Celia had left her gloves and her library book in the doctor’s waiting room. She went back to fetch them after the consultation. The woman with the little boy was no longer there. She must have been going to see one of the other doctors, whose names were written on the brass plates of the front door. A man was sitting at the table instead, glancing through the pages of the Sphere. His face was gray and haggard. Perhaps he is very ill, thought Celia, perhaps he is going to be told something far worse than I was told. That is why he does not really read the pages of the Sphere, but flicks them over, two by two, with a queer impatient gesture. And none of the people who come to this room know why the others suffer. Or what they think. Or why they come. She picked up her gloves from the table, and her library book, and left the room. The secretary-receptionist stood in a white coat by the open front door. “It has turned colder,” she said.
“Yes,” said Celia.
“A treacherous time of year,” said the secretary. “Good afternoon.”
The front door slammed. Celia walked down the steps, and turned to the left up Harley Street. It was colder, as the woman said. The wind came in little gusts. It was a day to be inside somewhere, cosseted and loved; by a warm fireside, with the clatter of friendly cups and saucers, a sleepy cat licking its paws, a cyclamen in a pot on a windowsill putting forth new buds.
“Well, what happened? Put your feet up, tell me everything.” But one had not got that sort of friend. She turned down Wigmore Street towards the Times Book Club. Fibroids. Lots of women had fibroids. It was quite a common thing. The operation nowadays, as the doctor said, was nothing out of the ordinary. She would be much better after it, she would not know herself. Take it easy at first, a few weeks’ rest, and then ready for anything. No, she was not scared at all of the operation. Just the knowledge that she would never be able to have children. It was so foolish, so idiotic to mind. There was no question of her getting married, she was not in love, never had been in love, and she was not likely to meet anyone now; nor did she want to fall in love, nor had she any desire to marry.
“Were you contemplating marriage?” the doctor asked.
“No, oh, no.”
“Well, then, you have nobody but yourself to consider?”
“No one at all.”
“Your general health is very good, you know. And I assure you there is nothing whatever to worry about. I’d be frank and tell you if there was.”
“I’m not worried. Truly.”
“All right. Splendid. Then it’s just a question of fixing the time and the place. And the surgeon.”
No children, though. Never. No possibility, once one had the operation. Today one was a woman, capable of bearing children. But not in a few weeks’ time… In a few weeks’ time one would be a sort of shell. No more than a shell. That woman there, walking ahead of Celia along Wigmore Street, she may have had the operation, too. She looked heavy, set. On the other hand, she might be married with several children. So it would not matter. She had the look of a married woman. A stolid vicar’s wife, up from the country. She was hesitating now; she crossed the road to Debenham’s, and stared into a window. She made up her mind, she went inside. One would never know whether the woman has had the operation that one must have oneself.
Celia pushed through the swing-door of the Times Book Club, and walked upstairs to the library. She went to the table of her initial letter. The usual girl was in her place. The one with platinum hair.
“Good afternoon, Miss Delaney.”
“Good afternoon.”
And suddenly Celia had an impulse to tell the girl about the operation. To say, “I have got to have my insides out, which means I can never have children.” What would the platinum girl say? Would she say, “Oh, dear, I am so sorry,” and her expression of sympathy bring a warmth to the heart, so that one could walk out of the Times Book Club, happier, more reconciled? Or would she stare in embarrassment and, glancing down at the finger on Celia’s hand, see that Celia was not married? So that it could not matter? So why should Celia care?
“I have that biography you were asking for, Miss Delaney.”
“Oh, thank you.” But Celia did not feel like a biography. “You haven’t any short stories? Good ones, that are easy just to pick up and put down again?”
Idiotic phrase. What did she mean? She meant what the man was doing to the Sphere in the waiting room in Harley Street.
“Nothing much, I’m afraid, in the way of short stories. But there’s a nice bright new novel out, a first novel, that has had very good reviews.”
“Can I see?”
The platinum girl handed the novel up over the desk.
“Is it light?”
“Oh, yes, quite light. Very easy reading.”
“Very well. I’ll take it.”
The novel was published by the firm of which Mr. Harrison was managing director. The novel was written by some woman who had the time to write. She had signed a contract, honored it, lived up to it. Unlike Celia. If Celia had only applied herself, if there had not been Pappy to nurse, if there had not been the war, there would be people coming up to the table here and saying to the platinum girl, “Any new stories out by Celia Delaney?” It was only a question of going back to the rooms in Hampstead, of sitting down, of making time. No amount of operations could prevent her doing that. A sick person could always think. A sick person could scribble in bed. Prop up a drawing board in bed.
“Would you like to take the biography too? I kept it especially for you.”
“All right, thank you. All right, I will.”
The biography and the new light novel were handed together over the table.
“I saw your sister’s play the other night.”
“Did you? Did you like it?”
“I didn’t think much of the play, but I loved her. She is wonderful, isn’t she? Not a bit alike, are you?”
“No. No, we aren’t really. You see, we are only half-sisters.”
“Oh, that accounts for it perhaps. Well, I would go and see her again, any day. And so would my boyfriend. He was mad about her. I was quite jealous!”
The platinum girl had a ring on her finger. Celia noticed it for the first time.
“I did not know you were engaged.”
“Yes. Been engaged for nearly a year. Going to be married at Easter. The library won’t see me anymore after that.”
“Have you got a house?”
“Yes, of course.”
But Celia could not go on talking to the platinum girl because some man in a bowler hat and glasses who had been getting impatient pushed forward with his library book, and there was someone else, waiting behind him.
“Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon.”
Down the stairs of the library, and out across the street, and the gusty wind colder than ever, blowing down the back of her neck. It was true then that personal, selfish anxiety swamped every other feeling. The visit to Harley Street had colored the day. Not once since leaving the consulting room had Celia thought about Maria.
“You’re not a bit alike, are you?”
“No. No, we are only half-sisters.”
But we must be alike, because we both have Pappy’s blood in our veins. We have his strength, his vigor, his tenacity to life. At least, Maria has. That was why she stood for one moment only, looking at Charles across the table, with those frightened eyes. One moment only. Then she pulled herself together and said: “How stupid of me. I’m so sorry. I ought to have known. Who is it, by the way?”
And when Charles told her, Maria answered, “Oh! Oh, her… Yes, I see. There couldn’t really be anybody else, could there? I mean, not living quietly as you do, down here.”
After which, she began to clear away the coffee cups as Polly might have done. No one knew what she was thinking about, or what went on, inside. Niall got up then, and went out of the room; he did not say good night to anyone. Celia helped Maria with the remaining plates. Charles went on smoking his cigar. And Celia thought that if words could be taken back and swallowed, if the hands of the clock could be turned and moved backwards to the morning hours, if the day could begin again and all of them have one more chance, then none of that need have happened. Charles would not have gone out for his walk and taken his decision. He would not have spoken down the telephone. The day would have ended in another fashion. “Is there anything I can do?” she had said to Maria, putting the cups and saucers on the sideboard. Her voice an undertone, as when someone was ill, with a temperature; the same urgent need to help the person in pain, to fetch hot milk, water bottles, blankets.
“You? No, darling, nothing.”
Maria, who never cleared away but left the debris for other people, took the tray through the door into the pantry. Maria, who never called Celia darling, only Niall, smiled over her shoulder, and was gone. Then Celia had done the unforgivable. She had meddled. She had turned back into the dining room to speak to Charles.
“Please don’t make this final,” she had said. “I know things have not been easy for you, ever. But you knew that when you married Maria, didn’t you? You knew her life could never be quite the same as yours. And then the war. The war did fearful things to so many people. Please, Charles, don’t break everything up. Think of the children.”
It was useless, though. It was talking to a man one had never really known. A man whose life, whose thoughts, whose actions were things one could not claim to understand.
“I must ask you, Celia,” he said, “not to interfere. It is really no concern of yours, is it?”
No, it was no concern of hers. The marriage of Maria, the children, the house where she had stayed, the home she had so often shared. No concern at all. They did not need her help. Maria would face the future on her own. There was nothing Celia could do. Nothing at all. And going back to London the next day, by the usual train, was somehow like going back to the house in St. John’s Wood after Pappy died. There was the same sense of aftermath. A moment in time had ended. Somewhere, in the deep earth, a body lay buried. A life.
The children, from the drive, had waved farewell. “See you next weekend.” But Celia would never go again. Not now.
Here she was, she thought, crossing Vere Street into the back entrance of Marshall’s, shaken out of security because of fibroids and the threat of operation, while Maria had to face the destruction of married life. Celia was mourning the loss of children never born, while Maria would lose children who really lived. That was what divorce would mean. Charles, though technically the guilty party, would want to have the children. The children belonged to Farthings, to Coldhammer. Visits to the flat, yes. The excursion to the theater. To see Mummy act. But not often. The visits less and less. And it was so much nicer living in the country, with Daddy, and Polly, and what would they call the new mother? By her Christian name, in all probability. That was the modern way. Everyone would settle down. Everyone would jog along.
“Hi. Has anyone sent Auntie Celia a Christmas present?”
“No. Oh! Must we? I mean, we needn’t, need we, now?”
“We never see her. Why should we?”
Someone prodded Celia in the back, and she moved on, apologizing. It was very full in Marshall’s. She had been blocking the gangway, by the steps going down into the haberdashery. She could not remember what it was she had come to buy. Was it some shoes? Yes, it was shoes. But the shoe department was already full of people. And women were sitting about on chairs with sad, despondent faces, and useless stockinged feet, waiting for their turn.
“I’m sorry, madam. We’re very busy this afternoon. Come back later.”
On again then, moving with the throng towards the lift. Upstairs. Had any of these women had the operation? That woman there, with the ugly hat, her mauve lips clashing with the trimming, had she got fibroids? Even if she had, it did not matter. That broad band on her ungloved hand proclaimed her married. She probably had a little boy at school in Sunningdale.
“I’m going down to see David on Saturday.”
“What fun. A picnic lunch?”
“Yes, if it is fine. Then football afterwards. David’s playing.” The woman stepped out of the lift, and went towards the underwear.
“Going up? Going up? Anymore going up, please?”
One may as well go somewhere. One may as well wander through Marshall’s because there was something depressing in the thought of getting into the Bond Street Tube, and changing at Tottenham Court Road for the Edgware line to Hampstead, and then walking home to empty rooms.
Baby linen. Cots. Pram covers. Little lawn frocks with smocking on them. Rattles. She remembered coming here with Maria before Caroline was born. Maria had ordered a complete layette, and put it down to Lady Wyndham.
“She can pay for everything,” said Maria, “except the pram. I shall make Pappy give me the pram.”
Celia had chosen a large blue shawl. She had changed it afterwards for pink, Caroline being a girl. There was a shawl on the counter now, not such good quality though, nowadays. She fingered the shawl, her mind with Caroline, at school. What would happen to Caroline?
“Are you looking for shawls, madam? This has just come in. They get snapped up very easily. The demand is so great.”
“Is it?”
“Oh, yes, madam. We have not had this quality since before the war. Was it for a first baby, madam?”
“No. Oh, no… I was only looking.”
The woman’s interest waned. Celia moved away. Not for a first baby. Not for any baby. No pram rugs, smocks, or rattles. What would the woman say if Celia looked into her bored gray eyes and said, “I have got fibroids. I can’t ever have a baby.” Would she summon a tag-end of courtesy and answer back, “I’m very sorry, madam, I’m sure.” Or would she look startled, and whisper to the assistant further down the counter, and the assistant call for the head of the department. “We are afraid there is a lady here, not very well.” Better, for all concerned, to move away.
“Going up, please.”
Why had Niall driven away on Sunday night, without saying good-bye to anyone? Why had he just got into his car, and gone?
“You’re not very alike, are you?”
“No. No, he’s only my half-brother.”
But we must be alike, because we both have Mama’s blood in our veins. Mama’s singleness of purpose, her concentration, her love of solitude. At least, Niall had. That was why Niall had left Farthings Sunday night and driven to the sea, probably, to his boat; so that the things that hurt, the people he loved, should not come between him and his music. So that he could be by himself, with the sounds in his head, untouched, uninterrupted; in the same way that Mama had danced alone. Was that why he had gone? Or was it because he thought, “This is my fault. This is all our faults. The three of us have murdered Charles.”
Ladies’ Restroom. On The Left… That was thoughtful of the people in control of Marshall’s. There must be so many women like herself with fibroids. With a slight headache. With tired feet. With a little nagging pain. And there they were, sitting on chairs around the wall, for all the world as if they were back again in the doctor’s consulting room. Women with parcels. Women without parcels.
Two with heads together, chattering. Happy enough. They did not mind. Fibroids were nothing. One woman sat at a table, writing swiftly, on sheet after sheet of notepaper. “My own darling, this is to tell you that the thing we feared is true. I shall have to have the operation. I know what this will mean in both our lives…”
Well, at least that was something she was spared. One did not have to go home to write a letter. One did not have to telephone a lover. One did not have a husband waiting by the fire.
“What happened? What did the fellow say?”
Celia went on sitting in the restroom at Marshall’s, and the truth is, she told herself, that I am making a stupid fuss about all this, I am taking it all too seriously, I am behaving as if I were going to die, and it’s just because the doctor said there could never be a baby, and I was not going to have a baby, anyway. I was never going to have one. And there would have been a tragedy if I had. It would have died. Or been a trouble to me all its life. A weak character. Sponging on me. Borrowing money. Marrying the wrong woman. My daughter-in-law would have disliked me. She would never have stayed with me.
“We’d better go and stay with the old girl.”
“Oh no!… Not again. It’s such a bore.”
The cloakroom attendant came up to Celia.
“Excuse me, madam, but we are closing now. It’s just on five thirty.”
“Sorry. Thank you.”
Down in the lift with all the other people. All the other people swarming to the swing-doors.
“Taxi, madam?”
And why not? Surely the extravagance of a taxi, for this day, at least. But the embarrassing thing was that Celia had no change to give the commissionaire. The taxi was waiting, and she had ten shillings only for the taxi. Not as much as a sixpence for the commissionaire.
She got in, too shamefaced to explain. He slammed the door. He waved the taxi on. The ashtray by the window was full of the stubs of cigarettes. One stub was smoking still. The end was stained with lipstick. Who could she have been, that other occupant, who had given place to Celia? Someone happy, someone gay, someone going to a party? A woman going to a lover? A mother going to meet her son? The strange romance of taxis. Moments of madness, moments of farewell. But perhaps the woman was just another spinster like herself with fibroids. A nervier type of woman who drew ease from cigarettes.
She was glad the taxi went through Regent’s Park, instead of the more familiar route of Finchley Road. The desolate, shattered houses of St. John’s Wood were very hard to bear. There were no windows in the house where she had lived with Pappy, and the plaster had come away from all the walls. The gate hung crooked, the railings were torn away. She could not bear to pass it nowadays.
She had ventured once with Niall a few years back. The rooms were gaping and horrible. She hoped always that Pappy, if afterlife were true, if he peered down upon the world with Mama from some private paradise, would not be permitted by God to see the house.
He would surely blame Celia and not the war for its destruction.
“But, my darling, what has happened? What have you done?”
Up the hill to Hampstead. To the left, by Church Row, and right again. Just a bit further on, please. There, the house at the corner. Anyway, no matter if it was a maisonette, it was her own, her place of sanctuary. The window boxes would be gay with hyacinths in the spring. And the side-steps were her own. It was her own front door. Apple green and cheerful. And the name, “The Studio.”
She never quite got over the surprise of the key turning in the lock, and admitting her to her own dwelling. It seemed so easy. Such a simple thing. It was good to be back. It was good to see her own familiar things. The chairs, the desk, the pictures, even one or two of her own drawings, framed, upon the walls.
Celia knelt down and lit the fire, and as she waited for it to burn she read her letters. There were two of them.
The typewritten one she opened first. It was curious, after all this time, and on this day of all days, that she should have a letter from the firm of publishers. From the new director who had taken on after Mr. Harrison had retired:
“DEAR MISS DELANEY, —Do you remember meeting me, many years ago, on a certain memorable occasion, when you visited the office? As you possibly know, I am now managing director in place of James Harrison, and I am writing to know if there is any chance of your fulfilling your old contract with us, or, better still, signing a new one, now that the war is over. You know what a high opinion my predecessor had of your work, especially of your drawings, an opinion which I share in equal measure. He and I always felt that if you could only bring yourself to give that talent to us, and to the world in general, you could bring even greater luster to the Delaney name than it has at present. I do ask you to think most seriously about this. Please let me hear from you in the near future.
“Kindest regards,
“Yours sincerely…”
Like Mr. Harrison of many years ago, it was really very kind. And this time she would not fail them. This time she would not disappoint them. She would look out the stories and the drawings this very evening, tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon. And she would start to plan her life, from now on, with this end in view. Never mind the fibroids and the operation. They did not count. She opened her other letter. It was from Caroline at school:
“DEAREST AUNTIE CELIA, —Mummy has just been to see me and told me about her and Daddy. She said I wasn’t to tell anyone at school. I know two girls whose parents have been divorced. It doesn’t seem to make much difference. The only thing is, it’s not much fun at Farthings in the holidays, there’s nothing to do, and I don’t like riding as much as the others, so I wondered if I could come to live with you? That is, if you could have me. I should simply love to come. I must fly now, the bell for prep has gone.
“Lots of love,
“CAROLINE.”
Celia sat back before the fire, and read the letter through again. Twice, three times. Her heart beat faster, and a strange feeling came into her throat. Absurd, almost as though she was going to cry. Caroline wanted to come and live with her. Without being asked. Without being prompted by anyone, by Charles, by Maria. Caroline wanted to come and live with her, with Celia.
But of course she should come. She should always come. Next holidays. Every holiday. The little room, next to her own, upstairs. Turn the little room into a room for Caroline. Furnish it as Caroline wished. They would go for walks on the Heath together, she would buy Caroline a dog. Celia would keep the dog while Caroline was at school. There were many things that she and Caroline could do together. Museums, theatres—and Caroline could draw quite nicely, she might teach Caroline to draw. She had a pretty little voice too, which might develop as she grew older. She could take Caroline to singing lessons. Now she came to think of it, there had always been something about Caroline that reminded her of Pappy. A look in the eyes, and the way she carried her head. She was tall too for her age.
There was no doubt about it—Caroline was exactly like Pappy. Affectionate too, needing sympathy, attention, love. Celia would give her all that. Nothing mattered but that the child should be happy. Nothing in the world.
Celia piled more logs onto the fire, and threw the letter from the publisher into the blaze. She would answer it some time. She would do something about it some time. There was no hurry, though. No hurry now. There were so many other things to do. There were so many plans to make for Caroline. For Caroline.