Anne Severn and the Fieldings Part 48

At least he could bring forward a chair for her, and put cus.h.i.+ons 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 peac.o.c.ks spread their great tails of yew. Maisie loved the peac.o.c.ks 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 relations.h.i.+p 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. n.o.body, 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."