She never saw him again.
She never heard from him again, or, for a long time, received any firm news about him. Only once, through roundabout means, through a friend who had a friend who had fought with Ronnie Dickson, she heard a story that he had last been seen drifting down a river on a raft; wounded, but in good heart. Later, a story trickled through that he had been drowned.
“So I only had him for two years,” she said, standing by the mantelpiece looking down into the fire. “Not long, but by heavens it was worth it. I don’t regret a moment of my life.”
“You’re lucky,” I said.
She looked at me and smiled. “Why? Do you?”
“Lots. Did you never think of marrying again? I mean, until recently.”
She side-stepped the reference to Bartels. She said:
“I had no wish to. I joined the WAAFs, and spent most of the war on a crag in Scotland. Hoping, of course. Watching the post every day for a Red Cross letter, or something. Suspense like that is bad. But it gives you a chance to reconcile your mind.”
“I suppose so.”
“I used to cry a good deal at night, at first, especially after I heard the rumours that he had been drowned. But that stopped, too, after a while; and then there was only a sort of dull pain left.”
“And now that’s gone, too?”
She shook her head. “No, it hasn’t. I don’t think it ever will, really. There was no disillusionment. The stardust was still sprinkled over our marriage when he died.”
“He’s all right now,” I said, after a little while. “He wouldn’t want you to go on feeling that pain.”
“Oh, I know that. But you can’t just command yourself not to feel something. When the rumours were confirmed at the end of the war, I thought: Well, this is the end. I’ve had my life, or all of it that matters. Have another whisky?”
“Thank you, I will.”
She went across to the table and filled our glasses.
“After the war, I came back here, and lived with Mother and Leslie. Then Leslie married and moved to London, and three years ago Mother died. So here I am. That’s my life to date.”
She smiled at me. I smiled back. I said:
“You know, when you come to the end of your life, I have a feeling you’ll find it has been divided into four periods: the period of youth, the period of happiness, the period of trial, and the period of renewed happiness. That’s what you’ll find. I’m sure of it.”
I wasn’t being crafty now. It hurt me to think of her pain and sadness. I would have done anything to comfort her: anything, that is, except let Bartels have her.
He never had a chance after I had made up my mind to have her. Not a cat in hell’s chance.
“You’re going through the trial period now, Lorna. But hang on. It’s only a question of hanging on. Do believe me.”
“I hope so.”
She smiled at me again. Again I smiled back, and this time I held her eyes with my own for about as long as it takes a man to draw a quick, deep breath. And that in fact is what I was doing at the sight of the beauty of Lorna’s eyes.
Then I looked away, into the fire, because a voice, the crudely tongued voice which often prompts me, was whispering in my brain: “Softee, softee, catchee bloody monkey-don’t flirt, or you’ll frighten her off; she’ll think you’re a wolf, which you often are, but never mind: softee, softee, catchee bloody monkey…”
I’m cunning with women, I’ve got a kind of knack of seeming gentle, and sympathetic, and understanding, and all that sort of thing. And to some degree I think I must be, because you can’t act those qualities successfully for long: not well enough to deceive women, who are pretty cunning themselves, if it comes to that.
This sounds conceited, but it can’t be helped. It is the truth as I see it, and I’ve got to mention it or otherwise, in view of what happened, Lorna will appear to have been a pretty poor type. Fickle. A bit of a bitch. Which she wasn’t. Like Bartels, she never had a chance, once I got going on her.
There is another side to me, too. I’m interested in everybody, and I’ve made it my business to learn how to play on them, to draw emotions and reactions from them as the bow draws the notes from a fiddle. Against the softer side of my nature, there is a calculating, ruthless, cool streak.
So now I looked away, and did not flirt. Then suddenly, I said, as though it were something which had just occurred to me:
“What about coming out for a bite of dinner? What about driving over to the Crown, at Chiddingfold? Come on, it’ll make a change for you.”
I waited for her answer, feeling tense despite my previous confidence.
“Well, I think I’d like to,” said Lorna.
When she said that, I knew she was in the bag.
But I took it easy that night.
To begin with, I was overjoyed to be dining alone with her, and it was not until we had finished dinner and were having coffee and liqueurs, seated in the bar-lounge in one of the deep settees near the fire, that we touched upon the subject of Bartels.
Indeed, it was Lorna who broached the subject, with a typically direct question:
“What is wrong with Bartels’ marriage?” she asked suddenly, and leant forward to refill the coffee cups.
“Most men would say there is nothing wrong with it,” I answered. “But there is, of course.”
“Whose fault is it?”
I hesitated. “Nobody’s,” I said at length. “Nobody’s, really.”
I had assumed that Lorna would automatically believe that Beatrice was in the wrong, but I misjudged that eminently well-balanced and fair-minded character. Perhaps I had also misjudged Bartels, for I thought he would have played the role of the husband who was not understood by his wife. Her next words showed me that this was not so.
“That’s what Barty says,” she agreed. “He says nobody is to blame, really.” She hesitated and added: “The trouble with Barty is that he is a man who depends upon emotions for his happiness, and he is married to a woman who depends upon material conditions-possessions. Both of them are good people, fundamentally.”
“That’s the tragedy.”
“Barty’s trouble is that he has never had anyone in love with him.”
“Until now,” I said, and looked at her. “You know he is very much in love with you, of course, and I assume that you are in love with him. Right?”
It is curious that both of the women in Bartels’ life were incapable of telling lies. Lorna looked at me now and said:
“I don’t know.”
“Well, for God’s sake! I thought you were both deeply in love and couldn’t do without each other.”
She stared past me into the fire. She said nothing. I listened to the low murmur of conversation from other people in the lounge and said nothing. And waited.
“The trouble is,” she said at last, “I still have my memories of Ronnie. I can’t seem to shake them off. But I am so lonely, you know. People think a woman needs to be loved and that is true, but it is not the whole truth. She also needs somebody to love.”
“Hence poodles and pekes.”
“Hence poodles and pekes. Barty loves me and needs me. I can’t quite see why, but I accept the fact. In a way, I suppose I am terribly grateful to him for loving me.”
“He thinks you’re in love with him,” I said. And when she said nothing, I said again, more slowly and distinctly:
“He thinks you’re in
She still said nothing, and I purposely did not look at her because I did not wish either to press her or to embarrass her. I was in love with her, and my heart went out to her as she tried to fathom her own feelings. I felt like saying: “Don’t bother to explain, darling, I know it all.”
