kiss her. He said nothing about
her transgression of the rule as to telephoning. He was waiting, with
his exasperating sense of justice and self-control, until she
had acquainted him with her case. Instead of referring coldly and
disapprovingly to the matter of the telephone, he said in a judicious,
amicable voice:
"I doubt whether your coiffeur is all that he ought to be. I see you
had your hair waved to-day."
"Yes, why?"
"You should tell the fellow to give you the new method of hair-waving,
steaming with electric heaters--or else go where you can get it."
"New method?" repeated Christine the Tory doubtfully. And then with
sudden sexual suspicion:
"Who told you about it?"
"Oh! I heard of it months ago," he said carelessly. "Besides, it's in
the papers, in the advertisements. It lasts longer--much longer--and
it's more artistic."
She felt sure that he had been discussing hair-waving with some woman.
She thought of all her grievances against him. The Lechford House
episode rankled in her mind. He had given her the details, but she
said to herself that he had given her the details only because he had
foreseen that she would hear about the case from others or read about
it in the newspapers. She had not been able to stomach that he should
be at Lechford House alone late at night with two women of the class
she hated and feared--and the very night of her dreadful experience
with him in the bomb-explosion! No explanations could make that
seem proper or fair. Naturally she had never disclosed her feelings.
Further, the frequenting of such a house as Lechford House was more
proof of his social importance, and incidentally of his riches. The
spectacle of his flat showed her long ago that previously she had
been underestimating his situation in the world. The revelations as
to Lechford House had seemed to show her that she was still
underestimating it. She resented his modesty. She was inclined
to attribute his modesty to a desire to pay her as little as he
reasonably could. However, she could not in sincerity do so. He
treated her handsomely, considering her pretensions, but considering
his position--he had no pretensions--not handsomely. She had had an
irrational idea that, having permitted her to see the splendour of
his flat, he ought to have increased her emoluments--that, indeed,
she should be paid not according to her original environment, but
according to his. She also resented that he had never again asked her
to his flat. Her behaviour on that sole visit had apparently decided
him not to invite her any more. She resented his perfectly hidden
resentment.
What disturbed her more than anything else was a notion in her mind,
possibly a wrong notion, that she cared for him less madly than of
old. She had always said to herself, and more than once sadly to him,
that his fancy for her would not and could not last; but that hers
for him should decline puzzled her and added to her grievances against
him. She looked at him from the little nest made by her head between
two pillows. Did she in truth care for him less madly than of old? She
wondered. She had only one gauge, the physical.
She began to talk despairingly about Marthe, whom, of course, she had
had to mention at the door. He said quietly:
"But it's not because of Marthe's caprices that I'm asked to come down
to-night, I suppose?"
She told him about the closing of the Promenade in a tone of absolute,
resigned certainty that admitted of no facile pooh-poohings or
reassurances. And then, glancing sidelong at the night-table, where
the lamp burned, she extended her half-bared arm and picked up the
landlord's notice and gave it to him to read. Watching him read it
she inwardly trembled, as though she had started on some perilous
enterprise the end of which might be black desperation, as though she
had cast off from the shore and was afloat amid the waves of a vast,
swollen river--waves that often hid the distant further bank. She felt
somehow that she was playing for all or nothing. And though she had
had immense experience of men, though it was her special business
to handle men, she felt herself to be unskilled and incompetent. The
common ruses, feints, devices, guiles, chicaneries were familiar to
her; she could employ them as well as any and better than most; they
succeeded marvellously and absurdly--in the common embarrassments and
emergencies, because they had not to stand the test of time. Their
purpose was temporary, and when the purpose had been accomplished
it did not matter whether they were unmasked or not, for the
adversary-victim--who, in any event, was better treated than he
deserved!--either had gone for ever, or would soon forget, or was too
proud to murmur, or philosophically accepted a certain amount of
wile as part of the price of ecstasy. But this embarrassment and this
emergency were not common. They were a supreme crisis.
"The other lady has had notice too," she said, and went on: "It's the
same everywhere in this quarter. I know not if it is the same in other
districts, but quite probably it is.... It is the end."
She saw by the lifting of his eyebrows that he was impressed, that
he secretly admitted the justifiability of her summons to him. And
instantly she took a reasonable, wise, calm tone.
"It is a little serious, is it not? I do not frighten myself, but it
is serious. Above all, I do not wish to trouble thee. I know all thy
anxieties, and I am a woman who understands. But except thee I have
not a friend, as I have often told thee. In my heart there is a place
only for one. I have a horror of all those women. They weary me. I am
not like them, as thou well knowest. Thus my existence is solitary. I
have no relations. Not one. See! Go into no matter what interior,
and there are photographs. But here--not one. Yes, one. My own. I am
forced to regard my own portrait. What would I not give to be able
to put on my chimney-piece thy portrait! But I cannot. Do not
deceive thyself. I am not complaining. I comprehend perfectly. It
is impossible that a woman like me should have thy photograph on her
chimney-piece." She smiled, smoothing for a moment the pucker out
of her brow. "And lately I see thee so little. Thou comest less
frequently. And when thou comest, well--one embraces--a little
music--and then _pouf_! Thou art gone. Is it not so?"
He said:
"But thou knowest the reason, I am terribly busy. I have all the
preoccupations in the world. My committee--it is not all smooth,
my committee. Everything and everybody depends on me. And in the
committee I have enemies too. The fact is, I have become a beast of
burden. I dream about it. And there are others in worse case. We shall
soon be in the third year of the war. We must not forget that."
"My little rabbit," she replied very calmly and reasonably and
caressingly. "Do not imagine to thyself that I blame thee. I do not
blame thee. I comprehend too well all that thou dost, all that thou
art worth. In every way thou art stronger than me. I am ten times
nothing. I know it. I have no grievance against thee. Thou hast always
given me what thou couldst, and I on my part have never demanded too
much. Say, have I been excessive? At this hour I make no claim on
thee. I have done all that to me was possible to make thee happy. In
my soul I have always been faithful to thee. I do not praise myself
for that. I did not choose it. These things are not chosen. They come
to pass--that is all. And it arrived that I was bound to go mad about
thee, and to remain so. What wouldst thou? Speak not of the war. Is
it not because of the war that I am in exile, and that I am ruined? I
have always worked honestly for my living. And there is not on earth
an officer who has encountered me who can say that I have not been
particularly nice to him--because he was an officer. Thou wilt excuse
me if I speak of such matters. I know I am wrong. It is contrary to
my habit. But what wouldst thou? I also have done what I could for the
war. But it is my ruin. Oh, my Gilbert! Tell me what I must do. I
ask nothing from thee but advice. It was for that that I dared to
telephone thee."
G.J. answered casually:
"I see nothing to worry about. It will be necessary to take another
flat. That is all."
"But I--I know nothing of London. One tells me that it is in future
impossible for women who live alone--like me--to find a flat--that is
to say, respectable."
"Absurd! I will find a flat. I know precisely where there is a flat."
"But will they let it to me?"
"They will let it to _me_, I suppose," said he, still casually.
A pause ensued.
She said, in a voice trembling:
"Thou art not going to say to me that thou wilt put me among my own
furniture?"
"The flat is furnished. But it is the same thing."
"Do not let such a hope shine before me--me who saw before me only the
pavement. Thou art not serious."
"I never was more serious. For whom dost thou take me, little-foolish
one?"
She cried:
"Oh, you English! You are _chic_. You make love as you go to war. Like
_that_!... One word--it is decided! And there is nothing more to say!
Ah! You English!"
She had almost screamed, shuddering under the shock of his decision,
for which she had impossibly hoped, but whose reality overwhelmed
her. He sat there in front of her, elegant, impeccably dressed,
distinguished, aristocratic, rich, in the full wisdom of his years,
and in the strength of his dominating will, and in the righteousness
of his heart. One could absolutely trust such as him to do the right
thing, and to do it generously, and to do it all the time. And she,
_she_ had won him. He had recognised her qualities. She had denied any
claim upon him, but by his decision he had admitted a claim--a claim
that no money could satisfy. After all, for eighteen months she had
been more to him than any other woman. He had talked freely to her.
He had concealed naught from her. He had spoken to her of his
discouragements and his weaknesses. He had had no shame before her.
By her acquiescences, her skill, her warmth, her adaptability, her
intense womanliness, she had created between them a bond stronger than
anything that could keep them apart. The bond existed. It could not
during the whole future be broken save by a disloyalty. A disloyalty,
she divined, would irrevocably destroy it. But she had no fear on that
score, for she knew her own nature. His decision did more than fill
her with a dizzy sense of relief, a mad, intolerable happiness--it
re-established her self-respect. No ordinary woman, handicapped as she
was, could have captured this fastidious and shy paragon ... And the
notion that her passion for him had dwindled was utterly ridiculous,
like the notion that he would tire of her. She was saved. She burst
into wild tears.
"Ah! Pardon me!" she sobbed. "I am quite calm, really. But since the
air-raid, thou knowest, I have not been quite the same ... Thou! Thou
art different. Nothing could disturb thy calm. Ah! If thou wert a
general at the front! What sang-froid! What presence of mind! But I--"
He bent towards her, and she suddenly sprang up and seized him round
the neck, and ate his lips, and while she strangled and consumed him
she kept muttering to him:
"Hope not that I shall thank thee. I cannot. I cannot! The words with
which I could thank thee do not exist. But I am thine, thine! All of
me is thine. Humiliate me! Demand of me impossible things! I am thy
slave, thy creature! Ah! Let me kiss thy beautiful grey hairs. I love
thy hair. And thy ears ..."
The thought of her insatiable temperament flashed through her as
she held him, and of his northern sobriety, and of the profound,
unchangeable difference between these two. She would discipline
her temperament; she would subjugate it. Women were capable of
miracles--and women alone. And she was capable of miracles.
A strange, muffled noise came to them across the darkness of the
sitting-room, and G.J. raised his head slightly to listen.
"Repose! Repose thyself in the arms of thy little mother," she
breathed softly. "It is nothing. It is but the wind blowing the blind
against the curtains."
And later, when she had distilled the magic of the hour and was
tranquillised, she said:
"And where is it, this flat?"