20

I returned to the Savoy—not at five a.m.—but at eleven. I left about an hour later.

And the following day, Sunday, I telephoned Elizabeth from a callbox.

“Oh, thank heaven,” she said. “I’ve been on tenterhooks.”

“Are your parents there?”

“No. Can I meet you? For ten minutes?”

“Obviously you can. I’ll come to the hotel.”

“No, don’t do that. Let’s say the Adelphi. In quarter of an hour?”

I caught a taxi but she was already there. Although it was so short a time since we’d seen ‘Auntie Mame’, the photographs outside the theatre imbued me with nostalgia. How pathetic! We went into the first café we found open and I ordered coffees.

But it wasn’t going to be hard to play the suffering hero.

(John Wilmot—one of the most exciting new stars ever to grace the Metro firmament—caught here in a tensely dramatic scene from this year’s most distinguished hit, ‘The Parting’.)

“I was so anxious,” she said, “when you didn’t call me.”

“But I did.”

“I mean yesterday. I didn’t stir from the telephone all afternoon.”

I looked down at the table and for a moment chewed my lip. “To tell you the truth I felt a bit shaken.” She reached across and took my hand. “Also, I half promised your father that, for a day or two, I’d let you be.”

“So that was it,” she said. “He wouldn’t really go in to what happened between you—not with me, anyway. He told us you behaved like a gentleman and seemed very reasonable.”

“Well, that’s something, I suppose.”

“But it didn’t cheer me up a great deal.” She let go my hand. “Darling,” she said softly—and I thought at first her hesitation had simply to do with the endearment. “I want you to stop behaving like a gentleman.”

“Don’t ask the impossible!”

She didn’t smile.

“But what is it you mean?” Surely it wasn’t bed she had in mind?

“I want us to elope.”

I stared. Suddenly the script had gone all haywire. “Elope?”

She nodded.

“Elizabeth … Perhaps you haven’t considered this for quite as long as you ought to?”

“On the contrary. I was already considering it on Friday night, while we were still on Waterloo Bridge. I love you, John Wilmot. And I’m determined to marry you.” She paused. “And that’s the only way.”

“Listen.” I groped frantically for the best manner in which to Renounce a Great Love. “Listen, Angel Face…”

But why? I stopped. What had changed since Friday? I had allowed a few irrational qualms to escalate; to grow out of all proportion. Yet, otherwise…? And was I truly going to let a few irrational qualms stand in the way of everything which had then appeared so good?

“No, Johnny—you listen. It isn’t as drastic as it sounds. On the nineteenth of April I shall be twenty-one. That’s exactly four weeks from now. And after that there’s not a thing which can prevent my grandfather’s money from getting through to me. Nothing.”

I looked down at the table. Then I looked back up.

“I have to admit it—you certainly time things well!”

“Yes, don’t I?”

“But…”

“But what, sweetie?”

“Are you sure you’ve really thought about it—all the unpleasantness there’ll be? And are you sure you really think I’m worth it?”

“It’ll be utterly miserable—I know that! But yes, Johnny, I really do think you’re worth it.” She spoke with decisiveness and humour.

“My goodness. You’re suddenly quite a girl!”

“Suddenly?”

Then she laughed and said, “No, don’t change that! Maybe it’s because you’re quite a guy—and I knew I’d finally found something worth fighting for.”

I liked the idea of my being quite a guy.

“Johnny? Shall I tell you when I fell in love with you?”

“The moment you saw me?” (You heard a skylark sing.)

“No. Though I think I was more interested in you than you were in me. And I did admire the way you stood up to Cousin Sarah and I thought you tremendously attractive. But it was actually some time afterwards.”

“That first evening I came to the Savoy?”

She shook her head. “Oh, yes, perhaps a little … when I saw you drive away and I knew I shouldn’t be seeing you again for such ages—I would have given a lot just then not to be going on the Grand Tour. But when it really happened you weren’t even there. It was your letter which did it: the description of your mother and great-aunt and the time you had together over Christmas. And I don’t know what it was—there was something in the way you wrote about them—and I thought I love that man, I love that man so much it hurts, I shall love him till the day I die. And from that moment I began to have an insane fear you might be knocked down in a traffic accident, struck by lightning, anything. I so much couldn’t imagine what the world would be like without you that I grew quite superstitious and kept believing the Fates might force me to find out.” Involuntarily, she trembled. Then she smiled, as if apologizing for her foolishness.

I smiled, too—but a little uncertainly. I was almost shocked by her intensity. That anyone should feel this way about me … could feel this way about me … I was moved, naturally, yet at the same time found it disturbing. I recollected telling Mrs Cambourne I had never been in love, never experienced any depth of emotion remotely like the one Elizabeth had just described. Now, of course—if I was so soon to marry—it was unlikely that I ever would: the one glaring omission in my life which I knew I should regret more deeply than any other. I said confusedly:

“When had you in mind for our ‘elopement’?” It needed the inverted commas.

“Darling, did I embarrass you just then?”

“Not in the slightest. Why?”

She continued to gaze at me searchingly. But then she answered my previous question. “Next Tuesday. The day before my parents leave.”

“No chance of getting them to change their mind?”

“None whatsoever. Don’t think I won’t be trying, but my father’s even more stubborn than I am.”

“Next Tuesday?”

“Gretna Green.”

“Oh, Elizabeth! How corny!”

“And, besides that, how unnecessary! By the time we’ve been up there three weeks—the three weeks are obligatory—I’ll be nearly twenty-one. But at least it will give us a point to aim for; and once we’re registered we’ll feel completely safe. And in any case,” she said, “I’d love to see some more of Scotland.”

I answered absent-mindedly—and as bitterly as though it were a matter for real resentment, “Ridiculous you can die for your country at eighteen but not get married in it till you’re twenty-one! Not unless you’ve got the consent of your parents—and we both know how we feel at the moment about parents!”

Apparently, though, she was somewhat disinclined to join me at the pillory. She merely said: “I suppose it’ll change one of these days.”

“Big deal.”

“Yes—think how easy it could all have been! We’d have taken out a special licence and then been flying off on honeymoon by Wednesday. Sailing round the Caribbean, or something.”

I had a fleeting vision of the Greek islands—of stretching out naked on the deck of the yacht ‘Sarah’.

“I see you’ve done your homework,” I said.

“But, anyhow, we Yankees aren’t quite as ignorant as you and Oliver would seem to think. Even in Massachusetts we’ve heard of Gretna Green.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“And in addition you’ll never believe how organized I am. Nothing left to chance! I already have a list of train times and the stations where we’ll need to change—all that kind of stuff. And I’ll get the tickets tomorrow, make the reservations—reservations for both the train and the boarding house. You, sweetheart, won’t have to worry about a thing!”

It sounded comfortable. I felt tired. I expressed my gratitude.

“Though about those tickets…”

“Yes, Johnny?”

When I faltered, she proved herself a mind-reader.

“Oh, but wouldn’t it be lovely to drive up to Scotland! Next month we’ll get ourselves a car. After the money comes through.”

I said: “Actually, I’ve had one these past three months. Since Christmas. As it happens—I take my driving test tomorrow.”

She stopped in the act of picking up her cup. “I had no idea you were learning to drive! I didn’t even know you had a car.”

“Oliver gave it to me.”

Her eyes widened. I didn’t care. Let them widen. Let the whole thing swing whichever way it chose.

But all she said was—slowly and after a pause—“Isn’t he just the most wonderful person around! What make is it?”

I told her. She seemed excited. She knew about Jaguar XK 150s. For several minutes we talked only of cars.

Afterwards she said:

“By the way, how is Oliver?”

“Well, since Friday he’s been wrestling with what your Cousin Sarah refers to—along with countless others, I suppose—as the dark night of the soul. I have to say, it is a bit tiresome, but at least when I left this morning he was beginning to show signs of improvement.”

I knew I’d made a faux pas. She did nothing, however, to suggest she might have noticed.

But again—either way—I didn’t much care.