“In Bloomsbury. I am working for my living, you know.”
“I’m glad of that, but I shouldn’t have thought it necessary.”
“My father died.”
“I heard that.”
“He left nearly all his money to another woman: another family. I suppose he liked them better than us. I had a row with my mother over it. It appears she knew all about it and never minded. Only when it came to her having less money than she thought, she developed a horrid conscience and denounced my father to us. I hadn’t thought about such things, but I was fond of my father, and it wasn’t fair to vilify him after his death. I didn’t understand it in the very least, but I stood up for him, and of course I said a lot of stupid, cruel things. I went to see the other woman. She was quite old, older than mother, rather vulgar, but jolly and warm-hearted and kind, and, from the way she talked, I could see she really did love my father and was very proud of him. You know, he made his own way. His father was a barber in Rickham, in Hertfordshire. She came from there, too. I told mother I had seen her, and she was furious, and said I was too young to know anything about such things. I pointed out that she had told me, and she declared she never imagined that I would understand. Then she put it all down to my taste for low company, meaning you. That annoyed me, and I told her you were a very learned and brilliant person. She said Thrigsby wasn’t a real university, and its degrees did not count. You weren’t a gentleman, and it was terrible how all the professions were being invaded by little whipper-snappers with a thin coating of book knowledge. So I asked her point-blank why she married my father, and she said he was extremely successful. Father had left us each two hundred pounds. I asked for that, and said I would earn my own living. I should have a year in which to look round. She said no one would ever marry me if I worked. I told her that the little I had learned of her life didn’t make me anxious to be married. She became very solemn on that, and told me I couldn’t possibly remain unmarried, because I was too pretty. I said I thought women could look after themselves, and obviously other arrangements were possible, and sometimes more profitable. That was an odious thing to say, but we had irritated each other out of all decency, and for vulgarity the other woman was an angel to us. I couldn’t stay with my mother; I had said too much. She knew if I stayed it would make it hard for her to play the devoted widow; and also, if she could be the broken-hearted parent, it would give her a good start. She pounced on that, and let me go with her most lugubrious blessing and most ghoulish doubts. She prophesied almost gleefully that I would go to the bad, and helped me along by treating me as if I had already done so. Then I plunged into the wicked world. It was very disappointing. I had been led to suppose that no woman was safe alone. The wicked world has absolutely disregarded me. Occasionally some miserable little man or pale-faced boy has sidled up to me in the street and said, ‘Excuse me, miss’—or ‘Haven’t we met before?’ They don’t alarm me. I say I won’t excuse them or that I haven’t met them, and they look very comically cast down, and say ‘Beg pardon’ and shuffle off. Sometimes I am so sorry for them that I feel inclined to run after them and tell them to cheer up, because it’s quite easy to find affection if you only set about it the right way. They think it’s adventure they want, but it isn’t. It’s only affection, some sort of human contact. I understood that, because I too was lonely. But those poor little men were so dull. I can’t bear being dull, and I hate to see it in others; I hate to see them settling down to it. That’s what mother wanted me to do. I might have done it, too, if father hadn’t died. You know it seems quite pleasant to flirt and spend money, and find a husband and go on flirting and spending money. I’d never seen anyone die before, and it did make me feel ashamed. All of us were changed by it for a little. We became very shy of each other, and wanted to be nice, and began to talk about the things we really thought and felt inside ourselves. Then all that slipped away, and we were just the same as before until we talked about father’s money, and then we were all angry. I suppose I hadn’t quite recovered from the strain of his death, because all that hurt me, and I could only think that I had really loved him, and might have loved him much more if things had been somehow different. And then when I saw that kind, common woman it opened up another kind of life going on apart from money and position and amusement, all the things we were so proud of. It horrified me at first, of course. It is dreadful because it is secret. In itself— Well, anyhow, the only other thing in my life that was the least bit like it and could stand against it was my absurd little affair with you in Scotland. So you see, I had begun to think of you even before Rachel met you.”
“Absurd!” René winced at the word.
“Wasn’t it? I couldn’t have gone on with it, you know. It made me feel so helpless, and I felt so mean, letting you care so much. Your letters used to frighten me.”
“But you cared for me?”
“Yes, yes; with one eye on you and the other on my mother.”
René thought that over uneasily. He was disconcerted by this cool young woman. The enchantment of their meeting had roused and invigorated him, and, as usual, he had surrendered to the emotional flux of the encounter and was prepared for wonders, which, as usual, did not come, or, at least, were not palpable. His eyes never left her face. It was lit with a smile of happiness, an incommunicable joy.