A Severed Head

'What a fool you must both think me.' I said. 'No, I didn't know. Of course I realized you were very fond of each other. But I didn't know this. Do you imagine I would have tolerated it? How little you know me.'

'Well, you tolerated Anderson so well,' said Antonia. 'That was one thing that made me feel you must have known, you must have understood, about Alexander. Besides it was so obvious.'

'You are stupid,' I said. 'Palmer was different.'

'I don't see why,' said Antonia. 'And what do you mean by saying you wouldn't have tolerated it? I loved you both, you loved both of us, Alexander loved –'

'You make me feel ill,' I said.

'You knew I had to have both of you,' said Antonia.

'Well, from now on you're only having one of us.'

'Don't say that, darling,' said Antonia with urgency. She got up and tried again to take my hand. I put it in my pocket. 'It's true that we both love you and we can't do without you and we won't do without you. You were so splendid about Anderson. Don't spoil things now.'

'I've spent all my splendour.'

'Be rational, my dearest Martin, my child,' said Antonia. 'And, oh darling, don't look like that. After all, this situation has existed for a long time. It isn't as if I'd only just thought of it.'

'Well, I haven't known about it for a long time,' I said. 'How long in fact has it existed?'

'Oh, always,' said Antonia. 'I don't mean that we always met very often. That varied. But the situation existed.'

'Always? You mean ever since we got married?'

'Really since before we got married. I fell in love with Alexander practically as soon as I met him. Only I didn't start to believe in my love until it was too late. You remember you wouldn't let me meet Alexander until after our engagement was announced. You said he always took your girls away. And then everything was so public. I hadn't enough nerve.'

'You mean our marriage never really existed at all?'

'Of course it existed, darling. I loved you both. I love you both.'

'I don't think you understand that word,' I said.

'You hurt me terribly,' said Antonia. We looked at each other. Her face had a hard dignity and she withstood my gaze. She had certainly, since the last occasion, travelled. She still looked like an actress. But a great actress.

I walked away to the window and looked out at the magnolia tree. The weak sun revealed the moss upon its old trunk. It looked dead.

'Why didn't you tell me?' I said.

'As I say, I thought you knew. I thought you preferred it all being gentle and inexplicit.'

'Well, why are you making it all nasty and explicit now?'

'Anderson woke me up,' said Antonia. 'He made me in some ways more absolute. After that it was impossible to go on in quite this way. I was in love with Anderson, I was terribly carried away by him. I couldn't help myself. It was both wonderful and terrible. I'd never felt the earth give way under me quite like that. Of course it nearly killed Alexander. He saw it coming from miles off – and I was practically afraid for his reason. He suffered far more than you did.'

'Did he know before I knew?'
'Yes. I couldn't deceive him. And anyway he guessed.'
'But you could deceive me.'
'You deceived me,' said Antonia.
'That was different,' I said.
'You keep saying things are different that aren't,' said Antonia. 'Of course our marriage could never have been quite right. You realized it, after all. You had to have someone else too. I would have forgiven you.'
'No marriage is ever quite right,' I said. 'But I believed in ours. Now you tell me it never was. I haven't even got the past left.'
'You are such a dreamer, Martin,' said Antonia. 'You like to dream along without facing things. Well, you must face things now. And do stop being so sorry for yourself.'
'Don't be brutal to me, Antonia. I just want to understand. You say that Palmer woke you up?'
'Yes, he made me honest. Made me braver, perhaps. It is better to be explicit and to try to hold things all the same. It was wonderful how I managed it with you, over Anderson. And somehow I held on to Alexander as well. However much he suffered, we never lost touch. That was wonderful.' 'Wonderful. I see. So you're trying it out on me again?' 'Dearest,' said Antonia, 'I knew you'd come round!' She came up behind me and I could feel her gentle touch on my shoulder. I still stood looking out at the magnolia, my hands behind my back.
'What makes you think I'm coming round?' I said. 'You must, you must!' she said with tender urgency, and began to undo my hands and take them in hers. Without turning I let her hold them. 'But what about Georgie?'
'Oh, that was sheer despair,' said Antonia. 'Alexander had been so dreadfully hurt by the Anderson business. While it was going on he was in too much pain to be angry. He kept his anger until after it was over. Then he wanted to punish me.'
'You mean he never really intended to marry Georgie at all?'
'Well, he thought he did,' said Antonia, 'but he deceived himself, poor dear. We were estranged from each other for a short time, and it was hell for both of us. Surely you must have seen me suffering. He imagined he wanted something new, and he started it off with Georgie just as a distraction.
He was half mad. But then of course he realized that it was no good. That was why Georgie tried to kill herself, when she found out that Alexander really loved me.' Her voice droned on quietly over my shoulder.
'Is that right?' I said. I was becoming dazed and stupid. I felt like an empty vessel that is struck again and again. Even Georgie's love was being taken away from me. It would take little now to make me believe that Georgie had loved Alexander all along. At any rate she had been waiting for Alexander all along. Yet she had sent me her dear hair.
I turned round and faced Antonia and we stood together in the window. She caressed my arms, leaning her head forward with the old look of possessive tenderness.
'Poor Georgie,' said Antonia. 'But she's young, she'll soon find someone else.'
'You must be pleased with yourself,' I said. 'It turns out everyone loves you in the end.'
Antonia smiled her triumphant smile. 'I'm good at it!' she said. Then she touched my cheek. 'Don't resist my love, Martin. I must keep you in my loving net. We'll hold you, you know, we'll never let you go! After all, you were unconsciously living it before. Perhaps we were all a little in a dream. Now it has come fully to consciousness, and things will be put right, as they would have been at the start if I had had more courage. And if we are brave and good it will all be better now that we are truthful, oh better, far better!' She spoke softly, rubbing my cheek as if she were rubbing into it some spell-binding ointment.
I removed her hand and scratched the place where it had been. 'Well,' I said, 'it's nice that you won't have to change your name. It will be so much less confusing for the trades-people. I'm glad we're keeping you in the family.'
Antonia laughed tenderly. 'Oh, darling,' she said, 'I know you so well, you dear ironical creature! You move me so much when you try to conceal your goodness in that flippant way.'
'So I've got the same old part, have I? I can't seem to stop being an angel of light and mercy.'
'Your goodness is too much for you, Martin,' said Antonia. 'You couldn't be harsh if you tried. You have a far better character than your brother! Oh, I do love you!' She embraced me in a flapperish manner, lifting one high-heeled foot impetuously behind her. I suffered her embrace.
'What did Palmer think of your capers with Alexander?' I said over her shoulder. I wanted to draw some blood.
She drew back from me and her face, touched by a real pain, looked less histrionic. She hesitated, and then said, 'I never told him.'
'Why not?'
'Because Alexander meant too much to me. I couldn't bring myself to. It was our secret. And Alexander didn't want me to. I suppose I would have told him in the end, but I kept putting it off. And then he found out.'
'Did he? How? When?'
'How, I don't know,' said Antonia. She was turned a little away from me, her mouth agitated, twisting her hands. 'I half thought for a while that you'd told him, but of course that was impossible, and anyway you wouldn't have. When, was that week-end when I went to Mother's. He must have found out then. Perhaps he found a letter or something. And he was too terribly hurt to go on.'
'I see,' I said, 'I see. Poor Palmer. But it was all for the best in the end, wasn't it?'
'Oh yes!' Her face softened and the moist radiance returned. 'Oh yes! I am so terribly relieved that I shall not lose Alexander after all. Somehow this test with Anderson has shown it to be so utterly the real thing. That's why I've got to have it in the open now and have my life properly in order. I'm very grateful to Anderson, really.'
'You won't lose Alexander,' I said, 'and you weren't going to lose me anyway. So aren't you a lucky girl?'
'Aren't I a lucky girl!' she echoed gaily, standing back and taking my hands.
Someone knocked at the door of the drawing-room. We moved apart like surprised lovers and I called 'Come in.' It was Rosemary. She was neat, in a new little black hat, carrying an umbrella as thin as a pencil. 'Oh, hello,' she said primly. 'I've just got back and I thought I'd call in for a moment.' She advanced and put a bag down on the writing-table. 'I've brought you some avocado pears,' she said. 'I saw them in Harrods, and I thought I'd better buy them while I could, they don't always have them, you know. They aren't quite ripe, but the man said they should be all right to eat in a day or two if you keep them in a warm room.'
I turned to Rosemary. 'Great news for you, sister,' I said. 'My wife is going to marry my brother. Isn't that splendid?'
'Darling!' said Antonia.
'It only remains,' I said, 'for me to fall madly in love with Rosemary and then we can all go and live happily together at Rembers!' I began to laugh.
'Martin!' said Rosemary. She held out something to me. 'This letter was on the mat. It must have been delivered by hand.'
I took the letter and stopped laughing. It bore a Teutonic hand-writing which I had not seen before. But I knew where it came from.
I said, 'You girls entertain each other while I go and get some champagne. I want to toast my wife's engagement.' I left the room banging the door behind me.
I went into the dining-room and closed myself in and began to fumble with the letter. I could hardly get it open. When I had ripped the envelope across I recognized Palmer's writing on the inside, and I felt cold. I pulled out his letter which I had crumpled and torn. There was no other communication. His letter read: