At last the Princess in the Tower was finished. Vernon suffered from a tremendous wave of reaction. The whole thing was rotten – hopeless. Best to chuck it into the fire.
Nell’s sweetness and encouragement were like manna to him at this time. She had that wonderful instinct for always saying the words he longed to hear. But for her, as he constantly told her, he would have given way to despair long ago.
He had seen less of Jane during the winter. She had been on tour with the British Opera Company part of the time. When she sang in Electra in Birmingham, he went down for it. He was tremendously impressed – loved both the music and Jane’s impersonation of Electra. That ruthless will, that determined: ‘Say naught but dance on!’ She gave the impression of being more spirit than flesh. He was conscious that her voice was really too weak for the part, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. She was Electra – that fanatical fiery spirit of relentless doom.
He stayed a few days with his mother – days which he found trying and difficult. He went to see his Uncle Sydney and was received coldly. Enid was engaged to be married to a solicitor, and Uncle Sydney was not too pleased about it.
Nell and her mother were away for Easter. On their return Vernon rang up and said he must see her immediately. He arrived with a white face and burning eyes.
‘Nell, do you know what I’ve heard? Everyone has been saying that you are going to marry George Chetwynd. George Chetwynd!’
‘Who said so?’
‘Lots of people. They say you go round with him everywhere.’
Nell looked frightened and unhappy.
‘I wish you wouldn’t believe things. And Vernon, don’t look so – so accusing. It’s perfectly true that he has asked me to marry him – twice, as a matter of fact.’
‘That old man?’
‘Oh, Vernon, don’t be ridiculous. He’s only about forty-one or two.’
‘Nearly double your age. Why, I thought he wanted to marry your mother, perhaps.’
Nell laughed in spite of herself.
‘Oh, dear, I wish he would. Mother’s really awfully handsome still.’
‘That’s what I thought that night at Ranelagh. I never guessed – I never dreamed – that it was you! Or hadn’t it begun then?’
‘Oh, yes, it had begun – as you call it. That was why Mother was so angry that night – at my going off alone with you.’
‘And I never guessed! Nell, you might have told me!’
‘Told you what? There wasn’t anything to tell – then!’
‘No, I suppose not. I’m being an idiot. But I do know he’s awfully rich. I get frightened sometimes. Oh, darling Nell, it was beastly of me to doubt you – even for a minute. As though you’d ever care how rich anyone were.’
Nell said irritably:
‘Rich, rich, rich! You harp on that. He’s awfully kind and awfully nice, too.’
‘Oh, I dare say.’
‘He is, Vernon. Really he is.’
‘It’s nice of you to stick up for him, darling, but he must be an insensitive sort of brute to hang round after you’ve refused him twice.’
Nell did not answer. She looked at him in a way he did not understand – something piteous and appealing and yet defiant in that strange limpid gaze. It was as though she looked at him from a world so far removed from his that they might be on different spheres.
He said:
‘I feel ashamed of myself, Nell. But you’re so lovely – everyone must want you …’
She broke down suddenly – began to cry. He was startled. She cried on, sobbed on his shoulder.
‘I don’t know what to do – I don’t know what to do. I’m so unhappy. If I could only talk to you.’
‘But you can talk to me, darling. I’m here listening.’
‘No, no, no … I can never talk to you. You don’t understand. It’s all no use …’
She cried on. He kissed her, soothed her, poured out all his love …
When he had gone, her mother came into the room, an open letter in her hand.
She did not appear to notice Nell’s tear-stained face.
‘George Chetwynd sails for America on the 30th of May,’ she remarked, as she went across to her desk.
‘I don’t care when he sails,’ said Nell rebelliously.
Mrs Vereker did not answer.
That night Nell knelt longer than usual by her narrow white bed.
‘Oh, God, please let me marry Vernon. I want to so much. I do love him so. Please let things come right and let us be married. Make something happen … Please God …’
At the end of April Abbots Puissants was let. Vernon came to Nell in some excitement.
‘Nell, will you marry me now? We could just manage. It’s a bad let – an awfully bad one, but I simply had to take it. You see, there’s been the mortgage interest to pay and all the expenses of the upkeep while it’s been unlet. I’ve had to borrow for all that and now, of course, it’s got to be paid back. We’ll be pretty short for a year or two, but then it won’t be so bad …’
He talked on, explaining the financial details.
‘I’ve been into it all, Nell. I have really. Sensibly, I mean. We could afford a tiny flat and one maid and have a little left over to play with. Oh, Nell, you wouldn’t mind being poor with me, would you? You said once I didn’t know what it was to be poor, but you can’t say that now. I’ve lived on frightfully little since I came to London, and I haven’t minded a bit.’
No, Nell knew he hadn’t. The fact was in some way a vague reproach to her. And yet, though she couldn’t quite express it to herself, she felt that the two cases were not on a par. It made much more difference to women – to be gay and pretty and admired and have a good time – none of those things affected men. They hadn’t that everlasting problem of clothes – nobody minded if they were shabby.
But how explain these things to Vernon? One couldn’t. He wasn’t like George Chetwynd. George understood things like that.
‘Nell.’
She sat there, irresolute, his arm round her. She had got to decide. Visions floated before her eyes. Amelie … the hot little house, the wailing children … George Chetwynd and his car … a stuffy little flat – a dirty incompetent maid … dances … clothes … the money they owed dressmakers … the rent of the London house – unpaid … Herself at Ascot, smiling, chattering in a lovely model gown … then, with a sudden revulsion she was back at Ranelagh on the bridge over the water with Vernon …
In almost the same voice as she had used that evening she said:
‘I don’t know. Oh, Vernon, I don’t know.’
‘Oh, Nell, darling, do … do …’
She disengaged herself from him, got up.
‘Please, Vernon – I must think … yes, think. I – I can’t when I’m with you.’
She wrote to him later that night:
‘Dearest Vernon, – Let us wait a little longer – say six months. I don’t feel I want to be married now. Besides, something might have happened about your opera then. You think I’m afraid of being poor, but it’s not quite that. I’ve seen people – people who loved each other, and they didn’t any more because of all the bothers and worries. I feel that if we wait and are patient everything will come right. Oh! Vernon, I know it will – and then everything will be so lovely. If only we wait and have patience …’
Vernon was angry when he got this letter. He did not show the letter to Jane, but he broke out into sufficiently unguarded speech to let her see how the land lay. She said at once in her disconcerting fashion:
‘You do think you’re sufficient prize for any girl, don’t you, Vernon?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, do you think it will be awfully jolly for a girl who has danced and been to parties and had lots of fun and people admiring her to be stuck down in a poky hole with no more fun?’
‘We’d have each other.’
‘You can’t make love to her for twenty-four hours on end. Whilst you’re working what is she to do?’
‘Don’t you think a woman can be poor and happy?’
‘Certainly, given the necessary qualifications.’
‘Which are – what? Love and trust?’
‘No, you idiotic child. A sense of humour, a tough hide and the valuable quality of being sufficient unto oneself. You will insist on love in a cottage being a sentimental problem dependent on the amount of love concerned. It’s far more a problem of mental outlook. You’d be all right stuck down anywhere – Buckingham Palace or the Sahara – because you’ve got your mental preoccupation – music. But Nell’s dependent on extraneous circumstances. Marrying you will cut her off from all her friends.’
‘Why should it?’
‘Because it’s the hardest thing in the world for people with different incomes to continue friends. They’re not all doing the same thing naturally.’
‘You always put me in the wrong,’ said Vernon savagely. ‘Or at anyrate you try to.’
‘Well, it annoys me to see you put yourself on a pedestal and stand admiring yourself for nothing at all,’ said Jane calmly. ‘You expect Nell to sacrifice her friends and life to you, but you wouldn’t make your sacrifice for her.’
‘What sacrifice? I’d do anything.’
‘Except sell Abbots Puissants!’
‘You don’t understand …’
Jane looked at him gently.
‘Perhaps I do. Oh, yes, my dear, I do very well. But don’t be noble. It always annoys me to see people being noble! Let’s talk about the Princess in the Tower. I want you to show it to Radmaager.’
‘Oh, it’s so rotten. I couldn’t. You know, I didn’t realize myself, Jane, how rotten it was until I had finished it.’
‘No,’ said Jane. ‘Nobody ever does. Fortunately – or nothing ever would be finished. Show it to Radmaager. What he says will be interesting at all events.’
Vernon yielded rather grudgingly.
‘He’ll think it such awful cheek.’
‘No, he won’t. He’s a very high opinion of what Sebastian says, and Sebastian has always believed in you. Radmaager says that for so young a man, Sebastian’s judgment is amazing.’
‘Good old Sebastian. He’s wonderful,’ said Vernon warmly. ‘Nearly everything he’s done has been a success. Shekels are rolling in. God, how I envy him sometimes.’
‘You needn’t. He’s not such a very happy person really.’
‘You mean Joe? Oh! that will all come right.’
‘I wonder. Vernon, do you see much of Joe?’
‘A fair amount. Not as much as I used to. I can’t stand that queer artistic set she’s drifted into – their hair’s all wrong and they look unwashed and they talk what seems to me the most arrant drivel. They’re not a bit like your crowd – the people who really do things.’
‘We’re what Sebastian would call the successful commercial propositions. All the same, I’m worried about Joe. I’m afraid she’s going to do something foolish.’
‘That bounder La Marre, you mean?’
‘Yes, I mean that bounder, La Marre. He’s clever with women, you know, Vernon. Some men are.’
‘You think she’d go off with him or something? Of course Joe is a damned fool in some ways.’ He looked curiously at Jane: ‘But I should have thought you –’
He stopped, suddenly crimson. Jane looked very faintly amused.
‘You really needn’t be embarrassed by my morals.’
‘I wasn’t. I mean – I’ve always wondered … Oh! I’ve wondered such an awful lot …’
His voice died away. There was silence. Jane sat very upright. She did not look at Vernon. She looked straight ahead of her. Presently in a quiet even voice, she began to speak. She spoke quite unemotionally and evenly, as though recounting something that had happened to someone else. It was a cold, concise recital of horror, and to Vernon the most dreadful thing about it was her own detached calm. She spoke as a scientist might speak, impersonally.
He buried his face in his hands.
Jane brought her recital to an end. Her quiet voice ceased.
Vernon said in a low shuddering voice:
‘And you lived through that? I – didn’t know that such things were.’
Jane said calmly:
‘He was a Russian and a degenerate. It’s hard for an Anglo-Saxon to understand that peculiar refined lust of cruelty. You understand brutality. You don’t understand anything else.’
Vernon said, feeling childish and awkward as he put the question:
‘You – you loved him very much?’
She shook her head slowly – began to speak, and then stopped.
‘Why dissect the past?’ she said, after a minute or two. ‘He did some fine work. There’s a thing of his in the South Kensington. It’s macabre, but it’s good.’
Then she began once more to talk of the Princess in the Tower.
Vernon went to the South Kensington two days later. He found the solitary representation of Boris Androv’s work easily enough. A drowned woman – the face was horrible, puffed, bloated, decomposed, but the body was beautiful … a lovely body. Vernon knew instinctively that it was Jane’s body.
He stood looking down on the bronze nude figure, with arms spread wide and long lank hair reaching out mournfully …
Such a beautiful body … Jane’s body. Androv had modelled that nude body from her.
For the first time for years a queer remembrance of The Beast came over him. He felt afraid.
He turned quickly away from the beautiful bronze figure and left the building hurriedly, almost running.
It was the first night of Radmaager’s new opera, Peer Gynt. Vernon was going to it and had been asked by Radmaager to attend a supper party afterwards. He was dining first with Nell at her mother’s house. She was not coming to the opera.
Much to Nell’s surprise, Vernon did not turn up to dinner. They waited some time, and then began without him. He arrived just as dessert was being put on the table.
‘I’m most awfully sorry, Mrs Vereker. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Something very – very unexpected occurred. I’ll tell you later.’
His face was so white and he was so obviously upset that Mrs Vereker forgot her annoyance. She was always a tactful woman of the world and she treated the present situation with her usual discretion.
‘Well,’ she said, rising, ‘now you are here, Vernon, you can talk to Nell. If you’re going to the opera you won’t have much time.’
She left the room. Nell looked inquiringly at Vernon. He answered her look.
‘Joe’s gone off with La Marre.’
‘Oh, Vernon, she hasn’t!’
‘She has.’
‘Do you mean that she has eloped? That she’s married him? That they’ve run away to get married?’
Vernon said grimly:
‘He can’t marry her. He’s got a wife already.’
‘Oh, Vernon, how awful! How could she?’
‘Joe was always wrong-headed. She’ll regret this – I know she will. I don’t believe she really cares for him.’
‘What about Sebastian? Won’t he feel this terribly?’
‘Yes, poor devil. I’ve been with him now. He’s absolutely broken up over it. I’d no idea how much he cared for Joe.’
‘I know he did.’
‘You see, there were the three of us – always. Joe and I and Sebastian. We belonged together.’
A faint pang of jealousy shot through Nell. Vernon repeated:
‘The three of us. It’s – oh! I don’t know – I feel as though I’d been to blame in some way. I’ve let myself get out of touch with Joe. Dear old Joe, she was so staunch always – better than any sister could be. It hurts me to think of the things she used to say when she was a kid – how she’d never have anything to do with men. And now she’s come a mucker like this.’
Nell said in a shocked voice:
‘A married man. That’s what makes it so awful. Had he any children?’
‘How should I know anything about his beastly children?’
‘Vernon – don’t be so cross.’
‘Sorry, Nell. I’m upset, that’s all.’
‘How could she do such a thing,’ said Nell. She had always rather resented Joe’s unspoken contempt of which she had been subconsciously aware. She would not have been human had she not felt a faint sense of superiority. ‘To run away with anyone married! It’s dreadful!’
‘Well, she had courage, anyway,’ said Vernon.
He felt a sudden passionate desire to defend Joe – Joe who belonged to Abbots Puissants and the old days.
‘Courage?’ said Nell.
‘Yes, courage!’ said Vernon. ‘At anyrate she wasn’t prudent. She didn’t count the cost. She’s chucked away everything in the world for love. That’s more than some people will do.’
‘Vernon!’
She got up, breathing hard.
‘Well, it’s true.’ All his smouldering resentment came bursting out. ‘You won’t even face a little discomfort for me, Nell. You’re always saying “Wait” and “Let’s be careful.” You aren’t capable of chucking everything to the winds for love of anyone.’
‘Oh, Vernon, how cruel you are … how cruel …’
He saw the tears come into her eyes and was immediately all compunction.
‘Oh, Nell, I didn’t mean it – I didn’t mean it, sweetheart.’
His arms went round her, held her to him. Her sobs lessened. He glanced at his watch.
‘Damn, I must go. Good night, Nell darling. You do love me, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course – of course I do.’
He kissed her once more, hurried off. She sat down again by the disordered dinner table. Sat there – lost in thought …
He got to Covent Garden late. Peer Gynt had begun. The scene was Ingrid’s wedding and Vernon arrived just at the moment of the first brief meeting of Peer and Solveig. He wondered if Jane were nervous. She managed to look marvellously young with her fair plaits and her innocent calm bearing. She looked nineteen. The act ended with the carrying off of Ingrid by Peer.
Vernon found himself interested less in the music than in Jane. Tonight was Jane’s ordeal. She had to make good or go under. Vernon knew how anxious she was, above everything else, to justify Radmaager’s trust in her.
Presently he knew that all was well. Jane was the perfect Solveig. Her voice, clear and true – the crystal thread as Radmaager had called it – sang unfalteringly and her acting was wonderful. The calm steadfast personality of Solveig dominated the opera.
Vernon found himself for the first time interested in the story of the weak, storm-torn Peer, the coward who ran from reality at every opportunity. The music of Peer’s conflict with the great Boyg stirred him, reminding him of his childish terror of The Beast. It was the same formless bogey fear of childhood. Unseen, Solveig’s clear voice delivered him from it. The scene in the forest where Solveig comes to Peer was infinitely beautiful, ending with Peer bidding Solveig remain while he went out to take up his burden. Her reply, ‘If it is so heavy it is best two should share it.’ And then Peer’s departure, his final evasion, ‘Bring sorrow on her? No. Go roundabout, Peer, go roundabout.’
The Whitsuntide music was the most beautiful – but in atmosphere very Radmaagian, Vernon thought. It led up to and prepared for the effect of the final scene. The weary Peer asleep with his head on Solveig’s lap, and Solveig, her hair silvered, a Madonna blue cloak round her in the middle of the stage, her head silhouetted against the rising sun, singing valiantly against the Buttons Moulder.
It was a wonderful duet – Chavaranov, the famous Russian bass, his voice deepening and deepening, and Jane, with her silver thread singing steadily upward and ever upward, higher and higher – till the last note was left to her – high and incredibly pure … And the sun rose …
Vernon, feeling boyishly important, went behind afterwards. The opera had been a terrific success. The applause had been long and enthusiastic. He found Radmaager holding Jane by the hand and kissing her with artistic fervour and thoroughness.
‘You are an angel – you are magnificent – yes, magnificent! You are an artist – Ah!’ he burst into a torrent of words in his native language, then reverted to English. ‘I will reward you – yes, little one, I will reward you. I know very well how to do it. I will persuade the long Sebastian. Together we will –’
‘Hush,’ said Jane.
Vernon came forward awkwardly, said shyly, ‘It was splendid!’
He squeezed Jane’s hand, and she gave him a brief affectionate smile.
‘Where’s Sebastian? Wasn’t he here just now?’
Sebastian was no longer to be seen. Vernon volunteered to go in search of him and bring him along to supper. He said vaguely that he thought he knew where he was. Jane knew nothing of the news about Joe, and he didn’t see how he could tell her at the moment.
He got a taxi and drove to Sebastian’s house, but did not find him. Vernon wondered if perhaps Sebastian might be at his own rooms where he had left him earlier in the evening. He drove there straight away. He was feeling suddenly elated and triumphant. Even Joe did not seem to matter for the moment. He felt suddenly convinced that his own work was good – or rather that it would be some day. And somehow or other he also felt that things were coming right with Nell. She had clung to him differently tonight – more closely – more as though she could not bear to let him go … Yes, he was sure of it. Everything was coming right.
He ran up the stairs to his room. It was in darkness. Sebastian was not here then. He switched on the light – looked round. A note lay on the table, sent by hand. He picked it up. It was addressed to him in Nell’s handwriting. He tore it open …
He stood there a long time. Then, carefully and methodically he drew up a chair to the table, setting it very exactly straight as though that were important, and sat down holding the note in his hand. He read it again for the tenth or eleventh time:
‘Dearest Vernon, – Forgive me – please forgive me. I am going to marry George Chetwynd. I don’t love him like I love you, but I shall be safe with him. Again – do forgive me – please.
‘Your always loving
‘Nell.’
He said aloud: ‘Safe with him. What does she mean by that? She’d have been safe with me. Safe with him? That hurts …’
He sat there. Minutes passed … Hours passed … He sat there, motionless, almost unable to think … Once the thought rose dully in his brain, ‘Was this how Sebastian felt? I didn’t understand …’
When he heard a rustle in the doorway he didn’t look up. His first sight of Jane was when she came round the table, dropped on her knees beside him.
‘Vernon – my dear – what is it? I knew there was something when you didn’t come to the supper. I came to see …’
Dully, mechanically, he held out the note to her. She took it and read it. She laid it down again on the table.
He said in a dull bewildered voice: ‘She needn’t have said that – about not being safe with me. She would have been safe with me …’
‘Oh, Vernon – my dear …’
Her arms went round him. He clutched at her suddenly – a frightened clutch such as a child might give at its mother. A sob burst from his throat. He laid his face down on the gleaming white skin of her neck.
‘Oh! Jane … Jane …’
She held him closer. She stroked his hair. He murmured:
‘Stay with me … Stay with me … Don’t leave me …’
She answered:
‘I won’t leave you. It’s all right …’
Her voice was tender – motherly. Something broke in him like the breaking of a dam. Ideas swirled and rushed through his head. His father kissing Winnie at Abbots Puissants … the statue in the South Kensington … Jane’s body … her beautiful body.
He said hoarsely: ‘Stay with me …’
Her arms round him, her lips on his forehead, she murmured back:
‘I’ll stay with you, dear.’
Like a mother to a child.
He wrenched himself suddenly free.
‘Not like that. Not like that. Like this.’
His lips fastened on hers – fiercely, hungrily, his hand clutched at the roundness of her breast. He’d always wanted her – always – he knew it now. It was her body he wanted, that beautiful gracious body that Boris Androv had known so well.
He said again:
‘Stay with me …’
There was a long pause – it seemed to him as though minutes, hours, years passed before she answered:
She said: ‘I’ll stay …’