XV

It was an exciting life during the next week–so much to plan, so much to arrange, and she herself buoyant with hope and delight. She couldn’t, of course, leave London during her treatment, so to Christopher’s astonishment she urged him to go to Scotland without her.

“But Catherine–”

He couldn’t believe his own ears.

“Go and have a good time, Chris darling.”

“Without you?”

“I must stay in London.”

“In London?”

“Yes. Virginia may want me.”

“Now what in God’s name, Catherine, is all this about Virginia. The other day–”

Then she told him, secure in the knowledge that she was so soon going to be young again–she didn’t in the least mind being a grandmother if she wasn’t going to look like one; on the contrary, to look like a girl and yet be a grandmother struck her as to the last degree chic–that Virginia was expecting a baby in September, and as babies sometimes appeared before they ought she must be within reach.

Well, that was all right; he understood that. What he didn’t understand was Catherine’s detachment. Why, she seemed not to mind his leaving her. He couldn’t believe it. And when it became finally evident that such was her real attitude and no pretence at all about it, he was deeply hurt. Incredibly, she genuinely wanted him to go.

“You love Virginia more than me,” he said, his heart suddenly hot with jealousy.

“Oh Chris, don’t be silly,” said Catherine impatiently.

She had never since their marriage told him not to be silly in that sensible, matter-of-fact way. What had come over her? He, who had been feeling he couldn’t breathe for all the love there was about, now found himself gasping for want of it. The atmosphere had suddenly gone clear and rarefied. Catherine seemed to be thinking of something that wasn’t him, and once or twice forgot to kiss him. Forgot to kiss him! He was deeply wounded. And she was so unaccountably cheerful too. She not only seemed to be thinking of something else but seemed amused by it, hugging whatever it was with delight. She was excited. What was she excited about? Surely not because she was going to be a grandmother? Surely that would make her brood more than ever on the difference in their ages?

“She wants me to go to Scotland with you,” he said, bursting in one day on Lewes. “She wants me to go away without her. Doesn’t care a hang. Four solid weeks. The whole of August.”

“How sensible,” said Lewes, not looking up from his work.

“It’s that beastly baby.”

“Baby?” Lewes did look up.

“Due in September.”

“What? But surely–”

“Oh, don’t be a fool. Virginia’s. She won’t leave London. Why she can’t go somewhere round near Chickover, where I could go too and be with her and get some golf as well–Lewes, old man, I believe she’s fed up with me.”

And he stared at Lewes with hot eyes.

In his turn Lewes told him not to be a fool; but the mere thought of Catherine, his Catherine, being fed up with him as he put it, sent him rushing back to her to see if it could possibly be true.

She was so airy, so much detached.

“Now Chris, don’t be absurd. Of course you must have a good holiday and get out of London. It’s lucky that you have your friend to go with–”

That was the sort of thing.

“But Catherine, how can you want me to? Don’t you love me any more?”

“Of course I love you. Which is why I want you to go to Scotland.”

This was true. The treatment was being gone through for love of him, and he must go to Scotland because of the treatment. She was to have as much quiet as possible during it–“No husbands,” said Dr. Sanguesa–“You’ve got to be a grass widow for a little while,” interpreted the nurse–“You must go to Scotland,” still further interpreted Catherine.

But he couldn’t go at once. It was still only July. The first two treatments took place while Christopher was still in London, and as it was impossible without rousing his suspicions to keep him entirely at arm’s length, she wasn’t surprised when the effect of them was to make her feel more tired than ever.

“It’s often like that to begin with,” encouraged the nurse. “Especially if you’re not having complete rest from worries at home.”

Did she mean husbands by worries, Catherine wondered? There certainly wasn’t complete rest from that sort of worry, then, for Christopher, as Catherine apparently cooled, became more and more as he used to be, and possessed by the fear that he was somehow losing her rediscovered how much he loved her.

He had, of course, always intensely loved her, but he had felt the need of pauses. In her love there had been no pauses, and gradually the idea of suffocation had got hold of him. Now, so suddenly, so unaccountably, she seemed to be all pause. She tried to avoid him; she even suggested, on the plea that the nights were hot, that he should sleep in the dressing-room.

Whatever else he had tired of he hadn’t yet tired of the sweetness, the curious comfort and reassurance, of going to sleep with his arms round her. Since their marriage there had been no interruption in his wish to cling at night; what he hadn’t wanted was to be clung to in the morning. One felt so different in the morning; at least, he did. Catherine didn’t; and it was this that had given him the impression of stifling in treacle. Now she not only showed no wish at all to cling in the morning, but she tried–he wouldn’t and couldn’t believe it, but had to–to wriggle out of being clung to at night.

“Catherine, what is it? What has come between us?” he asked, his eyes hurt and indignant–when Catherine had asked this sort of question, as she had on first noticing a different quality in his love-making, he had been impatient and bored, and thought in his heart “How like all women,” but of course he didn’t remember this.

“Oh Chris, why are you so silly?” she answered, laughing and pushing him away. “Don’t you feel how hot it is, and how much nicer not to be too close together? Let us be sanitary.”

Sanitary? That was a pleasant way of putting it. She was going back to what she used to be at first, when he had such difficulty in getting hold of her at all–going back into just being an intelligent little stand-offish thing, independent, and determined to have nothing to do with him. How he had worshipped her in those days of her unattainableness. Her relapse now into what threatened to become unattainableness all over again didn’t make him worship her, because that had been the kind of worship that never returns, but it lit his love up again, while at the same time filling him with a fury of possessiveness. A thwarted possessiveness, however; she evaded him more and more.

“I can’t go to Scotland and leave you. Damn golf. I simply can’t,” he said at last.

And she, as cool as a little cucumber and as bright as a gay little button–the comparisons were his–told him he simply had to, and that when he came back he would find they were going to be happier than ever.

“You’ll love me more than ever,” she said laughing, for though the treatment was extraordinarily exhausting her spirits those days were bright with faith.

“Rot. Nobody could love you more than I do now, so what’s the good of talking like that? Catherine, what has happened to you? Tell me.”

And there he was, just as he used to be, on the floor at her feet, his arms clasping her knees, his head on her lap.

All this made Catherine very happy. She began to see benefits in the treatment other than the ones Dr. Sanguesa had guaranteed.