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. It _is_ utterly 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, there _may_ be. But I wouldn't take _your_ word 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...."