The passionate year

by James Hilton

IV

Once again he knew that he loved her. A storm came over him, furious as the storm outside! he knew that he loved and wanted her, passionately this time, because his soul was aching. To him she meant the easing of all the strain within him; he could not think how it had been possible for him to go on so long without knowing it. Helen and he were like currents of different voltages; but with Clare he would be miraculously matched. For the first time in his life he recognised definitely and simply that his marriage with Helen had been a mistake.

But what could he do? For with the realisation of his love for Clare came the sudden, blinding onrush of pity for Helen, pity more terrible than he had ever felt before; pity that made him sick with the keenness of it. If he could only be ruthless and leave her with as few words and as little explanation as many men left their wives! But he could not. Somehow, in some secret and subtle way, he was tied to her. He knew that he could never leave her. Something in their intimate relationship had forged bonds that would always hold him to her, even though the spirit of him longed to be free. He would go on living with her and pitying her and making her and himself miserable.

He went out into the storm of wind for a few moments before going to bed. Never, till then, had Lavery's seemed to desolate, so mightily cruel. He walked in sheer morbidness of spirit to the pavilion steps where he and Helen, less than a year ago, had thought themselves the happiest couple in the world. There was no moonlight now, and the pavilion was a huge dark shadow. Poor Helen—poor Helen! He wished he had never met her.

CHAPTER FOUR
I

The torture of his soul went on. He lost grip of his House; he was unpopular now, and he knew it. Smallwood and other influential members of the school openly cut him in the street. A great silence (so he often imagined, but it could not have been really so) fell upon the Masters' Common-Room whenever he entered it. Pritchard, so he heard, was in the habit of making cheap jokes against him with his class. Even Clanwell took him aside one evening and asked him why he had dropped the habit of coming up to coffee. "Why don't you come up for a chat sometime?" he asked, and from the queer look in his eyes Speed knew well enough what the chat was likely to be about. "Oh, I'm busy," he excused himself. He added: "Perhaps I'll drop in sometime, though." "Yes, do," said Clanwell encouragingly. But Speed never did.

Then one morning Speed was summoned into the dark study. The Head smiled and invited him to sit down. He even said, with ominous hospitality: "Have a cigarette—um, no?" and pushed the cigarette-box an inch or so away from him. Then he went on, unbuttoning the top button of his clerical coat: "I hope—um—you will not think me—um—impertinent—if I mention a matter which has—um—which has not reached my ears—um—through an official channel. You had, I—um—I believe,—an—um—altercation with one of the house-porters the other day. Am I—am I right?"

"Yes, quite right."

"Well, now, Mr. Speed—such—um—affairs are rather undignified, don't you think? I'm not—um—apportioning blame—oh, no, not in any way, but I do—um, yes—I most certainly do think that a housemaster should avoid such incidents if he can possibly do so. No—um—no personal reflection on you at all, Mr. Speed—merely my advice to you, as a somewhat elderly man to an—um, yes—to a friend. Yes, a friend. Perhaps I might add more—um—significantly—to an—um—son-in-law."

He smiled a wide, sly smile. Speed clenched his hands on his knees. The dark study grew almost intolerable. He felt he would like to take Ervine's mottled neck in his hands and wring it—carefully and calculatingly....

When he was outside the room, in the darkness between the inner and the outer doors, his resentment rose to fever-pitch. He stopped, battling with it, half inclined to re-enter the study and make a scene, yet realising with the sane part of him that he could not better his position by so doing. Merely as an outlet for tempestuous indignation, however, the idea of returning to the fray attracted him, and he paused in the darkness, arguing with himself. Then all at once his attention was rivetted by the sound, sharp and clear, of Mrs. Ervine's voice. She had entered the study from the other door, and he heard soft steps treading across the carpet. "Did you tell him?" he heard her say. And the Head's voice boomed back: "Yes, my dear. Um yes—I told him."

A grim, cautious smile crept over Speed's mouth. He put his ear to the hinge of the inner door and listened desperately.

He heard again the voice of Mrs. Ervine. "Did you tell him he might have to quit Lavery's at the end of the term?"

"I—um—well—I didn't exactly put it to him—so—um—so definitely. It seemed to me there was no—um—no necessity. He may be all right, even yet, you know.

"He won't. He's too young. And he's lost too much ground already."

"I always thought he was too—um—too youthful, my dear. But you overruled my——"

"Well, and you know why I did, don't you? Oh, I've no patience with you. Nothing's done unless I do it."

"My dear, I—um—I assure you——"

He heard footsteps approaching along the outside corridor and feared that it might be people coming to see the Head. In that case they would pull open the outer door and find him eavesdropping. That would never do. He quietly pushed the outer door and emerged into the corridor. A small boy, seeing him, asked timidly: "Is the Head in, sir?" Speed replied grimly: "Yes, he's in, but he's busy at present."

After all, he had heard enough. Behind the Head, ponderous and archaic, stood now the sinister figure of Mrs. Ervine, mistress of malevolent intrigue. In a curious half-humorous, half-contemptuous sense, he felt sorry for the Head. Poor devil!—everlastingly chained to Millstead, always working the solemn, rhythmic treadmill, with a wife beside him as sharp as a knife-edge.... Speed walked across to Lavery's, pale-faced and smiling.