Dermot meant to be kind. He hated trouble and unhappiness, but he wanted to be kind. He wrote from Paris suggesting Celia should come over and have a day or two to cheer her up.
Perhaps it was kindness, perhaps it was because he funked going home to a house of mourning …
That, however, was what he had to do …
He arrived at the Lodge just before dinner. Celia was lying on her bed. She was awaiting his coming with passionate intensity. The strain of the funeral was over, and she had been anxious not to upset Judy by an atmosphere of grief. Little Judy, so young and cheerful and important over her own affairs. Judy had cried about Grandmamma but had soon forgotten. Children ought to forget.
Soon Dermot would be here, and then she could let go.
She thought passionately: ‘How wonderful that I’ve got Dermot. If it weren’t for Dermot I should want to die too …’
Dermot was nervous. It was sheer nervousness that made him come into the room and say:
‘Well, how’s everybody, bright and jolly?’
At another time Celia would have recognized the cause that made him speak flippantly. Just at the moment it was as though he had hit her in the face.
She shrank back and burst into tears.
Dermot apologized and tried to explain.
In the end Celia went to sleep holding his hand, which he withdrew with relief when he saw she was really asleep.
He wandered off and joined Judy in the nursery. She waved a cheerful spoon at him. She was drinking a cup of milk.
‘Hullo, Daddy. What shall we play?’
Judy wasted no time.
‘It mustn’t be noisy,’ said Dermot. ‘Your mother’s asleep.’
Judy nodded comprehendingly.
‘Let’s play Old Maid.’
They played Old Maid.
Life went on as usual. At least, not quite as usual.
Celia went about as usual. She displayed no outward signs of grief. But all the spring had gone out of her for the time being. She was like a run-down clock. Both Dermot and Judy felt the change, and they didn’t like it.
Dermot wanted some people to stay a fortnight later, and Celia cried out before she could stop herself.
‘Oh, not just now. I just can’t bear to have to talk to a strange woman all day.’
But immediately afterwards she repented and went to Dermot, telling him that she didn’t mean to be silly. Of course he must have his friends. So they came, but the visit wasn’t a great success.
A few days later Celia had a letter from Ellie. Its contents surprised and grieved her very much.
My Dear Celia [wrote Ellie]: I feel I should like to tell you myself (since you’ll probably hear a garbled version otherwise) that Tom has gone off with a girl we met on the boat coming home. It has been a terrible grief and shock to me. We were so happy together, and Tom loved the children. It seems like some terrible dream. I feel absolutely broken-hearted, I don’t know what to do. Tom has been such a perfect husband – we never even quarrelled.
Celia was very upset over her friend’s trouble.
‘What a lot of sad things there are in the world,’ she said to Dermot.
‘That husband of hers must be rather a rotter,’ said Dermot. ‘You know, Celia, you sometimes seem to think that I’m selfish – but you might have much worse things to put up with. At any rate, I am a good, straight, undeceiving husband, aren’t I?’
There was something comic in his tone. Celia kissed him and laughed.
Three weeks later she went home, taking Judy with her. The house had got to be turned out and gone through. It was a task she dreaded. But no one else could do it.
Home without her mother’s welcoming smile was unthinkable. If only Dermot could have come with her.
Dermot himself tried in his own fashion to cheer her up. ‘You’ll enjoy it really, Celia. You’ll find lots of old things you’ve forgotten all about. And it will be lovely down there this time of year. It will do you good to have a change. Here am I having to grind along in an office every day.’
Dermot was so inadequate! He persistently ignored the significance of emotional stress. He shied away from it like a frightened horse.
Celia cried out – angry for once:
‘You talk as though it was a holiday!’
He looked away from her.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘so it will be in a way …’
Celia thought: ‘He’s not kind … he’s not …’
A great wave of loneliness passed over her. She felt afraid …
How cold the world was – without her mother …
Celia went through a bad time in the next few months. She had lawyers to see, all kinds of business questions to settle.
Her mother had, of course, left hardly any money. There was the question of the house to consider – whether to keep it or sell it. It was in a very bad state – there had been no money for repairs. A fairly large sum would have to be spent on it almost immediately if the whole place were not to go to rack and ruin. In any case, it was doubtful if a purchaser would consider it in its present condition.
Celia was torn by indecision.
She could not bear to part with it – yet common sense whispered that it was the best thing to do. It was too far from London for her and Dermot to live in it – even if the idea had appealed to Dermot (and Celia was sure it would not appeal to him). The country, to Dermot, meant a first-class golf course.
Was it not, then, mere sentiment on her part to insist on clinging to the place?
Yet she could not bear to give it up. Miriam had made such valiant struggles to keep it for her. It was she herself who had dissuaded her mother from selling it long ago … Miriam had kept it for her – for her and her children.
Did Judy care for it as she had done? She thought not. Judy was so aloof – so unattached – she was like Dermot. People like Dermot and Judy lived in places because they were convenient. In the end Celia asked her daughter. Celia often felt that Judy, at eight years old, was far more sensible and practical than herself.
‘Will you get a lot of money for it if you sell it, Mummy?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. You see, it’s an old-fashioned house – and it’s right in the country – not near a town.’
‘Well, then, perhaps you’d better keep it,’ said Judy. ‘We can come here in the summer.’
‘Are you fond of being here, Judy? Or do you like the Lodge best?’
‘The Lodge is very small,’ said Judy. ‘I’d like to live in the Dormy House. I like big – big – houses.’
Celia laughed.
It was true what Judy had said – she would get very little for the house if she sold it now. Surely even as a business proposition it would be better to wait until country houses were less of a drug in the market. She went into the question of the minimum repairs that were absolutely necessary. Perhaps, when they were completed, she could find a tenant for the house furnished.
The business side of things had been worrying, but it had kept her mind away from sad thoughts.
Now there came the part she had dreaded – the turning out. If the house was to be let, it must first be cleared. Some of the rooms had been locked up for years – there were old trunks, drawers, and cupboards, all crammed with memories of the past.
Memories …
It was so lonely – so strange in the house.
No Miriam …
Only trunks full of old clothes – drawers full of letters and photographs …
It hurt – it hurt horribly.
A japanned box with a stork on it that she had loved as a child. Inside it folded letters. One from Mummy. ‘My own precious lamb pigeony pumpkin …’ The scalding tears fell down Celia’s cheeks …
A pink silk evening dress with little rosebuds – shoved into a trunk – in case it might be ‘renovated’ – and forgotten. One of her first evening dresses … She remembered the last time she had worn it … Such a gauche, eager, idiotic creature …
Letters belonging to Grannie – a whole trunk full. She must have brought them with her when she came. Photograph of an old gentleman in a Bath chair, ‘Always your devoted admirer,’ and some initials scrawled on it. Grannie and ‘the men’. Always ‘the men’ even when they were reduced to Bath chairs on the sea front …
A mug with a picture of two cats on it that Susan had once given her for a birthday present …
Back – back into the past …
Why did it hurt so?
Why did it hurt so abominably?
If only she wasn’t alone in the house … If only Dermot could be with her!
But Dermot would say: ‘Why not burn the lot without looking through them?’
So sensible, but somehow she couldn’t …
She opened more locked drawers.
Poems. Sheets of poems in flowing faded handwriting. Her mother’s handwriting as a girl … Celia looked through them.
Sentimental – stilted – very much of the period. Yes, but something – some quick turn of thought, some sudden originality of phrase – that made them essentially her mother’s. Miriam’s mind – that quick, darting, bird-like mind …
‘Poem to John on his birthday …’
Her father – her bearded, jolly father …
Here was a daguerreotype of him as a solemn cleanshaven boy.
Being young – growing old – how mysterious – how frightening it all was. Was there any particular moment at which you were more you than at any other moment?
The future … Where was she, Celia, going in the future? …
Well, it was clear enough. Dermot growing a little richer … a large house … another child … two, perhaps. Illnesses – childish ailments – Dermot growing a little more difficult, a little more impatient still of anything interfering with what he wanted to do … Judy growing up – vivid, decided, intensely alive … Dermot and Judy together … Herself, rather fatter – faded – treated with just a touch of amused contempt by those two … ‘Mother, you are rather silly, you know …’ Yes, more difficult to disguise that you were silly as your looks left you. (A sudden flash of memory: ‘Don’t ever grow less beautiful, will you, Celia?’) Yes, but that was all over now. They’d lived together long enough for such things as the beauty of a face to have lost its meaning. Dermot was in her blood and she in his. They belonged – essentially strangers, they belonged. She loved him because he was so different – because though she knew by now exactly how he reacted to things, she did not know and never would know why he reacted as he did. Probably he felt the same about her. No, Dermot accepted things as they were. He never thought about them. It seemed to him a waste of time. Celia thought: ‘It’s right – it’s absolutely right to marry the person you love. Money and outside things don’t count. I should always have been happy with Dermot even if we’d had to live in a tiny cottage and I’d had to do all the cooking and everything.’ But Dermot wasn’t going to be poor. He was a success. He would go on succeeding. He was that kind of person. His digestion, of course, that would get worse. He would continue to play golf … And they’d go on and on and on – probably at Dalton Heath or somewhere like it … She’d never see things – far-away things – India, China, Japan – the wilds of Baluchistan – Persia, where the names were like music: Ispahan, Teheran, Shiraz …
Little shivers ran over her … If one could be free – quite free – nothing, no belongings, no houses, or husband or children, nothing to hold you, and tie you, and pull at your heart …
Celia thought: ‘I want to run away …’
Miriam had felt like that.
For all her love of her husband and children she had wanted, sometimes, to get out …
Celia opened another drawer. Letters. Letters from her father to her mother. She picked up the top one. It was dated the year before his death.
Dearest Miriam: I hope you will soon be able to join me. Mother seems very well and is in good spirits. Her eyesight is failing, but she knits just as many bedsocks for her beaux!
I had a long talk with Armour about Cyril. He says the boy is not stupid. He is just indifferent. I talked to Cyril too, and, I hope, made some impression.
Try and be with me by Friday, my dearest – our twenty-second anniversary. I find it hard to put into words all that you have meant to me – the dearest, most devoted wife any man could have. I am humbly grateful to God for you, my darling.
Love to our little Poppet.
Your devoted husband, John.
Tears came again to Celia’s eyes.
Some day she and Dermot would have been married twenty-two years. Dermot wouldn’t write a letter like that, but, deep down, he would perhaps feel the same.
Poor Dermot. It had been sad for him having her so broken and battered this last month. He didn’t like unhappiness. Well, once she had got through with this task she would put grief behind her. Miriam, alive, had never come between her and Dermot. Miriam, dead, must not do so …
She and Dermot would go forward together – happy and enjoying things.
That was what would please her mother best.
She took all her father’s letters out of the drawer, and making a pile of them on the hearth, she set a match to them. They belonged to the dead. The one she had read she kept.
At the bottom of the drawer was a faded old pocketbook embroidered in gold thread. Inside it was a folded sheet of paper, very old and worn. On it was written: ‘Poem sent me by Miriam on my birthday.’
Sentiment …
The world despised sentiment nowadays …
But to Celia, at that moment, it was somehow unbearably sweet …
Celia felt ill. The loneliness of the house was getting on her nerves. She wished she had someone to speak to. There were Judy and Miss Hood, but they belonged to such an alien world that being with them brought more strain than relief. Celia was anxious that no shadow should cloud Judy’s life. Judy was so vivid – so full of enjoyment of everything. When she was with Judy, Celia made a point of being gay. They had strenuous games together with balls, and battledores, and shuttlecocks.
It was after Judy had gone to bed that the silence of the house wrapped itself round Celia like a pall. It seemed so empty – so empty …
It brought back so vividly those happy, cosy evenings spent talking to her mother – about Dermot, about Judy, about books and people and ideas.
Now, there was no one to talk to …
Dermot’s letters were infrequent and brief. He had gone round in seventy-two – he had played with Andrews – Rossiter had come down with his niece. He had got Marjorie Connell to make a fourth. They’d played at Hillborough – a rotten course. Women were a nuisance in golf. He hoped Celia was enjoying herself. Would she thank Judy for her letter?
Celia began to sleep badly. Scenes came up out of the past and kept her awake. Sometimes she awoke frightened – not knowing what it was that had frightened her. She looked at herself in the glass and knew she looked ill.
She wrote to Dermot and begged him to come down for the week-end.
He wrote back:
Dear Celia: I’ve looked up the train service and it really isn’t worth it. I’d either have to go back Sunday morning or else land in town about two in the morning. The car’s not running very well now, and I’m having her overhauled. I know you’ll realize that I feel it a bit of a strain working all the week. I feel dog-tired by the week-end – and don’t want to embark on train journeys.
In another three weeks I shall get off for my holiday. I think your idea of Dinard is quite a good one. I’ll write about rooms. Don’t do too much and overtire yourself. Get out a good deal.
You remember Marjorie Connell, rather nice dark girl, niece of the Barretts? She’s just lost her job. I may be able to get her one here. She’s quite efficient. I took her to a theatre one night as she was down on her luck.
Take care of yourself and go easy. I think you’re right not to sell the house now. Things may improve and you might get a better price later. I don’t see that it’s ever going to be much use to us, but if you feel sentimental about it I don’t suppose it would cost much to shut it up with a caretaker – and you might let it furnished. The money you get in from the books would pay the rates and a gardener, and I’ll help towards it, if you like. I’m working frightfully hard and come home with a headache most nights.
It will be good to get right away.
Love to Judy.
Your loving,
Dermot.
The last week Celia went to the doctor and asked him to give her something to make her sleep. He had known her all her life. He asked her questions, examined her, then he said:
‘Can’t you get someone to be with you?’
‘My husband is coming in a week’s time. We are going abroad together.’
‘Ah, excellent! You know, my dear, you’re heading for a breakdown. You’re very run down – you’ve had a shock, and you’ve been fretting. Very natural. I know how attached you were to your mother. Once you get away with your husband into fresh surroundings you’ll be as right as rain.’
He patted her on the shoulder, gave her a prescription, and dismissed her.
Celia counted the days one by one. When Dermot came, everything would be all right. He was to arrive the day before Judy’s birthday. They were to celebrate that, and then they were to start for Dinard.
A new life … Grief and memories left behind … She and Dermot going forward into the future.
In four days Dermot would be here …
In three days …
In two days …
Today!
Something was wrong … Dermot had come, but it wasn’t Dermot. It was a stranger who looked at her – quick sideways glances – and looked away again …
Something was the matter …
He was ill …
In trouble …
No, it was different from that.
He was – a stranger …
‘Dermot, is anything the matter?’
‘What should be the matter?’
They were alone together in Celia’s bedroom. Celia was doing up Judy’s birthday presents with tissue paper and ribbon.
Why was she so frightened? Why this sick feeling of terror?
His eyes – his queer shifty eyes – that looked away from her and back again …
This wasn’t Dermot – upright, handsome, laughing Dermot …
This was a furtive, shrinking person … he looked – almost – like a criminal …
She said suddenly:
‘Dermot, there isn’t anything – with money – I mean, you haven’t done anything –?’
How put it into words? Dermot, who was the soul of honour, an embezzler? Fantastic – fantastic!
But that shifty evasive glance …
As though she would care what he had done!
He looked surprised.
‘Money? Oh, no, money’s all right. I’m – I’m doing very well.’
She was relieved.
‘I thought – it was absurd of me …’
He said:
‘There is something … I expect you can guess.’
But she couldn’t. If it wasn’t money (she had had a fleeting fear the firm might have failed) she couldn’t imagine what it could be.
She said: ‘Tell me.’
It wasn’t – it couldn’t be cancer …
Cancer attacked strong people, young people, sometimes.
Dermot stood up. His voice sounded strange and stiff.
‘It’s – well, it’s Marjorie Connell. I’ve seen a lot of her, I’m very fond of her.’
Oh, the relief! Not cancer … But Marjorie Connell – why on earth Marjorie Connell? Had Dermot – Dermot who never looked at a girl –
She said gently:
‘It doesn’t matter, Dermot, if you’ve been rather silly …’
A flirtation. Dermot wasn’t used to flirting. All the same, she was surprised. Surprised and hurt. While she had been so miserable – so longing for Dermot’s comfort and presence – he had been flirting with Marjorie Connell. Marjorie was quite a nice girl and rather good-looking. Celia thought: ‘Grannie wouldn’t have been surprised.’ And the idea flashed through her mind that perhaps Grannie had known men rather well, after all.
Dermot said violently:
‘You don’t understand. It’s not at all as you think. There has been nothing – nothing –’
Celia flushed.
‘Of course. I didn’t think there had …’
He went on:
‘I don’t know how to make you see. It isn’t her fault … She’s very distressed about it – about you … Oh, God!’
He sat down and buried his face in his hands …
Celia said wonderingly:
‘You really care for her – I see. Oh, Dermot, I am so sorry …’
Poor Dermot, overtaken by this passion. He was going to be so unhappy. She mustn’t – she simply mustn’t be beastly about it. She must help him to get over it – not reproach him. It hadn’t been his fault. She hadn’t been there – he’d been lonely – it was quite natural …
She said again:
‘I’m so dreadfully sorry for you.’
He got up again.
‘You don’t understand. You needn’t be sorry for me … I’m a rotter. I feel a cur. I couldn’t be decent to you. I shall be no more use to you and Judy … You’d better cut me right out …’
She stared …
‘You mean,’ she said, ‘you don’t love me any longer? Not at all? But we’ve been so happy … Always so happy together.’
‘Yes, in a way – a quiet way … This is quite different.’
‘I think to be quietly happy is the best thing in the world.’
Dermot made a gesture.
She said wonderingly:
‘You want to go away from us? Not to see me and Judy any more? But you’re Judy’s father … She loves you.’
‘I know … I mind terribly about her. But it’s no good. I’m never any use doing anything I don’t want to do … I can’t behave decently when I’m unhappy … I should be a brute.’
Celia said slowly:
‘You’re going away – with her?’
‘Of course not. She’s not that kind of a girl. I would never suggest such a thing to her.’
He sounded hurt and offended.
‘I don’t understand – you just want to leave us?’
‘Because I can’t be any good to you … I should be simply foul.’
‘But we’ve been so happy – so happy …’
Dermot said impatiently:
‘Yes, of course, we have – in the past. But we’ve been married eleven years. After eleven years one needs a change.’
She winced.
He went on, his voice persuasive, more like himself:
‘I’m making quite a good income, I’d allow you plenty for Judy – and you’re making money yourself now. You could go abroad – travel – do all sorts of things you’ve always wanted to do …’
She put up her hand as though he had struck her.
‘I’m sure you’d enjoy it. You’d really be much happier than you would be with me …’
‘Stop!’
After a minute or two she said quietly:
‘It was on this night, nine years ago, that Judy began to be born. Do you remember? Doesn’t it mean anything to you? Isn’t there any difference between me and – a mistress you would try to pension off?’
He said sulkily:
‘I’ve said I was sorry about Judy … But, after all, we both agreed that the other should be perfectly free …’
‘Did we? When?’
‘I’m sure we did. It’s the only decent way to regard marriage.’
Celia said:
‘I think, when you’ve brought a child into the world – it would be more decent to stick to it.’
Dermot said:
‘All my friends think that the ideal of marriage should be freedom …’
She laughed. His friends. How extraordinary Dermot was – only he would have dragged in his friends.
She said:
‘You are free … You can leave us if you choose … if you really choose … but won’t you wait a little – won’t you be sure? There’s eleven years’ happiness to remember – against a month’s infatuation. Wait a year – make sure of things – before bursting up everything …’
‘I don’t want to wait. I don’t want the strain of waiting …’
Suddenly Celia stretched out and caught at the door handle.
All this wasn’t real – couldn’t be real … She called out: ‘Dermot!’
The room went black and whirled round her.
She found herself lying on the bed. Dermot was standing beside her with a glass of water. He said:
‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
She stopped herself laughing hysterically … took the water and drank it …
‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘It’s all right … You must do as you please … You can go away now. I’m all right … You do as you like. But let Judy have her birthday tomorrow.’
‘Of course …’
He said: ‘If you’re sure you’re all right …’
He went slowly through the open door into his room and shut it behind him.
Judy’s birthday tomorrow …
Nine years ago she and Dermot had wandered in the garden – had been parted – she had gone down into pain and fear – and Dermot had suffered …
Surely – surely – no one in the world could be so cruel as to choose this day to tell her …
Yes, Dermot could …
Cruel … cruel … cruel …
Her heart cried out passionately:
‘How could he – how could he – be so cruel to me? …’
Judy must have her birthday.
Presents – special breakfast – picnic – sitting up to dinner – games.
Celia thought: ‘There’s never been a day so long – so long – I shall go mad. If only Dermot would play up a little more.’
And Judy noticed nothing. She noticed her presents, her fun, the readiness of everyone to do what she wanted.
She was so happy – so unconscious – it tore at Celia’s heart.
The next day Dermot left.
‘I’ll write from London, shall I? You’ll stay here for the present?’
‘Not here – no, not here.’
Here, in the emptiness, the loneliness, without Miriam to comfort her?
Oh, Mother, Mother, come back to me, Mother …
Oh, Mother, if you were here …
Stay here alone? In this house so full of happy memories – memories of Dermot?
She said: ‘I’d rather come home. We’ll come home tomorrow.’
‘As you please. I’ll stay in London. I thought you were so fond of it down here.’
She didn’t answer. Sometimes you couldn’t. People either saw or they didn’t see.
When Dermot had left, she played with Judy. She told her they were not going to France after all. Judy accepted the pronouncement calmly, without interest.
Celia felt terribly ill. Her legs ached, her head swam. She felt like an old, old woman. The pain in her head increased till she could have screamed. She took aspirin, but it was no use. She felt sick, and the thought of food repelled her.
Celia was afraid of two things: she was afraid of going mad, and she was afraid of Judy noticing anything …
She didn’t know whether Miss Hood noticed anything. Miss Hood was so quiet. It was a comfort to have Miss Hood – so calm and incurious.
Miss Hood managed the going home. She seemed to think it quite natural that Celia and Dermot weren’t going to France after all.
Celia was glad to get back to the Lodge. She thought: ‘This is better. I mayn’t go mad after all.’
Her head felt better but her body worse – as though she had been battered all over. Her legs felt too weak to walk … That and the deathly sickness made her limp and unresisting …
She thought: ‘I’m going to be ill. Why does your mind affect your body so?’
Dermot came down two days after her return.
It was still not Dermot … Queer – and frightening – to find a stranger in the body of your husband …
It frightened Celia so much that she wanted to scream …
Dermot talked stiffly about outside matters.
‘Like someone who’s come to call,’ thought Celia.
Then he said:
‘Don’t you agree that it is the best thing to do – to part, I mean?’
‘The best thing – for whom?’
‘Well, for all of us.’
‘I don’t think it’s the best thing for Judy or me. You know I don’t.’
Dermot said: ‘Everybody can’t be happy.’
‘You mean it’s you who are going to be happy and Judy and I who aren’t … I don’t see really why it should be you and not us. Oh, Dermot, can’t you go and do what you want to do, and not insist on talking about it. You’ve got to choose between Marjorie and me – no, that’s not it – you’re tired of me and perhaps that’s my fault – I ought to have seen it coming – I ought to have tried more, but I was so sure you loved me – I believed in you as I believed in God. That was stupid – Grannie would have told me so. No, what you have to choose between is Marjorie and Judy. You do love Judy – she’s your own flesh and blood – and I can never be to her what you can be. There’s a tie between you two that there isn’t between her and me. I love her, but I don’t understand her. I don’t want you to abandon Judy – I don’t want her life maimed. I wouldn’t fight for myself, but I will fight for Judy. It’s a mean thing to do, to abandon your own child. I believe – if you do it – you won’t be happy. Dermot, dear Dermot, won’t you try? Won’t you give a year out of your life? If, at the end of a year, you can’t do it, you feel you must go to Marjorie – well, then, you must go. But I’d feel then that you’d tried.’
Dermot said: ‘I don’t want to wait … A year is a long time …’
Celia gave a discouraged gesture.
(If only she didn’t feel so deathly sick.)
She said: ‘Very well – you’ve chosen … But if ever you want to come back – you’ll find us waiting, and I won’t reproach you … Go, and be – be happy, and perhaps you’ll come back to us some day … I think you will … I think that underneath everything it’s really me and Judy you love … And I think, too, that underneath you’re straight and loyal …’
Dermot cleared his throat. He looked embarrassed.
Celia wished he would go away. All this talking … She loved him so – it was agony to look at him – if only he would go away and do what he wanted to do – not ram the agony of it home to her …
‘The real point is,’ said Dermot, ‘how soon can I get my freedom?’
‘You are free. You can go now.’
‘I don’t think you understand what I am talking about. All my friends think there should be a divorce as soon as possible.’
Celia stared.
‘I thought you told me there wasn’t – there wasn’t – well, any grounds for divorce.’
‘Of course there aren’t. Marjorie is as straight as a die.’
A wild desire to laugh passed over Celia. She repressed it.
‘Well, then?’ she said.
‘I’d never suggest anything of that kind to her,’ said Dermot in a shocked voice. ‘But I believe that, if I were free, she would marry me.’
‘But you’re married to me,’ said Celia, puzzled.
‘That’s why there must be a divorce. It can all be put through quite easily and quickly. It will be no bother to you. And all the expense will fall on me.’
‘You mean that you and Marjorie are going away together after all?’
‘Do you think I’d drag a girl like that through the divorce court? No, the whole thing can be managed quite easily. Her name need never appear.’
Celia got up. Her eyes blazed.
‘You mean – you mean – oh, I think that’s disgusting! If I loved a man I’d go away with him even if it was wrong. I might take a man from his wife – I don’t think I would take a man from his child – still, one never knows. But I’d do it honestly. I’d not skulk in the shadow and let someone else do the dirty work and play safe myself. I think both you and Marjorie are disgusting – disgusting. If you really loved each other and couldn’t live without each other I would at least respect you. I’d divorce you if you wanted me to – although I think divorce is wrong. But I won’t have anything to do with lying and pretending and making a put-up job of it.’
‘Nonsense, everybody does.’
‘I don’t care.’
Dermot came up to her.
‘Look here, Celia, I’m going to have a divorce. I won’t wait for it, and I won’t have Marjorie dragged into it. And you’ve got to agree to it.’
Celia looked him full in the face.
‘I won’t,’ she said.