Anne Severn and the Fieldings

by May Sinclair

XIV

MAISIE

i

He didn't know what he was going to do about Maisie.

On a fine, warm day in April Maisie had come home. He had motored her up from the station, and now the door of the drawing-room had closed on them and they were alone together in there.

"Oh, Jerrold—it is nice—to see you—again."

She panted a little, a way she had when she was excited.

"Awfully nice," he said, and wondered what on earth he was going to do next.

He had been all right on the station platform where their greetings had been public and perfunctory, but now he would have to do something intimate and, above all, spontaneous, not to stand there like a stick.

They looked at each other and he took again the impression she had always given him of delicate beauty and sweetness. She was tall and her neck bent slightly forward as she walked; this gave her the air of bowing prettily, of offering you something with a charming grace. Her shoulders and her hips had the same long, slenderly sloping curves. Her hair was mole brown on the top and turned back in an old-fashioned way that uncovered its hidden gold. Her face was white; the thin bluish whiteness of skim milk. Her mauve blue eyes looked larger than they were because of their dark brows and lashes, and the faint mauve smears about their lids. The line of her little slender nose went low and straight in the bridge, then curved under, delicately acquiline, its nostrils were close and clean cut. Her small, close upper lip had a flying droop; and her chin curved slightly, ever so slightly, away to her throat. When she talked Maisie's mouth and the tip of her nose kept up the same sensitive, quivering play. But Maisie's eyes were still; they had no sparkling speech; they listened, deeply attentive to the person who was there. They took up the smile her mouth began and was too small to finish.

And now, as they looked at him, he felt that he ought to take her in his arms, suddenly, at once. In another instant it would be too late, the action would have lost the grace of spontaneous impulse. He wondered how you simulated a spontaneous impulse.

But Maisie made it all right for him. As he stood waiting for his impulse she came to him and laid her hands on his shoulders and kissed him, gently, on each cheek. Her hands slid down; they pressed hard against his arms above the elbow, as if to keep back his too passionate embrace. It was easy enough to return her kiss, to pass his arms under hers and press her slight body, gently, with his cramped hands. Did she know that his heart was not in it?

No. She knew nothing.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" she said. "You do look fit."

"Do I? Oh, nothing much."

He turned away from her sweet eyes that hurt him.

At least he could bring forward a chair for her, and put cushions at her back, and pour out her tea and wait on her. He tried by a number of careful, deliberate attentions to make up for his utter lack of spontaneity. And she sat there, drinking her tea, contented; pleased to be back in her happy home; serenely unaware that anything was missing.

He took her over the house and showed her her room, the long room with the two south windows, one on each side of the square, cross-lighted bay above the porch. It was full of the clear April light.

Maisie looked round, taking it all in, the privet-white panels, the lovely faded Persian rugs, the curtains of old rose damask. An armchair and a round table with a bowl of pink tulips on it stood in the centre of the bay.

"Is this mine, this heavenly room?"

"I thought so."

He was glad that he had something beautiful to give her, to make up.

She glanced at the inner door leading to his father's room. "Is that yours in there?"

"Mine? No. That door's locked. It… I'm on the other side next to
Colin."

"Show me."

He took her into the gallery and showed her.

"It's that door over there at the end."

"What a long way off," she said.

"Why? You're not afraid, are you?"

"Dear me, no. Could anybody be afraid here?"

"Poor Colin's pretty jumpy still. That's why I have to be near him."

"I see."

"You won't mind having him with us, will you?"

"I shall love having him. Always. I hope he won't mind me."

"He'll adore you, of course."

"Now show me the garden."

They went out on to the green terraces where the peacocks spread their great tails of yew. Maisie loved the peacocks and the clipped yew walls and the goldfish pond and the flower garden.

He walked quickly, afraid to linger, afraid of having to talk to her. He felt as if the least thing she said would be charged with some unendurable emotion and that at any minute he might be called on to respond. To be sure this was not like what he knew of Maisie; but, everything having changed for him, he felt that at any minute Maisie might begin to be unlike herself.

She was out of breath. She put her hand on his arm. "Don't go so fast,
Jerry. I want to look and look."

They went up on to the west terrace and stood there, looking. Brown-crimson velvet wall-flowers grew in a thick hedge under the terrace wall; their hot sweet smell came up to them.

"It's too beautiful for words," she said.

"I'm glad you like it. It is rather a jolly old place."

"It's the most adorable place I've ever been in. It looks so good and happy. As if everybody who ever lived in it had been good and happy."

"I don't know about that. It was a hospital for four years. And it hasn't quite recovered yet. It's all a bit worn and shabby, I'm afraid."

"I don't care. I love its shabbiness. I don't want to forget what it's been…. To think that I've missed seven weeks of it."

"You haven't missed much. We've had beastly weather all March."

"I've missed you. Seven weeks of you."

"I think you'll get over that," he said, perversely.

"I shan't. It's left a horrid empty space. But I couldn't help it. I really couldn't, Jerry."

"All right, Maisie, I'm sure you couldn't."

"Torquay was simply horrible. And this is heaven. Oh, Jerry dear, I'm going to be so awfully happy."

He looked at her with a sudden tenderness of pity. She was visibly happy. He remembered that her charm for him had been her habit of enjoyment. And as he looked at her he saw nothing but sadness in her happiness and in her sweetness and her beauty. But the sadness was not in her, it was in his own soul. Women like Maisie were made for men to be faithful to them. And he had not been faithful to her. She was made for love and he had not loved her. She was nothing to him. Looking at her he was filled with pity for the beauty and sweetness that were nothing to him. And in that pity and that sadness he felt for the first time the uneasy stirring of his soul.

If only he could have broken the physical tie that had bound him to her until now; if only they could give it all up and fall back on some innocent, immaterial relationship that meant no unfaithfulness to Anne.

When he thought of Anne he didn't know for the life of him how he was going through with it.

ii

Maisie had been talking to him for some seconds before he understood. At last he saw that, for reasons which she was unable to make clear to him, she was letting him off. He wouldn't have to go through with it.

As Jerrold's mind never foresaw anything he didn't want to see, so in this matter of Maisie he had had no plan. Not that he trusted to the inspiration of the moment; in its very nature the moment wouldn't have an inspiration. He had simply refused to think about it at all. It was too unpleasant. But Maisie's presence forced the problem on him with some violence. He had given himself to Anne without a scruple, but when it came to giving himself to Maisie his conscience developed a sudden sense of guiltiness. For Jerrold was essentially faithful; only his fidelity was all for Anne. His marrying Maisie had been a sin against Anne, its sinfulness disguised because he had had no pleasure in it. The thought of going back to Maisie after Anne revolted him; the thought of Anne having to share him with Maisie revolted him. Nobody, he said to himself, was ever less polygamous than he.

At the same time he was sorry for Maisie. He didn't want her to suffer, and if she was not to suffer she must not know, and if she was not to know they must go on as they had begun. He was haunted by the fear of Maisie's knowing and suffering. The pity he felt for her was poignant and accusing, as if somehow she did know and suffer. She must at least be aware that something was wanting. He would have to make up to her somehow for what she had missed; he would have to give her all the other things she wanted for that one thing. Maisie's coldness might have made it easy for him. Nothing could move Jerrold from his conviction that Maisie was cold, that she was incapable of caring for him as Anne cared. His peace of mind and the freedom of his conscience depended on this belief. But, in spite of her coldness, Maisie wanted children. He knew that.

According to Jerrold's code Maisie's children would be an injury to Anne, a perpetual insult. But Anne would forgive him; she would understand; she wouldn't want to hurt Maisie.

So he went through with it.

And now he made out that mercifully, incredibly, he was being let off.
He wouldn't have to go on.

He stood by Maisie's bed looking down at her as she lay there. She had grasped his hands by the wrists, as if to hold back their possible caress. And her little breathless voice went on, catching itself up and tripping.

"You won't mind—if I don't let you—come to me?"

"I'm sorry, Maisie. I didn't know you felt like that about it."

"I don't. It isn't because I don't love you. It's just my silly nerves.
I get frightened."

"I know. I know. It'll be all right. I won't bother you."

"Mother said I oughtn't to ask you. She said you wouldn't understand and it would be too hard for you. Will it?"

"No, of course it won't. I understand perfectly."

He tried to sound like one affectionately resigned, decently renouncing, not as though he felt this blessedness of relief, absolved from dread, mercifully and incredibly let off.

But Maisie's sweetness hated to refuse and frustrate; it couldn't bear to hurt him. She held him tighter. "Jerrold—if it is—if you can't stand it, you mustn't mind about me. You must forget I ever said anything. It's nothing but nerves."

"I shall be all right. Don't worry."

"You are a darling."

Her grasp slackened. "Please—please go. At once. Quick."

As he went she put her hand to her heart. She could feel the pain coming. It filled her with an indescribable dread. Every time it came she thought she should die of it. If only she didn't get so excited; excitement always brought it on. She held her breath tight to keep it back.

Ah, it had come. Splinters of glass, sharp splinters of glass, first pricking, then piercing, then tearing her heart. Her heart closed down on the splinters of glass, cutting itself at every beat.

She looked under the pillow for the little silver box that held her pearls of nitrate of amyl. She always had it with her, ready. She crushed a pearl in her pocket handkerchief and held it to her nostrils. The pain left her. She lay still.

iii

And every Sunday at six in the evening, or nine (he varied the hour to escape suspicion), Jerrold came to Anne.

In the weeks before Maisie's coming and after, Anne's happiness was perfect, intense and secret like the bliss of a saint in ecstasy, of genius contemplating its finished work. In giving herself to Jerrold she had found reality. She gave herself without shame and without remorse, or any fear of the dangerous risks they ran. Their passion was too clean for fear or remorse or shame. She thought love was a finer thing going free and in danger than sheltered and safe and bound. The game of love should be played with a high, defiant courage; you were not fit to play it if you fretted and cowered. Both she and Jerrold came to it with an extreme simplicity, taking it for granted. They never vowed or protested or swore not to go back on it or on each other. It was inconceivable that they should go back on it. And as Anne saw no beginning to it, she saw no end. All her past was in her love for Jerrold; there never had been a time when she had ceased to love him. This moment when they embraced was only the meeting point between what had been and what would be. Nothing could have disturbed Anne's conscience but the sense that Jerrold didn't belong to her, that he had no right to love her; and she had never had that sense. They had belonged to each other, always, from the time when they were children playing together. Maisie was the intruder, who had no right, who had taken what didn't belong to her. And Anne could have forgiven even that if Maisie had had the excuse of a great passion; but Maisie didn't care.

So Anne, unlike Jerrold, was not troubled by thinking about Maisie. She had never seen Jerrold's wife; she didn't want to see her. So long as she didn't see her it was as if Maisie were not there.

And yet she was there. Next to Jerrold she was more there for Anne than the people she saw every day. Maisie's presence made itself felt in all the risks they ran. She was the hindrance, not to perfect bliss, but to a continuous happiness. She was the reason why they could only meet at intervals for one difficult and dangerous hour. Because of Maisie, Jerrold, instead of behaving like himself with a reckless disregard of consequences, had to think out the least revolting ways by which they might evade them. He had to set up some sort of screen for his Sunday visits to the Manor Farm. Thus he made a habit of long walks after dark on week-days and of unpunctuality at meals. To avoid being seen by the cottagers he approached the house from behind, by the bridge over the mill-water and through the orchard to the back door. Luckily the estate provided him with an irreproachable and permanent pretext for seeing Anne.

For Jerrold, going about with Anne over the Manor Farm, had conceived a profound passion for his seven hundred acres. At last he had come into his inheritance; and if it was Anne Severn who showed him how to use it, so that he could never separate his love of it from his love of her, the land had an interest of its own that soon excited and absorbed him. He determined to take up farming seriously and look after his estate himself when Anne had Sutton's farm. Anne would teach him all she knew, and he could finish up with a year or two at the Agricultural College in Cirencester. He had found the work he most wanted to do, the work he believed he could do best. All the better if it brought him every day this irreproachable companionship with Anne. His conscience was appeased by Maisie's coldness, and Jerrold told himself that the life he led now was the best possible life for a sane man. His mind was clear and keen; his body was splendidly fit; his love for Anne was perfect, his companionship with her was perfect, their understanding of each other was perfect. They would never be tired of each other and never bored. He rode with her over the hills and tramped with her through the furrows in all weathers.

At times he would approach her through some sense, sharper than sight or touch, that gave him her inmost immaterial essence. She would be sitting quietly in a room or standing in a field when suddenly he would be thus aware of her. These moments had a reality and certainty more poignant even than the moment of his passion.

At last they ceased to think about their danger. They felt, ironically, that they were protected by the legend that made Anne and Colin lovers. In the eyes of the Kimbers and Nanny Sutton and the vicar's wife, and the Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams, Jerrold was the stern guardian of his brother's morals. They were saying now that Captain Fielding had put a stop to the whole disgraceful affair; he had forced Colin to leave the Manor Farm house; and he had taken over the estate in order to keep an eye on his brother and Anne Severn.

Anne was not concerned with what they said. She felt that Jerrold and she were safe so long as she didn't know Maisie. It never struck her that Maisie would want to know her, since nobody else did.

iv

But Maisie did want to know Anne and for that reason. One day she came to Jerrold with the visiting cards.

"The Corbetts and Hawtreys have called. Shall I like them?"

"I don't know. I won't have anything to do with them."

"Why not?"

"Because of the beastly way they've behaved to Anne Severn."

"What have they done?"

"Done? They've been perfect swine. They've cut her for five years because she looked after Colin. They've said the filthiest things about her."

"What sort of things?"

"Why, that Colin was her lover."

"Oh Jerrold, how abominable. Just because she was a saint."

"Anne wouldn't care what anybody said about her. My mother left her all by herself here to take care of him and she wouldn't leave him. She thought of nothing but him."

"She must be a perfect angel."

"She is."

"But about these horrible people—what do you want me to do?"

"Do what you like."

"I don't want to know them. I'm thinking what would be best for Anne."

"You needn't worry about Anne. It isn't as if she was your friend."

"But she is if she's yours and Colin's. I mean I want her to be…. I think I'd better call on these Corbett and Hawtrey people and just show them how we care about her. Then cut them dead afterwards if they aren't decent to her. It'll be far more telling than if I began by being rude…. Only, Jerrold, how absurd—I don't know Anne. She hasn't called yet."

"She probably thinks you wouldn't want to know her."

"Do you mean because of what they've said? That's the very reason. Why, she's the only person here I do want to know. I think I fell in love with the sound of her when you first told me about her and how she took care of Colin. We must do everything we can to make up. We must have her here a lot and give her a jolly time."

He looked at her.

"Maisie, you really are rather a darling."

"I'm not. But I think Anne Severn must be…. Shall I go and see her or will you bring her?"

"I think—perhaps—I'd better bring her, first."

He spoke slowly, considering it.

Tomorrow was Sunday. He would bring her to tea, and in the evening he would walk back with her.

On Sunday afternoon he went down to the Manor Farm. He found Anne upstairs in the big sitting-room.

"Oh Jerrold, darling, I didn't think you'd come so soon."

"Maisie sent me."

"Maisie?"

For the first time in his knowledge of her Anne looked frightened.

"Yes. She wants to know you. I'm to bring you to tea."

"But—it's impossible. I can't know her. I don't want to. Can't you see how impossible it is?"

"No, I can't. It's perfectly natural. She's heard a lot about you."

"I've no doubt she has. Jerrold—do you think she guesses?"

"About you and me? Never. It's the last thing she'd think of. She's absolutely guileless."

"That makes it worse."

"You don't know," he said, "how she feels about you. She's furious with these brutes here because they've cut you. She says she'll cut them if they won't be decent to you."

"Oh, worse and worse!"

"You're afraid of her?"

"I didn't know I was. But I am. Horribly afraid."

"Really, Anne dear, there's nothing to be afraid of. She's not a bit dangerous."

"Don't you see that that makes her dangerous, her not being? You've told me a hundred times how sweet she is. Well—I don't want to see how sweet she is."

"Her sweetness doesn't matter."

"It matters to me. If I once see her, Jerrold, nothing'll ever be the same again."

"Darling, really it's the only thing you can do. Think. If you don't, can't you see how it'll give the show away? She'd wonder what on earth you meant by it. We've got to behave as if nothing had happened. This isn't behaving as if nothing had happened, is it?"

"No. You see, it has happened. Oh Jerrold, I wouldn't mind if only we could be straight about it. But it'll mean lying and lying, and I can't bear it. I'd rather go out and tell everybody and face the music."

"So would I. But we can't…. Look here, Anne. We don't care a damn what people think. You wouldn't care if we were found out to-morrow——"

"I wouldn't. It would be the best thing that could happen to us."

"To us, yes. If Maisie divorced me. Then we could marry. It would be all right for us. Not for Maisie. You do care about hurting Maisie, don't you?"

"Yes. I couldn't bear her to be hurt. If only I needn't see her."

"Darling, you must see her. You can't not. I want you to."

"Well, if you want it so awfully, I will. But I tell you it won't be the same thing, afterwards, ever."

"I shall be the same, Anne. And you."

"Me? I wonder."

He rose, smiling down at her.

"Come," he said. "Don't let's be late."

She went.

v

In the garden with Maisie, the long innocent conversation coming back and back; Maisie's sweetness haunting her, known now and remembered. Maisie walking in the garden among the wall flowers and tulips, between the clipped walls of yew, showing Anne her flowers. She stooped to lift their faces, to caress them with her little thin white fingers.

"I don't know why I'm showing you round," she said; "you know it all much better than I do."

"Oh, well, I used to come here a lot when I was little. I sort of lived here."

Maisie's eyes listened, utterly attentive.

"You knew Jerrold, then, when he was little, too?"

"Yes. He was eight when I was five."

"Do you remember what he was like?"

"Yes."

Maisie waited to see whether Anne were going on or not, but as Anne stopped dead she went on herself.

"I wish I'd known Jerry all the time like that. I wish I remembered running about and playing with him…. You were Jerrold's friend, weren't you?"

"And Elliot's and Colin's."

The lying had begun. Falsehood by implication. And to this creature of palpable truth.

"Somehow, I've always thought of you as Jerrold's most. That's what makes me feel as if you were mine, as if I'd known you quite a long time. You see, he's told me things about you."

"Has he?"

Anne's voice was as dull and flat as she could make it. If only Maisie would leave off talking about Jerrold, making her lie.

"I've wanted to know you more than anybody I've ever heard of. There are heaps of things I want to say to you." She stooped to pick the last tulip of the bunch she was gathering for Anne. "I think it was perfectly splendid of you the way you looked after Colin. And the way you've looked after Jerry's land for him."

"That was nothing. I was very glad to do it for Jerrold, but it was my job, anyway."

"Well, you've saved Colin. And you've saved the land. What's more, I believe you've saved Jerrold."

"How do you mean, 'saved' him? I didn't know he wanted saving."

"He did, rather. I mean you've made him care about the estate. He didn't care a rap about it till he came down here this last time. You've found his job for him."

"He'd have found it himself all right without me."

"I'm not so sure. We were awfully worried about him after the war. He was all at a loose end without anything to do. And dreadfully restless. We thought he'd never settle to anything again. And I was afraid he'd want to live in London."

"I don't think he'd ever do that."

"He won't now. But, you see, he used to be afraid of this place."

"I know. After his father's death."

"And he simply loves it now. I think it's because he's seen what you've done with it. I know he hadn't the smallest idea of farming it before. It's what he ought to have been doing all his life. And when you think how seedy he was when he came down here, and how fit he is now."

"I think," Anne said, "I'd better be going."

Maisie's innocence was more than she could bear.

"Jerry'll see you home. And you'll come again, won't you? Soon…. Will you take them? I gathered them for you."

"Thanks. Thanks awfully." Anne's voice came with a jerk. Her breath choked her.

Jerrold was coming down the garden walk, looking for her. She said good-bye to Maisie and turned to go with him home.

"Well," he said, "how did you and Maisie get on?"

"It was exactly what I thought it would be, only worse."

He laughed. "Worse?"

"I mean she was sweeter…. Jerrold, she makes me feel such a brute.
Such an awful brute. And if she ever knows—"

"She won't know."

When he had left her Anne flung herself down on the couch and cried.

All evening Maisie's tulips stood up in the blue-and-white Chinese bowl on the table. They had childlike, innocent faces that reproached her. Nothing would ever be the same again.