“You think so?”
“That husband of hers is all wrong for her.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Yes. A cold fish. Not a scrap of feeling in him.”
“Now Nilla, I see through you. You want me to contradict you and tell you all I know about Arthur. All I’m going to tell you is that you are wrong.”
“What a man for secrets you are.”
“Secrets are the priest’s trade or he is no priest.”
“All right. Don’t tell. But that woman comes out of a very different box from Arthur Cornish, who is all money and careful plans, and Kater Murr.”
“You’re right about Maria. Wrong about Arthur. He is scrambling upward from Kater Murr just as fast as he can.”
“Oh? So he married Maria to get away from Kater Murr? You let something slip, there. That woman is no Canadian.”
“Yes she is. A Canadian can be anything. It is one of our very few gifts. Because, you see, we all bring something to Canada with us, and a few years won’t wash it out. Not even a few generations. But if you are frying with curiosity, Nilla, I would be a rotten guest if I did not tell you a few things to appease you. Maria is half Pole and the other half is Hungarian Gypsy.”
“What a strong soup! Gypsy, is she?”
“If you met her mother you would never doubt it. Maria doesn’t hurry to admit it, but she is very like her mother. And Arthur is very fond of Maria’s mother. No wise man marries a woman if he can’t stand her mother.”
“And this mother is still alive? Here? I want to meet her. I love Gypsies.”
“I don’t suppose there is any reason why you shouldn’t meet her. But don’t assume you are going to love her. Mamusia would smell patronage a mile away, and she would be rough with you, Nilla. She is what Schnak would call one rough old broad, and as wise as a serpent.”
“Ah, now you are telling! That Maria is one rough young broad, for all her silly pretence of being a nice rich man’s wife with scholarly hobbies. You have blabbed, you leaky priest!”
“It’s this excellent wine, Nilla. But I have told you nothing that everybody doesn’t know.”
“So—come on, Simon—what about Arthur?”
“Arthur is a gifted financial man, chairman of the board of a great financial house, and a man with genuine artistic tastes. A generous man.”
“And a wimp? A nerd?—You see how I learn from Hulda.”
“Not a wimp, and not a nerd or anything that Hulda would know about. What he is you will have to find out for yourself.”
“But what plot are he and his wife working out together? Which of the nine? Tell me, or I might hit you!”
“Don’t brawl in a restaurant, it will get us thrown out. That would be deeply un-Canadian. I think I smell the plot, but if you think I am going to hint to you, you can think again. You’re a clever woman; work it out for yourself.”
“I will, and then probably I’ll hit you. Or maybe kiss you. You don’t smell bad, for a man. But you will take me to Maria’s mother, at least?”
“If you like.”
“I do like.”
“You’re a rough old broad yourself, Nilla.”
“Not so old. But rough.”
“I have a fancy for rough women.”
“Good. And now what about cognac?”
“Armagnac, I think, if I may. More suitable to rough broads.”
4
Maria was up to mischief, and Darcourt knew it. Why else would she present herself in his study at half past four in the afternoon, pretending that she was passing by, and thought that he might give her a cup of tea? She knew perfectly well that he did not go in for elegant tea-drinking, and that it was a nuisance for him to find a pot, and some long-kept tea, and stew up something on his electric hot-plate. He knew perfectly well that if tea was what she wanted she would be welcome in the Common Room of her old college, where there was lots of tea. They both knew that she had come to talk about her adultery, but she was certainly not a repentant Magdalene. She was wearing a red pant-suit, and had a red scarf tied around her hair, and she smiled and tossed her head and rolled her eyes in a way that Darcourt had never seen before. Maria was not there to confess or repent, but to tease and defend.
“Arthur has been to see you,” she said, after some small talk which neither of them pretended was anything but a conventional overture to real conversation.
“Did he tell you so?”
“No, but I guessed it. Poor Arthur is in a terrible state just now, and you’re his refuge in terrible states.”
“He was distressed.”
“And you comforted him?”
“No. Comfort did not seem appropriate. Arthur is not a man to be given sugar-candy, and that’s what an awful lot of comfort amounts to.”
“So you know all about it?”
“I don’t imagine so for a moment. I know what he told me.”
“And you are going to scold me?”
“No.”
“Just as well. I’m not in the mood to be scolded.”
“Then why have you come to me?”
“Is it strange that I should look in on an old friend for a cup of tea?”
“Come on, Maria; don’t play the fool. If you want to talk about this state of affairs, I’ll certainly talk. I’m not the keeper of your conscience, you know.”
“But you think I’ve behaved badly.”
“Don’t tell me what I think. Tell me what you think, if you want to.”
“How was I to know that Arthur can’t beget children? He never told me that.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
“You simply don’t understand what happened.”
“In such a matter nobody understands what happened except the people directly involved, and they are not always clear about it.”
“Oh, so you know that, do you?”
“I know a few things about life. Not many, but a few. I know that when a family friend plays the cuckoo in the nest it is an old, old story. And I know that when you toss your head and roll your eyes like one of Little Charlie’s ponies you probably think that somebody has been using you badly. Was it Arthur?”
“Arthur wasn’t frank.”
“Arthur was distressed and ashamed, and you ought to know that. He would have told you, when a good time came. How frank have you been with him?”
“I haven’t been frank yet. There hasn’t been a good time.”
“Maria, what kind of marriage have you and Arthur set up? You could have made a good time.”
“A good time to crawl and weep and probably be forgiven. I absolutely refuse to be forgiven.”
“You’ve done what you’ve done, and there is a price for that. Being forgiven may be a part of that price.”
“Then I won’t pay.”
“Rather break up your marriage?”
“It wouldn’t come to that.”
“From what I know of Arthur, I don’t suppose it would.”
“It would come to being forgiven, and being one-down on the marriage score-board for the rest of my life. And I simply won’t put up with that. I’m not going to spend years of saying, ‘Yes, dear,’ about anything important because I have a debt I can’t discharge. There’s going to be a child, as I suppose you know. And every time the child is troublesome or disappointing I’m not going to have Arthur sighing and rolling his eyes and being marvellously big about the whole damned thing.”
“You think that’s what he’d do?”
“I don’t know what he’d do, but that’s what I wouldn’t endure.”
“You have the Devil’s own pride, haven’t you?”
“I suppose so.”
“You can never be wrong. Maria can never be at fault. Very well; live that way if you must. But I can tell you it’s easier and more comfortable to be wrong now and then.”
“Comfortable! You sound like Kater Murr. Do you know who Kater Murr is?”
“Why do people keep asking me that? You introduced me to Kater Murr yourself.”
“So I did. Sorry. But since then I’ve got hold of Hoffmann’s astonishing novel, and I feel as if Kater Murr had crept into my life and was making a mess of it. Kater Murr and his horrible, cosy philosophy says far too much about my marriage.”