Adrienne Toner: A Novel

by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

“I do. Of course I do,” said Barney eagerly. “And I gave her your poems, long ago. She loved them. It’s your sardonic pessimism she doesn’t understand—in anyone who could have written like that when they were young. She never met anything like it before in her life. And the way you never seem to take anything seriously. It makes her dreadfully sorry for you, even while she finds it so hard to accept in anyone she cares for—because she really does so care for you, Roger”—there was a note of appeal in Barney’s voice—“and does so long to find a way out for you. It was a joke, of course; but all the same we’ve often wished you could find the right woman to marry.”

Barney, as he had done last night, grew very red again, so that it was apparent to Oldmeadow that not only the marriage but the woman—the rare, gifted girl—had been discussed between him and his wife.

“Adrienne thinks everyone ought to be married, you see,” he tried to pass it off. “Since we are so happy ourselves.”

“I see,” said Oldmeadow. “There’s another thing you must try to persuade her of: that I’m not at all un jeune homme à marier, and that if I ever seek a companion it will probably be some one like myself, some one sardonic and pessimistic. If I fixed my affections on the lovely girl, you see, it isn’t likely they’d be reciprocated.”

“Oh, but”—Barney’s eagerness again out-stepped his discretion—“wouldn’t the question of money count there, Roger? If she had plenty of money, you know, or you had; enough for both; and a place in the country? Of course, it’s all fairy-tale; but Adrienne is a fairy-tale person; material things don’t count with her at all. She waves them away and wants other people to wave them away, too. What she always says is: ‘What does my money mean unless it’s to open doors for people I love?’ She’s starting that young Besley, you know, just because of Palgrave; setting him up as editor of a little review—rotten it is, I think—but Adrienne says people must follow their own lights. And it’s just that; she’d love to open doors for you, if it could make you happy.”

Oldmeadow at this, after a moment of receptivity, began to laugh softly; but the humour of the situation grew upon him until he at last threw back his head and indulged in open and prolonged mirth. Barney watched him bashfully. “You’re not angry, I see,” he ventured. “You don’t think it most awful cheek, I mean?”

“I think it is most awful cheek; but I’m not angry; not a bit,” said Oldmeadow. “Fairy-godmothers are nothing if not cheeky; are they? Oh, I know you meant your, not her, cheek. But it’s the fault of the fairy-godmother, all the same, and you must convince her that I’m not in love with anybody, and that if ever I am she’ll have to content herself with my small earnings and a flat in Chelsea.”

So he jested; but, when his friend was gone, he realized that he was a little angry all the same and he feared that his mirth had not been able to conceal from Barney that what he really found it was confounded impudence. Barney’s face had worn, as he departed, the look of mingled gratitude and worry and Barney must feel, as well as he felt, that their interview hadn’t really cleared up anything—except his own readiness to overlook the absurdities of Barney’s wife. What became more and more clear to himself was that unless he could enable Adrienne to enroll his name on her banner she would part him from Barney and that her very benevolence was a method. The more he thought of it the more uncomfortable he felt, and his inner restlessness became at length an impulse urging him out to take counsel or, rather, seek solace, with the friend from whom Adrienne could never part him. He would go and have tea with Lydia Aldesey and with the more eagerness from the fact that he was aware of a slight dissatisfaction in regard to Lydia. She had not altogether pleased him last night. She had put herself in the wrong; she had blundered; she hadn’t behaved with the skill and tact requisite; and to elicit from her a confession of ineptitude would make his sense of solace the more secure.

The day was a very different day from the one in April when he had first gone to ask Mrs. Aldesey for information about people called Toner. It was early February, dull and cold and damp. No rain was falling, but the trees were thick with moisture and Oldmeadow had his hands deep in his pockets and the collar of his coat turned up about his ears. As he crossed the Serpentine, an electric brougham passed him, going slowly, and he had a glimpse within it, short but very vivid, of Adrienne, Meg, and Captain Hayward.

Adrienne, wearing a small arrangement of black velvet that came down over her brows, was holding Meg’s hand and, while she spoke, was looking steadily at her, her face as white as that of a Pierrot. Meg listened, gloomily it seemed, and Captain Hayward’s handsome countenance, turned for refuge towards the window, showed an extreme embarrassment.