The Doll Part 12

July the twenty-seventh Angel, But you are marvellous! What a brilliant idea! I should never have thought of a sick friend in Devonshire! Yes; you can rely on me to be discreet. I'll be at Paddington at a quarter to eleven.

X.

August the fifth My beloved Sweet, I haven't dared ring you up in case it should seem odd. These few days with you have been so marvellous, so utterly unspeakable. Darling, I don't know how I am going to go on as we did before.

Those wretched, hurried meetings after the hours we spent together. I'm so happy and so miserable. I'll wait at the apartment all day in case you should come.

Your own

X.

August the seventh Yesterday was heaven. What time tomorrow? I think the afternoons are safest.

X.

August the twelfth Dearest, What about suggesting your idea and seeing how it is taken? After all, if you are in the habit of going to Aix every year for this cure, why should it look strange suddenly? You can say you are tired of Aix itself and have heard of a smaller place just as good but not nearly so expensive. That is sure to go well!

You see, sweet, I could go out there about the nineteenth and you could join me a few days later. I think that would be the wisest plan.

Anyway, there's no harm in trying, and you can tell me tomorrow what happened.

See you after seven.

X.

August the fourteenth My own, To think that it will really come true that we shall be together night and day for three weeks, perhaps a month. It's too wonderful, my precious; it's like a dream out of which one will be wakened suddenly.

Tell me you are happy, too. Hours and hours of each other, and nothing to separate us. I'm never going to stop loving you for one single instant. Your very own, X August the twentieth I'm just off, sweet. I'm so excited! Three days of agony until you follow me South and then . . .

X.

September the twenty-sixth Darling, I arrived back in town about two hours ago. I can scarcely believe we've been away a month. Sometimes it seems a day; sometimes it seems a year.

Thank you for your sweet letter, darling. When am I going to see you?

X.

September the twenty-ninth My darling, It was lovely being with you all yesterday. It was almost as though we were down in the South again.

And the little inn by the river was just the same as ever, wasn't it?

Now, dearest, about our seeing each other. We must be terribly careful because if our names get coupled and people start talking, and it all came out about our being away together well, you can imagine what would happen. We had better go very slowly at first. You do understand, don't you? It's all for your sake.

X.

October the fourth Yes darling, come along if you like between six and seven, but do remember not to bring the car. Sorry about not having telephoned. I thought it safer.

X.

October the ninth Dearest, Wouldn't you rather do a theatre and dance afterwards than spend the evening here? I mean, there's always the chance of your being seen.

I've heard the new Wallace play is a thrill. What do you say? Let me know so that I can get seats.

X.

October the twelfth Sweetheart, You mustn't be so unreasonable. You don't seem to understand what the consequences would be if we were found out. I've thought it all over very carefully from every angle, and it would be hopeless quite hopeless. Life wouldn't be worth living for either of us.

You know I want to see you as much as you want to see me, but it's no use running into danger. You were in a difficult mood yesterday, and deliberately misunderstood every word I said. I don't mean to be hard, but you do see, don't you? Come for luncheon tomorrow and we'll talk over plans.

All love,

X.

October the sixteenth Sorry, darling, I was out when you telephoned, and didn't get back till late so couldn't ring you. Was your message for dinner on Thursday? I can't manage Thursday, darling. What about Friday afternoon? We might go to a picture.

Do remember to ring me up from your club and not from your house. Servants might be listening. Haven't you any sense of discretion? See you soon.

X.

October the twenty-fourth Darling, Don't you realise it would be madness to go away for the week-end? Surely we've been over that question time and time again. We've only to take a wrong turn and the whole affair is broadcast to the world. To say we did so in July is no answer to the present argument.

It's absurd to say I'm different. I'm just the same as ever. I wish you wouldn't be so feminine and unreasonable. You don't see straight at all, darling.

By the way, the price they asked for that necklace was sheer robbery. Perhaps we can find something else. I'll ring you up at the end of the week.

X.

October the twenty-ninth Isn't it rather cold for the country? Let's have luncheon Sat.u.r.day instead.

X.

October the thirty-first Here are some chrysanthemums for you. Of course I love you. But you mustn't behave in that absurd way again, darling, or I shall be very angry. I can't bear scenes. See you Monday.

X.

November the fifth Darling, I'm afraid this week is very difficult. I've got loads of things that must be done. I might be able to s.n.a.t.c.h an hour on Thursday. Keep the afternoon free.

In haste, X.

November the ninth My dear, Why must you spoil everything? I was perfectly ready to enjoy our afternoon together, and you needs must cross-question me as though you expected every word I said to be a lie.

Sometimes I don't think you have ever understood me at all. What's to be the outcome of it? Is it always to be this incessant quarrelling whenever we meet? It looks that way, doesn't it?

And why this new thing of jealousy? It's ridiculous and nerve-wracking. Can't we be friends without all this nonsense?

X.

November the thirteenth All right. Wednesday at one. But don't come to the apartment. I'll meet you at the Savoy.

X.

November the sixteenth Just a line to say I can't manage tomorrow night, after all. So sorry not to let you know before. Will ring the club tomorrow.

X.

November the eighteenth A, dear, I should be glad if you would cease spying on my movements. If I chose to spend the evening talking business with a friend it's my affair entirely. Remember this once and for all. Aren't you making yourself slightly ridiculous?

Yours,

X.

November the twentieth My dear A, I received your extremely incoherent message on the telephone but scarcely know what it is all about. I accept your apologies, but need we go into that?

About seeing you I can't definitely say when. I have so many things to see to. I will try to let you know.

X.

November the twenty-fourth Dear A, How ridiculous you are! As if I should disguise my voice on the telephone. It was the servant who answered. I was out all day. No, I'm afraid I shan't be able to see you this evening. I'll let you know when I can.

X.

November the twenty-seventh Dear A, Why not be frank with yourself and admit that it isn't because you have messages to send to Charles that you want to see me? I know only too well that it will mean another scene of reproach, more tears, more nerves.

I've had enough. Can't you realise that it's finished? I shan't be able to breathe until I get out of this over-civilised, overs.e.xed country, back to the peace and security of my plantation.

Now you know the truth.

Good-by.

X.

Telephone message sent December first to Mrs B: 'Mr X.Y.Z. sailed for China today.'

The Limpet.

No one can call me an insensitive woman. That has been my trouble. If I could harden myself to other people's feelings, life would be very different. As it is, here I am today a positive wreck, and through no fault of my own, but just because I can't bear to hurt the people I love.

What is the future to be? I ask myself the question a hundred times a day. I'm nearly forty, my looks are going, and if my health goes too which wouldn't surprise me, after all I've been through then I shall have to give up this job and live on the ridiculous alimony that I get from Kenneth. A fine outlook.

Well, there's one thing. I keep my sense of humour. My friends, the few I have, give me credit for that at least. And they say I'm plucky. They ought to see me sometimes. When I come back from work at the end of the day (and often it's after seven before I get home my boss has no tender feelings, I can tell you that much), I have my little bit of supper to get. Then there's the flat to dust and put straight the woman who comes in twice a week always leaves something in the wrong place. Coming on top of a heavy day, by this time I'm so exhausted that I just feel like throwing myself on my bed and ending it all.

Then perhaps the telephone rings, and I make the most tremendous effort to be bright. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in the looking gla.s.s sixty-five if I'm a day, with those dreary lines, and my hair's lost its colour too. As often as not it's some woman friend cancelling lunch on Sunday because she has something better to do, or my mother-in-law complaining of her bronchitis or the letter she's had from Kenneth as if that's my concern these days. The point is that none of them consider my feelings in the way I consider theirs.

I'm the one to get what Father used to call 'the thick end of the stick', and it's been like that for as long as I can remember, way back in the days when he and Mother used to squabble like cat and dog and I had to play the part of go-between. I don't pretend to have brains I never have had. Plenty of common sense when dealing with everyday matters, and I've never been sacked from a job yet I've always been the one to hand in the notice. But when it comes to asking for anything for myself, or sticking up for my own rights, as I should have done with Kenneth, then I'm quite hopeless. I just give in and say nothing. I suppose I've been more put upon in life, more used, more hurt, than anyone would credit could be possible for one lone woman. Call it fate or misfortune, call it what you will, it's true.

And it comes from being unselfish, though I say it myself. Take what happened recently. I could have married Edward any time during the past three years, but I always refused to do anything drastic, for his sake. You have a wife and a career, I used to say to him, and your duty is to put them first. Silly, I dare say. I can't think of any other woman who would have behaved in that way. But then I have my ideals, and certain things are right and certain things are wrong. I inherited that from Father.

When Kenneth left me and I'd been through h.e.l.l for six years I didn't go round complaining to all his friends. I just said we were incompatible, and his restless temperament clashed with my own more stay-at-home nature, and all that whisky drinking was not the happiest way to start a family. For a woman whose health has always been tricky he asked a lot, what with keeping him going while he had the drinking bouts, and cooking for him, and cleaning the flat, hardly able to stand myself well, I said to his friends, it seemed really wiser to let him go. I collapsed afterwards, of course. Flesh and blood could bear no more. But blame him . . . no. It's far more dignified to keep silent when one is lacerated.

The first time I realised how much people were going to depend on me in life was when Father and Mother came to me in turn about their own troubles. I was only fourteen at the time. We were living in Eastbourne. My father was in a solicitor's office, not exactly a partner in the firm, but in an important position above the head clerk, and my mother looked after the house. It was quite a nice house, standing in its own garden, not semidetached or anything of that sort, and we kept a general maid.

Being an only child, I suppose I got into the habit of listening too much to grown-up conversation. I remember so well coming back from school wearing my little gym dress with the white-flannel shirt, and carrying the ugly school hat slung on my back. I stood in the hall, pulling off my shoes outside the dining-room we used the dining-room as a living-room in winter, because the drawing-room faced north and I heard Father say, 'What are we going to say to Dilly?' Dilys is such a pretty name, too, but they always called me Dilly.

I knew at once that something was wrong, from the very tone of Father's voice and the emphasis on the 'are', as if they were in some sort of quandary. Well, any other child would either have taken no notice and forgotten about it, or walked straight in and said there and then, 'What's wrong?' I was far too sensitive for that. I stood outside the dining-room, trying to hear what my mother answered, but all I could catch was something about, 'She'll soon settle down.' Then I heard movement as if she was getting up from her chair, so I quickly ran upstairs. Something was afoot, some change, which was going to make a difference to all our lives, and from the way Mother said, 'She'll soon settle down,' it sounded as if they were doubtful how I should take it.

Now, I've never been strong, and as a child I used to catch the most appalling colds. I was at the tail end of one on that particular evening, and somehow hearing the whispered voices seemed to bring the cold back again. I had to keep blowing and blowing my nose up in that cold little bedroom of mine, so that when I went downstairs my poor eyes and nose were red and swollen, and I must have looked a miserable sight.

'Oh, Dilly,' said my mother, 'whatever's the matter? Is your cold worse?' And Father stared at me, too, in great concern.

'It's nothing,' I told them. 'I just haven't felt very well all day, and I've been working rather hard on the exams for the end of term.'

Then suddenly I couldn't stop myself I burst into tears. There was silence from Father and Mother, but they both looked very uncomfortable and worried, and I saw them exchange glances.

'You ought to be in bed, dear,' said Mother. 'Why not go up, and I'll bring you your supper on a tray?'