She never did. And it was just as well, thought Christopher, for Catherine had, most astoundingly, taken it into her head to be jealous of her. She wouldn’t admit she was, and professed immense admiration for Miss Wickford’s beauty, but if the emotion she showed after that dinner wasn’t jealousy he was blest if he knew what jealousy was.
It amazed him. She might have heard every word he said. Miss Wickford was extremely pretty and quite clever, and why shouldn’t he like talking to her? But he was very sorry to have made Catherine unhappy, and did all he knew to make her forget it; only it was suffocating sort of work in hot weather, and he felt as if he were tied up in something very sweet and sticky, with no end to it. Rather like treacle. It was rather like being swathed round with bands of treacle.
He came to the conclusion Catherine loved him too much. Yes, she did. If she loved him more reasonably she would be much happier, and so would he. It was bad for them both. The flat seemed thick with love. One waded. He caught himself putting up his hand to unbutton his collar. Perhaps the stuffy weather had something to do with it. July was getting near its end, and there was no air at all in Hertford Street. London was a rotten place in July. He always walked to his office and back so as to get what exercise he could, and every Saturday they went down to his uncle for golf; but what was that? He ached to be properly stretched, to stride about, to hit things for days on end, and his talk became almost exclusively of holidays, and where they should go in August when his were due.
Lewes was going to Scotland to play golf. He had gone with Lewes last year, and had had a glorious time. What exercise! What talk! What freedom! He longed to go again, and asked Catherine whether she wouldn’t like to; and she said, with that hiding look of hers–there was a certain look, very frequent on her face, he called to himself her hiding look–that it was too far from Virginia.
Virginia? Christopher was much surprised. What did she want with Virginia? Short of actually being at Chickover, she wouldn’t see Virginia anyhow, he said; and she, with her arms round his neck, said that was true, but she didn’t want to be out of reach of her.
This unexpected reappearance of Virginia on the scene, this sudden cropping up of her after a long spell of no mention of the girl, puzzled and irritated him. They would, apparently, have gone to Scotland if it hadn’t been for Virginia. Must he then too–of course he must, seeing that he couldn’t and wouldn’t go away without Catherine–be kept hanging round within reach of Virginia? She was the last object he wished to be within reach of.
He was annoyed, and showed it. “Why this recrudescence,” he asked, “of maternal love?”
“It isn’t a recrudescence–it’s always, Chris darling,” she said, looking rather shamefacedly at him, he thought–anyhow queerly. “You don’t suppose one ever leaves off loving somebody one really loves?”
No, he didn’t suppose it. He was sure she wouldn’t. But he wasn’t going into that now; he wasn’t going, at ten in the morning, to begin talking about love.
“It’s time I was off,” he said, bending down and kissing her quickly. “I’m late as it is.”
He hurried out, though he wasn’t late. He knew he wasn’t late, only he did want to get into what air there was–into, anyhow, sunlight, out of that darkened bedroom.
She too knew he wasn’t late, but she too wanted him for once to go, because she had a secret appointment for half-past ten, and it was ten already; a most important, a vital appointment, the bare thought of which thrilled her with both fear and hope.
She didn’t know if anything would come of it, but she was going to try. She had written to the great man and told him her age and asked if he thought he could do anything for her, and he had sent a card back briefly indicating 10:30 on this day. Nothing more, just 10:30. How discreet. How exciting.
She had read about him in the papers. He was a Spanish doctor, come over to London for a few weeks, and he undertook to restore youth. Marvellous, blissful, if he really could! A slight operation, said the papers, and there you were. The results were most satisfactory, they affirmed, and in some cases miraculous. Suppose her case were to be one of the miraculous ones? She hadn’t the least idea how she would be able to have an operation without Christopher knowing, but all that could be thought out afterwards. The first thing to do was to see the doctor and hear what he had to say. Who wouldn’t do anything, take any pains, have any operation, to be helped back to youth? She, certainly, would shrink from nothing. And it sounded so genuine, so scientific, what the doctor, according to the papers, did.
The minute Christopher had gone she hurried into her clothes, refused breakfast, hadn’t time to do her face–better she shouldn’t that day, better she should be seen exactly as she really was–and twenty minutes after he left she was in a taxi on the way to the great man’s temporary consulting rooms in Portland Place.
With what a beating heart she rang the bell. Such hopes, such fears, such determination, such shrinking, all mixed up together, as well as being ashamed, made her hardly able to speak when the nurse–she looked like a nurse–opened the door. And suppose somebody should hear her when she said who she was? And suppose somebody she knew should see her going in? If ever there was a discreet and private occasion it was this one; so that the moment the door was opened she was in such a hurry to get in out of sight of the street that she almost tumbled into the arms of the nurse.
It gave her an unpleasant shock to find herself put into a room with several other people. She hadn’t thought she would have to face other seekers after youth. There ought to have been cubicles–places with screens. It didn’t seem decent to expose the seekers to one another like that; and she shrank down into a chair with her back to the light, and buried her head in a newspaper.
The others were all burying their heads too in newspapers, but they saw each other nevertheless. All men, she noticed, and all so old that surely they must be past any hopes and wishes? What could they want with youth? It was a sad sight, thought Catherine, peeping round her newspaper, and she felt shocked. When presently two women came in, and after a furtive glance round dropped as she had done into chairs with their backs to the light, she considered them sad sights too and felt shocked; while for their part they were thinking just the same of her, and all the men behind their newspapers were saying to themselves, “What fools women are.”
The nurse–she looked exactly like a nurse–came in after a long while and beckoned to her, not calling out her name, for which she was thankful, and she was shown into the consulting room, and found herself confronted by two men instead of one, because Dr. Sanguesa, the specialist, could only say three words in English–“We will see” were his words–so that there was another man there, dark and foreign-looking too, but voluble in English, to interpret.
He did the business part as well. “It will cost fifty pounds,” he said almost immediately.
In a whole year Catherine had only ten of these for everything, but if the treatment had been going to cost all ten she would have agreed, and lived somehow in an attic, on a crust–with Christopher and youth. Indeed, she thought it very cheap. Surely fifty pounds was cheap for youth?
“Twenty-five pounds down,” said the partner–she decided he was more a partner than an interpreter–“and twenty-five pounds in the middle of the treatment.”
“Certainly,” she murmured.
Dr. Sanguesa was observing her while the partner talked. Every now and then he said something in Spanish, and the other asked her a question. The questions were intimate and embarrassing–the kind it is more comfortable to reply to to one person rather than two. However, she was in for it; she mustn’t mind; she was determined not to mind anything.
In her turn she asked some questions, forcing herself to be courageous, for she was frightened in spite of her determination and hopes. Would it hurt, she asked timidly; would it take long; when would the results begin?
“We will see,” said Dr. Sanguesa, who hadn’t understood a word, nodding his head gravely.
It would not hurt, said the partner, because in the case of women it was dangerous to operate, and the treatment was purely external; it would take six weeks, with two treatments a week; she would begin to see a marked difference in her appearance after the fourth treatment.
The fourth treatment? That would be in a fortnight. And no operation? How wonderful. She caught her breath with excitement. In a fortnight she would be beginning to look younger. After that, every day younger and younger. No more Maria Rome, no more painful care over her dressing, no more fear of getting tired because of how ghastly it made her look, but the real thing, the real glorious thing itself.
“Shall I feel young?” she asked, eagerly now.
“Of course. Everything goes together. You understand–a woman’s youth, and accordingly her looks, depends entirely on–”
The partner launched into a rapid explanation which was only saved from being excessively improper by its technical language. Dr. Sanguesa sat silent, his elbows on the arms of his revolving chair, his finger-tips together. He looked a remote, unfriended, melancholy man, rather like the pictures she had seen of Napoleon III., with dark shadows under his heavy eyes and a waxen skin. Every now and then his sad mouth opened, and he said quite automatically, “We will see,” and shut it again.
She wanted to begin at once. It appeared she must be examined first, to find out if she could stand the treatment. This rather frightened her again. Why? How? Was the treatment so severe? What was it?
“We will see,” said Dr. Sanguesa, nodding.
The partner became voluble, waving his hands about. Not at all–not at all severe; a matter of X-rays merely; but sometimes, if a woman’s heart was weak–
Catherine said she was sure her heart wasn’t weak.
“We will see,” said Dr. Sanguesa, mechanically nodding.
“The examination is three guineas,” said the partner.
“Three more, or three of the same ones?” asked Catherine, rather stupidly.
“We will s—”
The partner interrupted him this time with a quickly lifted hand. He seemed to think Catherine’s question was below the level of both his and her dignities and intelligences, for he looked as if he were a little ashamed of her as he said stiffly, “Three more.”
She bowed her head. She would have bowed her head to anything, if these men in exchange would give her youth.
The examination could be made at once, the partner said, if she was ready.
Yes, she was quite ready.
She got up instantly. They were used to eagerness, especially in the women patients, but this was a greater eagerness than usual. Dr. Sanguesa’s sombre, sunken eyes observed her thoughtfully. He said something in Spanish to his partner, who shook his head. Catherine had the impression it was something he wished interpreted, and she looked inquiringly at the partner, but he said nothing, and went to the door and opened it for her.
She was taken upstairs into a sort of Rose du Barri boudoir, arranged with a dressing-table and looking-glasses, and another nurse–at least, she too looked like one–helped her to undress. Then she was wrapped in a dressing-gown–she didn’t like this public dressing-gown against her skin–and led into a room fitted up with many strange machines and an operating table. What will not a woman do, she thought, eyeing these objects with misgiving, and her heart well down somewhere near her feet, for the man she loves?
Dr. Sanguesa came in, all covered up in white like an angel. The partner, she was thankful to notice, didn’t appear. She was examined with great care, the nurse smiling encouragingly. It was a relief to be told by the nurse, who interpreted, that her heart was sound and her lungs perfect, even though she had never supposed they weren’t. At the end the nurse told her the doctor was satisfied she could stand the treatment, and asked when she would like to begin.
Catherine said she would begin at once.
Impossible. The next day?
Oh yes, yes–the next day. And would she really–she was going to say look nice again, but said instead feel less tired?
“It’s wonderful how different people feel,” the nurse assured her; and Dr. Sanguesa nodded gravely, without having understood a word, and said, “We will see.”
“He hasn’t tried it on himself, has he?” remarked Catherine, when she was in the Rose du Barri room again, dressing.
The nurse laughed. She was a jolly-looking young woman–but perhaps she was really an old woman, who had had the treatment.
“Have you been done?” asked Catherine.
The nurse laughed again. “I shall be if I see I’m getting old,” she said.
“It really is wonderful?” asked Catherine, whose hands as she fastened her hooks were trembling with excitement.
“You wouldn’t believe it,” said the nurse earnestly. “I’ve seen men of seventy looking and behaving not a day more than forty.”
“That’s thirty years off,” said Catherine. “And supposing they were forty to begin with, would they have looked and behaved like ten?”
“Ah well, that’s a little much to expect, isn’t it,” said the nurse, laughing again.
“I’m forty-seven. I wouldn’t at all like to end by being seven.”
“Your husband would pack you off to a kindergarten, wouldn’t he,” said the nurse, laughing more than ever.
Catherine laughed too. She was so full of hope that she already felt younger. But when she put on her hat before the glass she saw she didn’t anyhow look it.
“Don’t I look too awful,” she said, turning round frankly to the friendly nurse, who, after all, was going to be the witness of her triumphant progress backwards through the years.
“We’ll soon get rid of all that,” said the nurse gaily.
Catherine quite loved the nurse.