§ 1
IT seemed to Catherine the most curious thing in the world that she should be sitting with George Trant inside a taxi. There was no light inside, and only the distant glimmer of London came in through the window. All was dim and dark and shadowy. Yet somewhere amongst these shadows sat George Trant. Perhaps he was thinking that somewhere amongst those shadows sat she, Catherine Weston.
A voice said out of the shadows: “We shan’t be long now.”
Catherine said: “How far are we going?”
“You’re going home ... to your lodgings, that is.... You fainted, I suppose you know....”
“Did I?” And she thought: “He killed himself out of loneliness. He couldn’t live without me. I am the cause, I am the reason.”
“Feeling all right now?”
“Oh yes ... must have been the excitement.”
“Probably.” His voice was cold, unsympathetic. She felt that he was deliberately looking away from where he thought she was.
“You needn’t take me all the way, you know. I can walk from the Ridgeway corner.”
“I shall take you all the way,” he said crisply.
With strange instinct she sensed his antagonism.
“I believe you’re angry with me,” she said. Yet all the while she was thinking: “I suppose there’ll be an inquest and a big fuss and all that. And the furniture and stuff will have to be sold.”
No answer.
“You are,” she repeated, and was surprised by her own persistence. After all, she didn’t care twopence whether he was angry with her or not. Only she would have been gratified if he were angry with her. It was something to come into a man’s life enough to make him angry. And it was rather an amusing pastime, this flirting with George Trant.
“Perhaps I am,” he said coldly.
“Why?” It would interest her to know why. At any rate she might as well know why.
“You’ve disappointed me.”
That was all. It satisfied her. He had evidently been building ideals around her. He had dreamed dreams in which she had been epic and splendid and magnificent. He had thought of her sufficiently for her to have the power of disappointing him. She was gratified. After all, she did not like him, so there was no reason why she should mind disappointing him. And he had paid her the subtle compliment of being disappointed with her.
She did not particularly want to know how she had disappointed him. Yet the conversation seemed incomplete without the question: “In what way?”
She could feel him turning round to face her.
“Various ways,” he said vaguely, but his tone seemed to invite her to pursue the subject. For that very reason she kept silent. It was not a matter of sufficient importance for her to ask the same question twice over. And if he did want her to repeat her question, that was all the more reason for her not doing so.
After a moment’s silence he said: “You’ve changed a good deal since I last knew you.”
“Yes, haven’t I?” There was an almost triumphant jauntiness in her voice.
“And you haven’t changed for the better, either,” he went on.
“That’s what you say.”
“Precisely. That’s what I say.” He was trying to be sarcastic, yet she knew that he was feeling acutely miserable. There was something in his voice that told her he was feeling acutely miserable. And she had no pity. She was even exhilarated. He was miserable about her. In some way she was invested with the power of making him miserable.
“Oh, I can’t tell you——” he began bitterly, and stopped.
A queer thrill went down her spine. For the first time in her life she was conscious of the presence of passion in another person. It was quite a novel experience, yet it called to mind that scene in the Duke Street Methodist Schoolroom when she and Freddie McKellar had come to blows.... A flash of realization swept over her. He was in love with her. He was really in love with her. She had so often wondered and thought and speculated, and now she knew. His voice had become transfigured, so to speak, out of passion for her. What a pity he could not see her hair! She did not care for him one little bit. She knew that now. She had not been quite certain before, but now, in the very moment of realizing his love of her, she thought: “How funny, I believe I really dislike him.... I don’t even want to flirt with him again.”
Yet she was immensely gratified that he had paid her the terrific compliment of falling in love with her.
A sort of instinct warned her that she should deflect the conversation into other channels. She was immensely interested in this curious phenomenon, yet she feared anti-climax. He might try to kiss her and grope round in the dark searching for her. That would be anti-climax. And also (this came as a sudden shaft of realization) she did not want him to kiss her. Many a time of late she had thought: “What shall I do if he kisses me?” She had resigned herself to the possibility that one day he might kiss her. She had been annoyed at his dalliance. “I wish to goodness he’d do it, if he’s going to,” had been her frequent thought, and she had provoked him subtly, cunningly, deliberately.... Now it came to her as an unwelcome possibility. She did not in the least desire him to kiss her. She knew she would actively dislike it if he did.
“Getting chilly,” she remarked nonchalantly, and she knew how such an observation would grate upon him. She was fascinated by this new miraculous power of hers to help or to hurt or to torture. Every word she said was full of meaning to him: talking to him was infinitely more subtle than ordinary conversation. It was this subtlety that partly fascinated her. For instance, when she said, “Getting chilly,” she meant, “We’ll change the subject. I know what you’re driving at, and I don’t like it. It doesn’t please me a bit.” And what was more, she knew that he would interpret it like that, and that he would feel all those feelings which the expansion of her remark would have aroused.
“I’ll shut the window,” he said, and did so.
It was so subtle, this business, that his remarks, too, could be interpreted. For instance, his words, “I’ll shut the window,” meant really, “Is that so? Well, I guessed as much. You’re utterly heartless. I shall have to resign myself to it, anyway. So, as you suggest, we’ll change the subject.”
The taxi turned into the Bockley High Street.
Catherine was like a child with a new toy. And this toy was the most intricate, complicated, and absorbingly interesting toy that had ever brought ecstasy to its possessor. How strange that he should be in love with her! How marvellous that there should be something strange and indefinable in her that had attracted something strange and indefinable in him!
And she thought, in spasms amidst her exhilaration: “Probably Ransomes will sell the furniture for me.... He killed himself for me. I’m the reason....”
It tickled her egoism that he should have done so. He must have done so. It could only have been that.
Here was George Trant, head over heels in love with her. And here was her father, stupid, narrow-minded, uncompromising bigot, yet committing suicide because she had run away from home. She preferred to regard herself as a runaway rather than as a castaway.
Truly she was developing into a very marvellous and remarkable personage!...