“But,” he said, slowly, slowly, “surely she’s better by now? I only just called on the off-chance … really wanted air after the train journey more than anything else. Surely … what?”
I stared at him. What to say? You see, the sudden, white way he was staring at me made me feel terribly canny of anything I might say. Besides, one treated Napier differently.
“Better?” I repeated. “Well. …”
“But, look here,” he said, protested. … It was dark, there between the dim lodge and the night. Why on earth didn’t the man come in? “Venice and I are going south tomorrow, and I just thought I’d inquire—but, look here, I never dreamt that she. …”
I at last grasped the fact that he had known she was ill. He was the only one among us who had known she was ill. One kid had known that the other kid was ill … and had waited until, on his way south, he could conveniently come round and inquire. Well!
“You had better come in, hadn’t you?” I said. I simply couldn’t say slap-out that Iris was ill nearly to death. You couldn’t say things like that to those dark, troubled eyes. You protected Napier from your own impulses, always. A favourite not of the gods alone. …
But he still stood there in the darkness, staring at me very strangely and scowling in that funny, attractive way he had. Whenever I think of Napier I can see that Napier scowl and I can hear that involuntary “what?” he would tack on to questions.
“Look here, something’s the matter.” His voice trembled absurdly. … “Something serious. What?”
“She’s very ill,” I think I said.
“Very!” he snapped. “What? You mean … really ill? What?”
“I think so,” I said. “Yes.”
I looked into the room, avoiding those eyes. The lay sister, a pair of horn spectacles on her nose, and without a sign of interest in us, was mending the heel of a black woollen stocking, one end of which lay coiled in a black tin box. I couldn’t somehow look at Napier just then. That, you see, was the first hint I had of the thing, and though it was no more than a hint, it tore at one. The look in Napier’s eyes, I mean. The man’s heart was in his eyes. …
“Look here,” he said sharply, “I don’t understand this. What? I mean, I’d no idea it was. …”
“I don’t know anything,” I said, “except just that she’s ill.” We stared at each other.
“As ill,” I said, “as can be.”
“Oh,” he said. His eyes on me, not seeing me, he pushed past me through the doorway. And when I saw his face again, I was appalled. It was lost, abandoned, terribly unaware of everything but fear, it was enchanted by fear. He simply didn’t care but about one thing. …
“Haven’t seen her,” he said, and scowled at me. Not that he had, at that moment, the faintest idea who I was.
“Here, a cigarette,” I said.
He stared at it in his fingers. He crushed it. …
“Haven’t seen her for nearly a year,” he said in a rush, and stopped abruptly, seemed to realise me, scowled. “I say, what is it? Pneumonia or something? What?”
I fumbled. I wasn’t, I said, certain. Had only seen the doctor for a moment. Something inside, I thought, had gone wrong. …
I was immensely lost in all this. He had known she was ill—but not seriously ill, nor of what! I grabbed at one certain point of behaviour for myself. One had to. I was, anyhow, going to make no mischief. Like Guy, I would give no “gratuitous information” of any sort. For better or for worse, I wouldn’t. News of septic poisoning was obviously not for Napier, not for anyone—except for the two names on the grubby slip of paper. This septic poisoning seemed to mean only one of two things, a child or not a child. That was most utterly Iris’s business. Iris the desirous—for a child. “To be playmates with.” And I wondered, just then, if it had been another Hector-not-so-proud. “Like to have a winner once. …” I kept on hearing that slightly husky voice saying little things.
“What I mean to say is,” Napier said, with sudden astounding calm, “that this is perfectly idiotic. What? You see, I hadn’t the faintest idea. …”
But when, deceived by the calm of his voice, I looked at him, I found it better to look away again at the frowsty old lay-sister sewing away at her stocking. It was mean to look at him, he was too naked. I realised how masked we always are, how this is a world of masked men, how we are masked all day long, even on the most trivial occasions. Then I felt his hands suddenly tight around my arm. And tighter. Now what?
“I’m awfully sorry,” I said idiotically.
“Look here—I say, for God’s sake! You see, I don’t understand. What? She wrote to me weeks ago that she was going to be just slightly ill, and now. …”
The fingers dropped from my arm. “Hell!” he muttered. “Oh, hell! What?” He hadn’t the faintest idea of what he was saying. I wished to God he had, I didn’t want to listen to him, I hated listening to him, it was like spying on the man. Spying on Tristram wandering in the forest raving with love for Yseult. But what could I do? How leave him like this? How let him return to Venice like this? Good Lord, and Venice waiting in the taxi! If she saw him like this. … Good Lord, was the man mad to have brought Venice with him! Here, to see Iris! The misty impulses of a man of honour … do nothing behind his wife’s back. After, you know, having done everything. But … Good Lord, if Venice grew tired of waiting in the taxi and came and found Napier like this, like a demented knight in a story! Venice of the lion’s cub head, the mischievous, loyal eyes, dear Venice! adoring and adorable Venice! Napier’s wife. …
And, at that moment,
