The passionate year

by James Hilton

III

He found her, as he had more than half expected, sitting in the drawing-room at Lavery's, her feet bunched up in front of the fire and her hands clasping her knees. She was not reading or sewing or even crying; she was just sitting there in perfect stillness, thinking, thinking, thinking. He knew, as by instinct, that this was not a pose of hers; he knew that she had been sitting like that for a quarter, a half, perhaps a whole hour before his arrival; and that, if he had come later, she would probably have been waiting and thinking still. Something in her which he did not understand inclined her to brood, and to like brooding. As he entered the room and saw her thus, and as she gave one swift look behind her and then, seeing it was he, turned away again to resume her fireside brooding, a sudden excruciatingly sharp feeling of irritation rushed over him, swamping for the instant even his remorse: why was she so silent and aggrieved? If he had treated her badly, why did she mourn in such empty, terrible silence? Then remorse recovered its sway over him and her attitude seemed the simple and tremendous condemnation of himself.

He did not know how to begin; he wanted her to know how contrite he was, yet he dared not tell her his suspicion. Oh, if she had only the tact to treat him as if it had never happened, so that he in return could treat her as if it had never happened, and the unhappy memory of it all be speedily swept away! But he knew from the look on her that she could never do that.

He walked up to the back of her chair, put his hand on her shoulder, and said: "Helen!"

She shrugged her shoulders with a sudden gesture that made him take his hand away. She made no answer.

He blundered after a pause: "Helen, I'm so sorry I've been rather hard on you lately—it's all been a mistake, and I promise—"

"You've been down to see Clare!" she interrupted him, with deadly quietness, still watching the fire.

He started. Then he knew that he must lie, because he could never explain to her the circumstances in a way that she would not think unsatisfactory.

"Helen, I haven't!" he exclaimed, and his indignation sounded sincere, perhaps because his motive in lying was a pure one.

She made no answer to that.

He went on, more fervently: "I didn't see Clare, Helen! Whatever made you think that?—I just went for a walk along the Deepersdale road—I wanted some exercise, that was all!"

She laughed—an awful little coughing laugh.

"You went to see Clare," she persisted, turning round and, for the first time, looking him in the eyes. "I followed you, and I saw you go in Clare's house."

"You did?" he exclaimed, turning suddenly pale.

"Yes. Now what have you got to say?"

He was, rather to his own surprise, quite furious with her for having followed him. "I've simply got this to say," he answered, hotly. "You've done no good by following me. You've made me feel I can't trust you, and you've made yourself feel that you can't trust me. You'll never believe the true explanation of why I went to Clare—you'll go on suspecting all sorts of impossible things—you'll worry yourself to death over nothing—and as for me—well, whenever I go out alone I shall wonder if you're following a few hundred yards behind!"

Then she said, still with the same tragic brooding quietness: "You needn't fear, Kenneth. I'll never follow you. I didn't follow you to-night. I only said I did. I found out what I wanted to find out just as well by that, didn't I?"

He was dazed. He had never guessed that she could be so diabolically clever. He sank into a chair and shut his eyes, unable to speak. She went on, without the slightest inflexion in the maddening level of her voice: "I'm going to leave you, Kenneth. You want Clare, and I'm going to leave you to her. I won't have you when you want another woman."

He buried his head in his hands and muttered, in a voice husky with sobbing: "That's not true, Helen. I don't want Clare. I don't want any other woman. I only want you, Helen. Helen, you won't leave me, will you? Promise me you won't leave me, Helen. Helen, don't you—can't you believe me when I tell you I don't want Clare?"

Still she reiterated, like some curious, solemn litany: "I'm going to leave you, Kenneth. You don't really want me. It's Clare you want, not me. You'll be far happier with Clare. And I shall be far happier without you than with you when you're wanting Clare. I—I can't bear you to want Clare, Kenneth. I'd rather you—have her—than want her. So I've decided. I'm not angry with you. I'm just determined, that's all. I shall leave you and then you'll be free to do what you like."

Somehow, a feeling of overwhelming tiredness overspread him, so that for a short moment he felt almost inclined to acquiesce from mere lack of energy to do anything else. He felt sick as he stared at her. Then a curiously detached aloofness came into his attitude; he looked down on the situation a trifle cynically and thought: How dramatic! Something in him wanted to laugh, and something else in him wanted to cry; most of him wanted to kiss her and be comfortable and go to sleep; and nothing at all of him wanted to argue. He wondered just then if such a moment ever came to her as it came to him; a moment when he could have borne philosophically almost any blow, when all human issues seemed engulfed in the passionate desire to be let alone.

Yet some part of him that was automatic continued the argument. He pleaded with her, assured her of his deep and true love, poured infinite scorn on Clare and his relations with her, held up to view a rosy future at Lavery's in which he would live with Helen as in one long, idyllic dream. And as he sketched out this beautiful picture, his mind was ironically invaded by another one, which he did not show her, but which he felt to be more true: Lavery's in deep winter-time, with the wind and rain howling round the walls of it, and the bleak shivering corridors, and the desolation of the afternoons, and the cramped hostility of the Masters' Common-Room, and the red-tinted drawing-room at night, all full of shadows and silence and tragic monotony. And all the time he was picturing that in his mind he was telling her of Lavery's with the sun on it, and the jessamine, and the classrooms all full of the sunlit air, and love, like a queen, reigning over it all. The vision forced itself out; Helen saw it, but Speed could not. As he went on pleading with her he became enthusiastic, but it was an artistic enthusiasm; he was captivated by his own skill in persuasion. And whenever, for a moment, this interest in his own artistry waned, there came on him afresh the feeling of deep weariness, and a desire only to rest and sleep and be friends with everybody.

At last he persuaded her. It had taken from nine o'clock until midnight. He was utterly tired out when he had finished. Yet there seemed to be no tiredness in her, only a happiness that she could now take and caress him as her own. She could not understand how, now that they had made their reconciliation, he should not be eager to cement it by endearments. Instead of which he lit a cigarette and said that he was hungry.

While she busied herself preparing a small meal he found himself watching her continually as she moved about the room, and wondering, in the calmest and most aloof manner, whether he was really glad that he had won. Eventually he decided that he was. She was his wife and he loved her. If they were careful to avoid misunderstandings no doubt they would get along tolerably well in the future. The future! The vision came to him again of the term that was in front of him; a vision that was somehow frightening.

Yet, above all else, he was tired—dead tired.

The last thing she said to him that night was a soft, half-whimpered: "Kenneth, I believe you do want Clare."

He said sleepily, and without any fervour: "My dear, I assure you I don't."

And he fell asleep wondering very vaguely what it would be like to want Clare, and whether it would ever be possible for him to do so.

CHAPTER TWO
I

Term began on the Wednesday in the third week in January.

Once again, the first few days were something of an ordeal. Constant anticipations had filled Speed's mind with apprehensions; he was full of carefully excogitated glooms. Would the hostility of the Masters be more venomous? Would the prefects of his own house attempt to undermine his discipline? Would the rank and file try to "rag" him when he took preparation in the Big Hall? Somehow, all his dreams of Millstead and of Lavery's had turned now to fears; he had slipped into the position when it would satisfy him merely to avoid danger and crush hostility. No dreams now about Lavery's being the finest House in Millstead, and he the glorious and resplendent captain of it; no vision now of scouring away the litter of mild corruptions and abuses that hedged in Lavery's on all sides; no hopes of a new world, made clean and wholesome by his own influence upon it. All his desire was that he should escape the pitfalls that were surrounding him, that he should, somehow, live through the future without disaster to himself. Enthusiasm was all gone. Those old days when he had plunged zestfully into all manner of new things, up to his neck in happiness as well as in mistakes—those days were over. His one aim now was not to make mistakes, and though he did not know it, he cared for little else in the world.

That first night of term he played the beginning-of-term hymn in the chapel.

"Lord, behold us with Thy blessing,
Once again assembled here ..."

The words fell on his mind with a sense of heavy, unsurmountable gloom. He looked into the mirror above his head and saw the choir-stalls and the front rows of the pews; the curious gathering of Millsteadians in their not-yet-discarded vacation finery; Millsteadians unwontedly sober; some, perhaps, a little heart-sick. He saw Ervine's back, as he read the lesson from the lectern, and as he afterwards stood to pronounce the Benediction. "The grace of God, which passeth—um—understanding, and the—um—fellowship of the—um—the Holy Spirit ..."

He hated that man.

He thought of the dark study and Potter and the drawing-room where he and Helen had spent so many foolish hours during the summer term of the year before.

Foolish hours? Had he come to the point when he looked back with scorn upon his courtship days? No, no; he withdrew the word "foolish."

" ... rest upon—um—all our hearts—now and—um—for ever—um—Ah—men.... I would—um, yes—be glad—if the—um—the—the new boys this term—would stay behind to see me—um, yes—to see me for a moment...."

Yes, he hated that man.

He gathered his gown round him and descended the ladder into the vestry. A little boy said "Good-evening, Mr. Speed," and shook hands with him. "Good-evening, Robinson," he said, rather quietly. The boy went on: "I hope you had a nice Christmas, sir." Speed started, checked himself, and replied: "Oh yes, very nice, thanks. And you too, I hope." "Oh yes, sir," answered the boy. When he had gone Speed wondered if the whole incident had been a subtle and ironical form of "ragging." Cogitation convinced him that it couldn't have been; yet fear, always watching and ready to pounce, would have made him think so. He felt really alarmed as he walked back across the quadrangle to Lavery's, alarmed, not about the Robinson incident, which he could see was perfectly innocent, but because he was so prone to these awful and ridiculous fears. If he went on suspecting where there was no cause, and imagining where there was no reality, some day Millstead would drive him mad. Mad—yes, mad. Two boys ran past him quickly and he could see that they stopped afterwards to stare at him and to hold some sort of a colloquy. What was that for? Was there anything peculiar about him? He felt to see if his gown was on wrong side out: no, that was all right. Then what did they stop for? Then he realised that he was actually speaking that sentence out aloud; he had said, as to some corporeal companion: What did they stop for? Had he been gibbering like that all the way across the quadrangle? Had the two boys heard him talking about going mad? Good God, he hoped not! That would be terrible, terrible. He went in to Lavery's with the sweat standing out in globes on his forehead. And yet, underfoot, the ground was beginning to be hard with frost.

Well, anyway, one thing was comforting; he was getting along much better with Helen. They had not had any of those dreadful, pathetic scenes for over a fortnight. His dreams of happiness were gone; it was enough if he succeeded in staving off the misery. As he entered the drawing-room Helen ran forward to meet him and kissed him fervently. "The first night of our new term," she said, but the mention only gave a leap to his anxieties. But he returned her embrace, willing to extract what satisfaction he could from mere physical passion.