“Well, Sir—it’s rather difficult to describe. A middle-aged lady I should say, white hair, tall—dressed almost in county clothes if you will. A very pleasant-speaking voice.”
“Oh! Lord. Pour me out a drink and show her in.”
He lit a cigarette, and tried to remember the second bar of the tune that was haunting him.
Why are you so mean to me?
Why are you … ?
He had forgotten all about the woman, until the door closed suddenly, and she was standing there before him. She laughed at him, holding out her hands.
“You haven’t changed at all, have you?”
He saw someone with a mass of thick white hair under an ugly hat, someone with a bronzed, rather weather-beaten face. Her eyes were blue, and she was nice when she smiled. Her clothes were all wrong though, her ankles thick. She obviously did not care about these things. He started back in surprise, pretending to be overwhelmed with joy and astonishment.
Of course he had no idea who she was. “My dear,” he began, “but this is too marvellous. Why on earth didn’t you tell me you were in front?”
It seemed as though she could not move away from the doorway, but must stand there watching him, feeling his eyes with hers, uncertain of the truth of his words.
“I didn’t think you’d recognise me,” she began, “I was certain you wouldn’t have the remotest idea who I was. What is it—nearly thirty years? Think of all that’s happened since, so much and so much …”
“But you’re talking nonsense,” he interrupted, “course I knew you the moment you came into the room.”
He racked his memory for some light out of the past. Who on earth could she be? Mrs. John Pearce …
She loosened the scarf round her throat, and sat down on the edge of the sofa. “This is the first time I’ve ever been brave enough to come round,” she said. “I’ve wanted to so often, but something always prevented me, a sort of silly pride. A feeling you wouldn’t know me, wouldn’t remember. I come and see all your plays, you know. I’m still sentimental enough to cut out your notices and paste them in a book!”
She laughed at him, shaking her head. He made a little noise in his throat to save him the necessity of words. “You see, I live right down in the country now,” she went on. “It’s quite an expedition to come up to London. When I do, about twice a year, I make a point of seeing you act. I don’t know what it is, but the years don’t make any difference to you. To me, a tired middle-aged woman in the stalls, you are always the boy I knew, funny, excited, with his hair rumpled. That’s being a sentimentalist, isn’t it? Can I have a cigarette?”
She reached out for the box on the table. He wondered why she gave him no clue to her personality, and why she did not even bother to mention the names of people or of places. Apparently they must have known each other absurdly well. Bronzed face, white hair, Mrs. John Pearce.
“Let’s see,” he threw his question into the air, “let’s see, how long is it really since I saw you last?”
She watched his expression with grave eyes. “I said thirty years just now, but maybe it’s a little less,” she answered. “Time is such a ridiculous thing. Do you know I’ve only got to relax, and throw my mind back, and I can hear the sound of your cab starting, and you driving away in it, hot and furious, with me lying on my bed imagining that nobody ever got over a broken heart.”
Oh! so they had been as intimate as that? Angry words—tears—and now he couldn’t remember her at all …
“I must have behaved like a swine,” he said angrily. “I can’t understand how we ever came to quarrel.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “You don’t mean to say you’ve thought it was because of a quarrel?” she asked him. “But we never had rows, you and I. You must remember that.”
“No. No, of course not.” He joined in her laugh, wondering whether she had noticed his slip. “I know we were the most wonderful friends in every way,” he continued.
She sat silent for a minute, considering the matter, her head on one side. “That’s where you’re wrong,” she told him, “it’s because we never struck a proper basis of friendship that the whole thing finished. I think we were too young to have any judgment—too young and too selfish. No sense of values. We were like greedy children who make themselves sick with overeating.”
He agreed solemnly, watching her over the rim of his glass. So this had been a passionate affair. Thirty years ago—he cast his mind back in vain. He had an uneasy feeling that he had behaved badly to this white-haired woman who sat before him. In a moment he was acquitted though.
“I shall never regret it,” she said suddenly, “never one second. Being in love—terribly in love—is the best thing in the world, don’t you think? The only moment I have sometimes regretted was sending you away as I did. We might have gone on being happy.”
Then it had not been his fault after all. Presumably he had gone from her brokenhearted. It was all rather touching. Why had he such an appalling memory? He was ready to cry over his youthful tragedy.
“I nearly blew my brains out at the time,” he said bitterly. “I suppose you never cared for one moment how it would affect me. I felt as if there was nothing to live for—nothing in life to hold on to.”
“I guessed it would be hard at first,” she smiled, “but look—you soon got over it.”
He was certain he had taken months in getting over it. For all he knew this woman had blasted his whole outlook thirty years ago.
They had obviously been passionately in love
