as claudia was waiting for the lift in their block of flats half an hour later fritz neeburg came running down the stairs.
“ah! mrs. currey, you’re back early from your dinner-party.” claudia was a little impatient of fritz neeburg because of a certain german stolidity and lack of imagination, but he was what she called “a learned beast,” and a very loyal and kindly friend to both of them. he had lately given up practising as a medical man and devoted himself to research work in connection with nervous troubles affecting the brain.
“dinner-parties have such a family resemblance, haven’t they? i was bored.”
he nodded, noting the brilliancy of her eyes and wondering what had caused the excitement in their depths. she looked more highly strung than usual to-night, but it seemed a happy excitement. it might have been the anticipative joy of a woman going to her lover.
“gilbert and i had some dinner—rather late—and we’ve been yarning ever since.”
claudia raised her eyebrows. “i thought gilbert was detained at his chambers.”
neeburg caught a glint in her eyes that made him apprehensive that he had said the wrong thing. “oh!” he added hastily, “it was nearly nine before he rang me up. as it happened i was also late and hadn’t fed.”
claudia’s lips curved into a smile, a smile that puzzled[131] him. it was a smile, the lips had even parted, showing her rather small white teeth, but he felt that it was the wrong kind of smile. it seemed to have an edge to it somehow. he wondered if he had put his foot in it as he watched her ascend in the lift. gilbert had told him that he had “got out of a stupid dinner-party ... a woman likes those sort of things ... her province, you know....” fritz neeburg was a bachelor and knew little of women, either by experience or temperament, but he realized that it was not a real smile of genuine amusement. he felt vaguely that it was like the early bloom of a peach which masks the hidden acidity. then he recalled that claudia lately had not been half so gay and spontaneously happy as in the early months of her marriage.
gilbert came out of the study at the sound of her entrance. she saw at once that he was in a good temper and unusually genial. he was in the humour to stay up a little longer and chat, for he had just worsted fritz in an argument over the home rule bill, and gilbert always liked to hold his own, even on his own hearthrug.
“hallo, claudia! you’re back then. there’s a nice fire in here. pretty cold outside, isn’t it?”
she followed him into the library without any reply, but he did not notice her silence, nor did he look at her, except casually. he was a man who would buy a beautiful picture, look admiringly at it once, hang it on his walls and then never notice it again.
a big leather chair invited her to sit down, but she stood by the oaken mantelpiece. gilbert had commenced to put away several reference books that he had got out to convince neeburg, for gilbert was always great on figures and statistics.
“tough fighter, old fritz, but of course you can’t expect a german, even if he has lived over here all his life, to understand english politics. of course, he knows his own subjects and——”
[132]
“gilbert, you and neeburg dined together to-night?”
“yes,” he said, faintly surprised. “did you see him?” for the moment he had forgotten his broken engagement with the rivingtons. he had a wonderful habit, which had helped to make him what he was, of settling a point and then automatically forgetting all about it. then his wife’s toilette caught his eye and he remembered. where had claudia been? oh, yes! “it would have been an awful rush to have got back in time to dress and go out to hampstead, and i didn’t feel a bit like it. how is the old general?”
his back was towards her, busy with the bookcase. she looked at it coldly, critically.
“couldn’t you have made a little effort in order that i shouldn’t have had to go all that way alone?” she herself made a great one to speak calmly and pleasantly. the echoes of ich liebe dich were still faintly in her ears, and if he would only turn and take her in his arms, and say, “look, old girl, i’m sorry. i know i’m a social shirker, but i forgot you would have to go alone,” she was ready to return the pressure of his arms. women can exist on very little love, very few caresses from the man they care for, and claudia was in the mood to make every allowance for him.
he answered her rather mechanically, trying to find the correct place for the volume.
“oh, well! you like dinner-parties, and it’s not so far in the motor. it’s not the day of the horse-brougham.... you are my social shop-window, and”—with blunt humour—“it’s very nicely dressed. i wonder where that book of burke’s has got to? besides i wanted to get hold of fritz, i wanted his opinion on a case.”
“you particularly asked me to accept this invitation as the general is an old friend of your family.”
“well, it does just as well if you go,” he said imperturbably, mixing himself a whiskey and soda. “they understand how busy i am.”
[133]
“suppose—i don’t understand.” her lips were compressed until the soft curves had disappeared, and the determination and independence of the chin were emphasized. he looked up from the syphon in surprise at her tone.
“were they awfully annoyed at my not turning up? i suppose mrs. rivington scratched a little.”
“i am not concerned with the rivingtons. i am talking of myself, of my feelings on the subject.” she was beginning to speak a little more quickly now. the cold, abstracted look in his eyes stung her. he could not even realize that she was hurt and angry. “i am not here merely as your social shop-window, as you call it. i am not here merely as your hausfrau, to order your food and entertain and visit your friends. that is the way in which you have lately been regarding me.... do you realize how often i have to go out in the evening alone?”
“i’m sorry, but my work——”
“you could have got away quite easily to-night. i’m not a fool, gilbert, don’t underrate my intelligence. if you had said to me in the first place, ‘tell the rivingtons we are engaged for that day,’ and then spent the evening quietly at home with me, i should have been perfectly content. but i will not be used.”
“my dear girl——”
perhaps there is nothing an angry woman dislikes more at certain stages of an argument than that preface.
“couldn’t you even have come out to fetch me?” she went on. “you see hardly anything of me, and we might have had a good talk on the way home. don’t you want to see anything of me?”
“why of course. come, claudia, do be reasonable. we are having a talk now, and it might be a pleasant one, if you are not so fiery. you are always getting so excited over things.”
“i came home early because——” she remembered the impulse that had made her leave the company, and[134] she laughed. love? was love this cold, indifferent, methodical thing? was she to be content with this tantalizing imitation? her eyes flashed defiantly and she flung back her head. picking up a cigarette out of the box, she sat down and lighted it. her excitement had suddenly evaporated in that laugh like an exhaust-valve relieving steam pressure. it was the rather critical repressed woman of the world who next spoke to him.
“we don’t see much of one another nowadays, do we?” she said, looking at him through the smoke.
“later on i shall have more time, i hope,” he replied, placidly accepting her cessation of unreasonableness. he never worried over women’s moods. if you left them alone, he argued, they evaporated.
“later on, we shall both be middle-aged,” said claudia calmly. “later on the gods will jeer at us and ask us what we have done with our youth. they always ask that question sooner or later of everyone. they always bring you to account, and sometimes the balance is on one side and sometimes on the other. i wonder how you and i will be able to answer that question?”
“oh! i’m not going to get old yet,” he smiled. “anyone would think we were on the verge of decrepitude.”
“i am not sure you have ever been young.” she leaned her chin on her hand and looked at him. somehow the face of frank hamilton ranged itself beside it to-night. a weaker face, yes, but it seemed to her that there was real youth in the passionate eyes, real sentiment in his deep voice, a joie de vivre in his whole being which called to her like the gleam of snow to the arctic explorer. was it the strong men of the world who made women happy? was not the strong man always self-centered, egoistic, taking all and giving nothing? should a woman ask for too much strength in the man she loved?
gilbert listened to her indulgently. it was just one of claudia’s odd moods. his marriage had been quite successful,[135] and therefore so had hers. he knew that she was very popular and that invitations to their house were eagerly coveted. after what his mother said, he would have hated that the marriage should have been a failure, and he had accepted as fuel to his pride his mother’s remark after a dinner-party which they had given and at which claudia had entertained the prune minister, the lord chief justice and other well-known people. “claudia makes an excellent hostess. after all, there is something to be said for your marriage. the iversons have always had plenty of savoir faire.” it was said a little grudgingly, for lady currey still did not like claudia. there was nothing to disapprove of so far, but she was always waiting for something.
“i am not sure that you ever were young,” repeated claudia. “i don’t believe you ever had a freakish, irresponsible mood. i remember pat saying once, on a beautiful spring morning, that it made her feel as if she’d like to turn somersaults on the grass and yell like a wild indian every time she came right side up! you never felt like that, did you?”
“but i’m neither a wild indian nor a dog,” said gilbert, trying to stifle a yawn. he had felt stimulated while arguing with neeburg, and had forgotten he was tired. now the yawns were threatening to descend upon him and he began to feel drowsy. but a glance at claudia showed him that she was wide awake. she had what her brother called “her brainy look.”
he had resolutely tried to ignore claudia’s changing and complex moods from the very beginning of their married life. on their honeymoon he had stopped her speculations and questions with kisses. his treatment was clearly right. claudia had been far less imaginative and introspective in her talk lately. this idea of trying to understand women was all nonsense. he had unconsciously shaped his treatment of women on some words of his father’s à propos of some news he once brought[136] him about a neighbour’s wife who had eloped with another man on the plea that her husband did not “understand her.” “he’s well rid of her,” said his father contemptuously. “there’s nothing to understand in women. don’t be misled by any of this modern novelist’s jargon, my boy. women always have suffered from the megrims, and they always will. in one century they are called the ‘vapours,’ in another ‘moods,’ but they are megrims all the same, caused by physical weakness and disabilities and lack of self-control. more harm has been done by humouring women and taking their megrims seriously than will ever be known. it’s responsible for this ‘votes for women’ movement, and, mark my words, if women are not kept in their proper place, megrims may ruin the nation!”
“after all,” said gilbert, “it depends on what you mean by youth. i suppose the dictionary would define it as the state of being young, but it is conceivable that one might improve on that. i was once in the state of being young, you know, because my mother has some of my first teeth!”
claudia pondered a minute, twisting an old french marquise ring round and round her little finger. “i should think,” she said slowly, “it’s the ability to notice and enjoy all the pleasures of the wayside. yes, that’s somewhere near it. the man who enjoys life is the one who saunters along, admiring the flowers in the hedgerows, sniffing the different perfumes, watching the insects and the birds, filling his lungs with the good fresh air. the man who doesn’t know how to enjoy life is the one who rushes across country in the fastest touring car he can buy.”
gilbert rose and looked at the clock. “lots of weeds and undesirable tramps by the wayside,” he responded dryly.
“weeds and tramps are part of life. to enjoy every minute of life you must waste a few.”
[137]
“well, i wish i had a chance to waste some.... bed, claudia. i am sure no one would ever think you missed your beauty-sleep, but i fear you often do.” he turned towards the door, but she recalled him.
“gilbert!”
“yes?”
“are we always going to live like this? this is the first opportunity we have had for a talk for—oh! weeks! when we have people here, you always fall into bed the moment the last guest goes; when we do go out together we just have a few minutes in the car on the way home. gilbert, i——” having got so far she hesitated and cast a quick, appealing look at him. he came a little nearer.
“is there anything you particularly want to say to me?” he said, uncomprehending, but noticing the convulsive rise and fall of her white bosom under its laces and pearls. what had upset her?
“gilbert, other men find me attractive ... other men like my company ... you realize that, don’t you?” she said, with unexpected directness.
he raised his eyebrows, and then they met in a frown. he found her words in bad taste, which was not usual with claudia.
“i quite appreciate that my wife is admired by other——”
“yes, but i am your wife. somehow—to-night—i feel i must speak plainly and tell you—that i am not satisfied with the crumbs that fall from the legislative table. once, before we were married, i warned you that such scraps would not satisfy me. i want more. any woman, unless she were as cold as a stone and had only married you for her own ends, would want more. why, we are hardly friends even! oh, i don’t want to know the details of your work, but you never discuss anything with me. i am as lonely as i was before i married you.... i thought i was entering a land of plenty. you made me think so. i knew i should never be content[138] with a conventional marriage.” she caught her breath for a moment. “yes, i remember my very words to you—‘love is the only convention that i own.’ have you forgotten?... if you value me and my love, think over what i have said and look where we have drifted, gilbert. i daresay you haven’t noticed—that is the worst part of it all—that we have drifted at all. perhaps you think that we stand where we did eighteen months ago.... we none of us ever stand still even for a single day and there’s a pretty strong current that catches restless, unsatisfied women nowadays. and—i am not satisfied, i am not satisfied.”
with a sudden abrupt movement, so foreign to her that it showed how much she had been keeping herself in leash, she went out and closed the door behind her.
he stood where she had left him, a look of annoyed surprise upon his face. it was a real shock to him, and a disagreeable one. he preferred to think that claudia was quite satisfied with their marriage. she had never before complained of any specific thing. she did not now. he told himself irritably that he wished she would, it would make it so much easier to give her what she wanted. the worst of women was that they were so vague in their demands and their complaints. men can usually put down in black and white what they want; women never. he loved her, she was his wife, she shared his honor and the brilliant prospects for the future. what more did she want? why did women talk in such an exaggerated way nowadays? surely it was her fault if she were not satisfied? he had never pretended to any paolo or romeo-like passion; he had given her instead a much more useful commodity in the twentieth century—the good, honest heart of a real man, instead of the mawkish sentiment of an unbusiness-like poet. he had never run after other women as did so many of the men he knew. of course, claudia might say he had not had the time to do so, which was true. but[139] probably he could have made some time if he had wanted to amuse himself. it was true that he had not wanted to make love to any woman. after he had indulged his natural passions in marrying claudia, women had dropped into the background again. even the desultory emotions which used to stir within him had not agitated him. he could have lived a virtuous bachelor life with the greatest of ease.
claudia had dropped her gloves on the hearthrug and left a soft, cloudy chiffon scarf on the leathern armchair. with the sense of tidiness and order that characterized him, he picked them up.
did women know what they wanted nowadays? was it not the signs of the mental inflammation of the times?
perhaps it was the scent from the scarf—claudia used some delicate, haunting perfume—that caused an idea to strike him, a very mundane masculine idea, but still it had the grace of at least a faint touch of imagination. the perfume revived memories.... there was that night at fyvie castle on their honeymoon, when they had watched the moon shining on the loch from her window, he remembered the sweetness of her body nestling against him on the old window-seat ... once he had awakened with that perfume in his nostrils and found her arms around his neck.... it had been playtime then, but women were only children masquerading as grown-ups. had he found the key to her queer speech? was that what she had meant? yes, in that way he had been very neglectful the last few months and married women had a right.... he recalled that she had sometimes looked rather wistfully at him when he kissed her good-night outside her door.... oh, yes! that was the trouble. how stupid of him!
he stopped to put away a few papers and then, ten minutes later, he knocked at the door which divided their rooms.
[140]
he waited, but there was no answer. he gently tried the handle. the door was locked.
he listened intently and he thought he heard a sound like a sob strangled in a pillow.
“claudia, claudia, may i come in?”
now there was no sound at all.
“claudia, i want to talk to you. open the door.”
but still no movement in the room or any sign that she had heard him, though he felt sure she must have done so.
then, with a shrug of his shoulders and a compression of his lips that made him very like his father, he turned away.
two minutes later he was fast asleep. his father was right, was his last reflection. there was no good trying to understand women.
