Valentine at last made an end to the muttering noises with which he had
tried to put before his guardian the state of acute disagreement that
existed between himself and Valerest. Mr. Lapwing finished his brandy,
rose from the table, and thoughtfully took a turn or two about the room.
“Well?” said Valentine.
“I,” said Mr. Lapwing absently, “can tell you a much better story than
that. Any day.”
Valentine flushed. “I didn’t tell you about this, sir, so that you
should make a guy of me.”
Mr. Lapwing said gloomily: “Keep your hair on. When I said that I could
tell you a much better story than yours, I meant, naturally, that my
story is complete, whereas yours, you will agree, is as yet far from
complete.”
Valentine muttered something about his being quite complete enough for
him, but all Mr. Lapwing said sharply was: “Here, no more of that
brandy! That brandy is too good to swim in. But if you want to get
drunk, I will ring for some whisky.”
“I don’t want to get drunk,” snapped Valentine.
“Good boy!” said Mr. Lapwing vaguely, and continued pacing up and down
the dim, long room, while Valentine sat still and thought of his past
life and found it rotten.
Suddenly Mr. Lapwing said, in that irritatingly exact way of his which
was never quite exact: “You, Valentine, are twenty-nine years old.
Valerest is twenty-two----”
“Four,” said Valentine.
“Very well. And you have been married just over three years----”
“Nearly five,” sighed Valentine.
“Very well. You, Valentine, want a child. Valerest, however, does not
want a child just yet. Your argument is a sound one: that if parents
wait too long before their children are born, by the time the children
grow up the parents will be too old to share any of their interests and
pleasures----”
“That’s right,” said Valentine sourly. “Valerest and I will be a pair of
old dodderers by the time they’re of age.”
“Exactly. A very sound argument. Whereas Valerest----”
Valentine snapped: “She doesn’t even trouble to argue. She just sits and
grins!”
“Exactly. She is much too deeply in the wrong to argue. When nations are
too deeply in the wrong to argue they call on God and go to war. When
women are too deeply in the wrong to argue they sit and grin. And I
daresay that the way you put your arguments gives Valerest plenty to
sit and grin about.”
“My God,” said Valentine, “don’t I try to be reasonable!”
“Listen,” said Mr. Lapwing, and then he told Valentine that he had been
married twice. Valentine was amazed. He had not known that.
Mr. Lapwing said: “I was very young when I married my first wife. Even
younger than you, although even then I knew a good brandy from a poor
one. And I was very much in love. As, if you will not think an old man
too ridiculous, I am still. Of course, she is dead now.”
Valentine was listening with only half a mind. He had still to get over
his surprise that his guardian had been married twice. There are some
men who look as though they simply could not have been married twice.
They look as though one marriage would be, or had been, a very
considerable feat for them. Mr. Lapwing looked decidedly like that: he
looked, if you like, a widower: but decidedly not like a widower
multiplied by two----
Mr. Lapwing was saying, from a dim, distant corner of the room: “In
those days I was a very serious young man. I took love and marriage very
seriously. And when we had been married a couple of years I discovered
in myself a vehement desire to be a father: a natural enough desire in a
very serious young man. My wife, however, was younger than I: she loved
life, the life of the country and the town, of the day and of the night,
of games and dances. You see what I mean?”
Valentine snapped: “Don’t I! Just like Valerest.”
“Exactly. At first,” said Mr. Lapwing, and his face as he slowly paced
up and down the dim room would every now and then be quite lost in the
shadows. “At first, I indulged her. To tell you the truth, I was very
proud of her service at tennis, her handicap at golf. But there are
limits.”
“There are,” said Valentine. “Valerest is already in training for
Wimbledon next year, and I hope a tennis-ball gets up and shingles her
eyelashes. And she’s got to 6 at golf. Pretty good for a kid who looks
as though she hadn’t enough muscle to play a fast game of ludo. But
that’s right about there being limits. There _are_ limits! And I’ve
reached them.”
“Exactly,” agreed Mr. Lapwing’s dim voice from the distance of the room.
“I had reached them too, Valentine. And, I am afraid, I grew to be
rather unpleasant in the home--as you, no doubt, are with Valerest.
One’s manner, you know, isn’t sometimes the less unpleasant for being in
the right.”
Valentine said: “I don’t know about pleasant or unpleasant. But a fellow
must stick to his guns.”
“Guns?” said Mr. Lapwing vaguely. “Were we talking of guns?”
“I merely said, sir, that one must stick to one’s guns.”
“Of course, yes! Decidedly one must stick to one’s guns. Very proper.
Well, Valentine, I too stuck to my guns. Like you, I thought they were
good guns. My young wife and I grew to disagree quite violently about
her preference for being out-and-about to rearing my children: until one
day, after a more than usually fierce and childish argument, she left my
house--this house, Valentine--and never came back.”
From the shadowy distance Mr. Lapwing was looking thoughtfully at
Valentine. But Valentine’s eyes were engaged elsewhere: he was seeing a
picture of Valerest stamping out of his house, never to come back. It
was, Valentine saw, quite conceivable. He could see it happening. It was
just the sort of thing Valerest might do, stamp out of the house and
never come back. And the picture grew clearer before Valentine’s eyes,
and he stared the picture out.
“Well,” he said at last, “that’s the sort of thing that happens. It’s
got to happen.”
Mr. Lapwing said: “Exactly.” His face was in the shadow. Valentine,
fiddling with a cigarette, still staring at the picture in his mind,
went on:
“I mean, it’s inevitable, isn’t it? A man can’t go on forever living in
the same house with a woman who laughs at the--the--well, you know what
I mean--at the most sacred things in him. And she’s got a dog.”
“I know,” said Mr. Lapwing. “Mr. Tuppy. Nice little dog.”
“Bloody little dog!” snapped Valentine. “Look here, sir, when things
have got to the state they have with Valerest and me the crash has got
to come. Just got to, that’s all.”
Mr. Lapwing said gloomily: “Of course, there’s love.”
Valentine thought profoundly about that.
“No!” snapped Valentine. “That’s just where you are wrong, sir. There
_was_ love. Certainly. But they kill it. They just kill love. I mean, I
know what I’m talking about. Some of these young women treat love as
though it was a naughty little boy who should be made to stand in a
corner except as a great treat once in six weeks. I’ve thought about
this a lot lately. Valerest has just gone out of her way to kill my
love.”
“Sex,” said Mr. Lapwing thoughtfully.
“Sex?” said Valentine.
“Sex,” said Mr. Lapwing dimly. “Sex becomes very important when a man
is--er--deprived of it. When he is--er--not deprived of it he becomes
used to it, and it ceases to have any--er--importance at all. Women
don’t like that. Women----”
“Damn women!” snapped Valentine.
“Women,” said Mr. Lapwing, “can be very tiresome. Wives can be
intolerable. I have been married twice. England and America are strewn
with good men suffering from their wives’ virtues. It is damnable. When
a woman is faithful to her husband she generally manages to take it out
of him in some other way. The mere fact that she is faithful makes her
think that she has a right to be, well, disagreeable. The faithful wife
also considers that she has a right to indulge in disloyal moods----”
“Disloyal moods!” said Valentine thoughtfully. “That’s good.”
“Fidelity,” said Mr. Lapwing, “can cause the devil of a lot of trouble
in the home, unless it is well managed. Fidelity needs just as much good
management as infidelity. I am telling you this,” said Mr. Lapwing,
“because I think fidelity is beautiful and I hate to see it made a mess
of. I draw from my own life, from my first marriage. I stuck firmly to
those guns which you so aggressively brought into the conversation. A
year or so went by. Then her parents approached me and suggested that we
should come to some agreement, either to live together again or to
arrange a divorce on the usual lines. They were good people. Their
argument was that we were both too young to go on wasting our lives in
this shilly-shally way.
“By this time, of course, the matter of my quarrel with my wife had
faded into nothing. There remained only the enormous fact that we _had_
quarrelled and that, since neither of us had tried to make the quarrel
up, our love must obviously be dead.
“I referred her parents to her, saying I would do as she wished. She
sent them back to me, saying she was quite indifferent. A divorce was
then arranged by our lawyers; and I was divorced for failing to return
to my wife on her petition for restitution of conjugal rights. The usual
rubbish.
“To be brief, it was not long before I married again. But now I was
older, wiser. I had tasted passion, I had loved: to find that passion
was yet another among the confounded vanities that are perishable.
“Valentine, I married my second wife with an eye to the mother of my
children. I married sensibly. I have, as you know, a considerable
property; and I continued to desire, above all things, an heir to my
name and a companion for my middle years. That I have a companion now in
you--and in Valerest--is due to the infinite grace of God: that I have
not an heir to carry on my name is due to my own folly.
“My second wife was of that type of woman whom it is the fashion of our
day to belittle as ‘matronly,’ but from whose good blood and fine
quality is forged all that is best in great peoples. The difference
between my affection for her and my passion for my first wife is not to
be described in words: yet when she died in giving birth to a dead child
you will easily understand how I was grieved almost beyond
endurance--not only at the shattering of my hopes, but at the loss of a
gracious lady and a dear companion.
“I was at a South Coast resort the summer after my second wife’s death.
One morning on the sands I struck up a great friendship with a jolly
little boy of three, while his nurse was gossiping with some of her
friends. Our friendship grew with each fine morning; and the nurse
learnt to appreciate my approach as a relief for a time from her duties.
“You will already have seen, Valentine, the direction of my tale: the
irony of my life must already be clear to you: nor can you have failed
to see the pit of vain hopes that sometimes awaits those who stick to
their guns. As my young friend and I sat talking one morning, or rather
as he talked and I played with handfuls of sand thinking how gladly I
had called him my son, he leapt up with a cry of joy; and presented me
to his father and mother.
“My first wife had grown into a calm, beautiful woman. Yet even her
poise could not quite withstand the surprise of our sudden meeting after
so many years; and it was her husband who broke the tension, and won my
deepest regard forever, by taking my hand. From that moment, Valentine,
began for me, and I think for them both, and certainly for the boy, as
rare and sweet a friendship as, I dare to say, is possible in this
world.
“People like ourselves, Valentine, must, for decency, conform to certain
laws of conduct. The love that my first wife and I rediscovered for each
other was not, within our secret hearts, in our power to control: yet it
did not need even a word or a sign from either of us to tell the other
that our love must never, no matter in what solitudes we might meet, be
expressed. Her husband was a good man, and had always understood that
our divorce had not been due to any uncleanliness or cruelty but to what
is called, I think, incompatibility of temperament. So that until she
died soon after, the three of us were devoted friends and constant
companions.
“And that,” said Mr. Lapwing from the shadows, “is all my story. More or
less.”
Valentine sat very still. Mr. Lapwing paced up and down. Silence walked
with him.
Valentine muttered. “I’m sorry. It’s a dreadful story. Good Lord, yes!
May I have some more brandy, please?”
“It’s not,” snapped Mr. Lapwing, “a dreadful story. It is a beautiful
story. Help yourself.”
“Well,” said Valentine, “call it beautiful if you like. It’s your story.
But I should hate it to happen to me.”
“There are,” said Mr. Lapwing, “consolations.”
Mr. Lapwing paced up and down.
“Consolations,” said Mr. Lapwing.
Valentine said: “Oh, certainly. I suppose there always are consolations.
All the same, I should hate to be done out of my son like that. For
that’s what it comes to.”
Mr. Lapwing was in a distant corner of the room, his face a shadow among
shadows. He said: “Exactly. That is why, Valentine Chambers, I said
there are consolations. My wife’s second husband was Lawrence Chambers.”
Valentine said: “Oh!”
Mr. Lapwing touched him on the shoulder.
Valentine said: “Good Lord, I might have been your son!”
“You might,” said Mr. Lapwing. “Easily. But it has come to almost the
same thing in the end, hasn’t it? Except, perhaps, that I have not a
father’s right to advise you.”
Valentine said violently: “You’ve got every right in the world to advise
me! Considering what you’ve done for me all my life!”
“Then,” said Mr. Lapwing, “don’t be an ass.”
Valentine saw Valerest’s mocking eyes, heard Valerest’s mocking laugh,
and about his mind walked Mr. Tuppy with his old, unsmiling eyes. He
muttered: “But, look here, Valerest will just think I’ve given in!”
“So you have,” said Mr. Lapwing.
“Well, then,” said Valentine bitterly, “it will all----”
“She’ll grow,” said Mr. Lapwing. He was tired. “And, Valentine, she has
got more right to be an ass than you have. Remember that. There’s no use
being sentimental about it, but they put up with a lot of pain, women.
Remember that. And----”
“But look here,” said Valentine, “if I----”
“Oh, go and make love to the girl!” snapped Mr. Lapwing. “And forget
that a clergyman ever told you that she must obey you.”
V
The state of Valentine’s mind as he ascended the stairway of his house
is best described by the word “pale.” He felt pale. What made him feel
pale was terror. It was past one o’clock in the morning. He had
thundered out of the house at about half-past-eight. And the house was
now as still as a cemetery. The conclusion, to Valentine, was obvious:
the house was as still as a cemetery of love. He saw Valerest waiting,
waiting, waiting for him to return: he heard the clock striking ten,
eleven, midnight: he saw Valerest flush with a profound temper, hastily
pack a few things and--stamp out of the house, never to come back!
Within the bedroom all was dark, silent. Very dark it was, very silent.
Valentine stood just within the doorway, listening very intently. He
could not hear Valerest breathing. There was no Valerest to hear.
“Oh, God!” cried Valentine.
“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Valerest from the darkness. “What do you want to go
and wake me for when I have to be out riding at eight o’clock!”
Valentine said: “Valerest, thank Heaven you are here! I got such a
shock.”
“Here?” said Valerest. “Shock?”
Valentine switched on the lamp by the bed. It was Valerest’s bed.
Valentine’s bed was in the dressing-room. That is called hygiene. Our
grandfathers never knew about that.
Valerest stared up at him with sleepy bewilderment. Her curly hair was
all over the place. Valentine made it worse by running his hands through
it. Valerest said severely:
“Valentine, what are you talking about? Why shouldn’t I be here? And
where have you been all this time? Why do you look so pale? Have you
been drinking? Why did you get a shock?”
Valentine said violently: “I love you, Valerest.”
“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.
Valerest laid the tips of her fingers on his eyes, and she passed the
tips of her fingers over his lips, and she said: “But I _hate_ you!”
“You just wait!” said Valentine.
Valerest pulled at his ears with her fingers and defended her attitude
with irresistible logic. She cried: “I don’t want to love anyone! I
don’t want to love anyone! I don’t want to love anyone! I want to be
free!” And she bit his ear.
Now there are writers who would think nothing of ending this chapter
with a row of dots, _viz_: ... The author of this work, however, while
yielding to no one in his admiration of a dexterous use of dots, cannot
but think that the increasing use of dots to express the possibilities
of love has become a public nuisance, and that the practice should be
discouraged by literary-subscribers as dishonest, since what it really
comes to is selling a dud to readers just when they are expecting
something to happen. There are undoubtedly occasions, as when a writer
is plumbing the bestial abysses of illicit love, when a judicious
sprinkling of dots must be held to be proper, in the interests of
decency and restraint. Yet even then it is to be deplored that the
exploitation of dots so readily lends itself to the artfulness of
suggestion. And the author of this work, which is written throughout
under the government of marital virtue, cannot think that it is his part
to hold his pen while he asks himself whether he shall dot or not dot.
Has mankind, he asks himself, lived through all these æons of time only
to find now that it cannot serve the decencies without the artificial
aid of dots? Must, then, our dumb friends be neglected, while we needs
must resort to these bloodless dots? For dogs are infinitely superior to
dots as a means of describing the indescribable. The writer is, of
course, referring particularly to Mr. Tuppy. Poor Mr. Tuppy.
“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy. “Yap, yap, yap, yap!”
“What are you doing to Mr. Tuppy?” cried Valerest.
“Nothing,” said Valentine. “Only putting him out of the room.”
“You’ve kicked him, you beast!” wailed Valerest.
“Only once, sweet,” said Valentine; “for luck.”
“I hate you!” she cried.
“I love you!” he whispered.
“Darling!” she sighed. “But remember I have to be out and riding at
eight.”
“This is no time to talk of dogs and horses!” cried Valentine, and
Valerest was so surprised at such blasphemy that--Oh, well, dots.