Neither spoke for some moments. Rendell gazed at her crouching in the firelight. She looked like a child who somehow possessed a woman’s body.
“Now we continue the serial.”
She pretended to pick up an imaginary book, opened it, then spoke as if she were reading aloud.
“The bridal pair, still thrilling with the raptures of first and passionate love, in due course returned to the mother country. Glamorous visions of golden Italy still quivered within them, but life—alas!—is not one long romance. So they settled down in the large commodious London flat—and each day Paul went to his prosperous business in the City. But what of little Rosalie? Ah! what of her?”
“Don’t,” said Rendell suddenly.
“Don’t what?” she demanded.
“Don’t tell it like that.”
“Sorry! Do you want to know what it was really like?”
“Yes.”
“It was hell. For a few months I hoped I’d have a child. I didn’t want one particularly, but it was my last chance. Do you understand that? No! You won’t understand that. Anyway, it didn’t happen. I had a nervous breakdown instead. Consternation! The family summoned! The great panacea of afterwards had failed. Physicians arrived. Injections were pumped into me. One young doctor said I needed ‘an outlet.’ He was sacked immediately. Two eminent greybeards then approached. One said nothing, and the other agreed with him. Loaded with guineas, they heavily vanished. Then, having refused to have all my teeth out, and having refused to have my appendix removed, I was sent to a nursing home on the East Coast—in the winter. Do you know the East Coast well? No? Then you should go there—in the winter. The air is—really—very remarkable.”
“Still, I got better slowly,” she went on. “Paul only came at week-ends. And I met a woman there I liked: grey-haired, very lined, with eyes that were saying good-bye to life. I sobbed my story out to her one night. ‘Tell me, what can I do?’ I kept saying. She took me in her arms and kissed me. That was all. Then she went away. So I spoke to another woman. And she said: ‘Learn to love your husband—it’s your only chance.’”
“Well—and then?” Rendell asked, as she remained silent.
“What? Oh yes! I came back to London and began to try to love Paul. Have you ever tried to love anyone?”
“No. I imagine it’s not easy.”
“There are several methods—and I tried them all. One was to keep repeating all Paul’s virtues. He was so kind, so indulgent, so solid, so dependable, so punctual! That list became my rosary. But, somehow, this method wasn’t a scintillating success, so I tried another. I kept telling myself how fortunate I was, I had a home, food, cars, lovely clothes, jewels, servants. I kept telling myself that I was free because I had such a large cage. Then I began to wander about the streets, staring at old women selling matches—or crouching in corners, covered with rags. I tried to become happy by studying the misery of others. But, somehow, it didn’t work. Then I stayed in the flat and tried to imagine what it must be like to live in a slum. And I discovered that I was living in a slum—of a different kind. Then I became religious, and tried to believe that my marriage was the will of God. But that didn’t work either, because I knew it wasn’t. It was the united will of my parents and Paul. And then—well, then—I had another nervous collapse. Rather an unpleasant one.”
She put her hand to her forehead, a shiver rippling her body.
“I—I felt queer—mentally. It was odd, rather frightening. Sometimes I forgot I was married. Once, when Paul came to see me in the nursing home, I asked who he was. But that wasn’t all. I was terrified of that day when I should look back across the flat, monotonous years and be forced to say: ‘Yes, that was my life. I have lived like that, and—before long—I shall die. It is nearly over, and it has been—that!’”
She paused for a moment, then went on:
“Also, I began to be afraid of air-raids. When I was fourteen, a bomb had fallen near our house. Still, I got better—slowly. The doctor kept saying that what I needed was ballast. I suppose that was why, eventually, Paul took me for a long sea trip.”
She leaned back and laughed, stretching her hands toward the fire.
“Don’t get impatient,” she continued, “the climax approaches. We returned to England, and then, soon—just as my third nervous collapse was approaching—I met Ivor Trent.”
“How long had you been married then?”
“About three years. I was twenty-seven. I had read Ivor’s books, of course. Some people we had met on the trip asked us to dinner, and he was there. He was in the hall when we arrived. While Paul was taking off his overcoat, we stood motionless, looking at each other.”
There was silence, till she said slowly:
“Somehow I’ve got to make you understand.”
Then she described graphically her life with Vivian—its regularity, its monotony. The oppressively solid luxury of the flat: Paul’s City friends: the same conversations endlessly repeated in different words: the restaurants they visited: the plays they saw—everything defined, everything organised, everything hardened by habit. Not only did she evoke her life with Vivian, and the atmosphere investing it, but she also made Rendell feel the numbing effect of this repetitive existence.
“That was my life when I met Ivor. And I had had two nervous collapses as a result of it. And I was on the way to a third.”
“I shall tell you everything,” she said slowly. “The night I met Ivor I felt we were alone, although I hardly spoke to him and scarcely looked at him. He talked a good deal and I—heard my own language again. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of his power over me. When we said good-bye, I dared not look at him. The next afternoon he rang me up.”
“He rang me up,” she repeated, “and asked me to go to his flat. I obeyed like a slave. He seemed to know everything about me without being told. I went again to his flat—and again—and again. And then he took me as easily as you could take a cigarette from that box.”
“But when was that—exactly?” Rendell asked involuntarily.
“Three years ago.”
He was glad she was not looking at him. The discovery that Trent had made Rosalie his mistress just at the time when Vera Thornton had entered his life, so bewildered Rendell that he dared not speak lest his tone should betray him. So, for a considerable period, Trent had been intimate with these two women—neither of whom was aware of the other’s existence.
“When I was with Ivor, I had no regrets, no remorse, nothing! It seemed inevitable that we should be lovers. I went to his flat every other day. If I had not met him I should have lost my reason. I know that is true! He saved me—and he saved my marriage. I know that sounds odd, but it’s the truth, all the same.”
Rendell was about to speak—but she sprang to her feet and stood before him, gesticulating wildly.
“But—Paul! You understand? Paul! Had he known about Ivor, his world would have flown to pieces. To live with him, day after day, night after night, knowing that! And he was happier than he had ever been because I was returning to life under his eyes. Was I to tell him that Ivor was the reason—that when Ivor took me in his arms I sobbed like a child because the ice round my heart was melting? Was I to tell him that?”
“Look here,” Rendell began, “you mustn’t excite yourself——” but she silenced him with a gesture.
“I made Ivor come to the flat. I—I liked the three of us to be together. I can’t explain. Paul wasn’t surprised by my friendship with Ivor. He knew I’d dabbled with the arts. Above all, he trusted me entirely. That’s a dreadful feeling—to be trusted entirely! No woman could stand it indefinitely.”