There was one pair of curious, observant eyes that did not let me keep my secrets unperceived. Jack Cotery was interested in me, and love was his special subject. He watched the vicissitudes in my spirits as day followed day. He went out of his way to meet Sheila once or twice. Then, in the summer, not long before I set off to London to take the examination, he exerted himself. He came up one night and said, in his soft voice ‘Lewis, I want to talk to you.’
I tried to put him off, but he shook his head.
‘No. Clearly, it’s time someone gave you a bit of advice.’
He was oddly obstinate. It was the only time I had known him make a determined stand about someone else’s concerns. He insisted on taking me to the picture-house café. ‘I’m more at home there.’ He grinned. ‘I’m tired of your wretched pubs.’ There, under the pink-shaded lights, with girls at the tables close by, whispering, giggling, he was indeed at home. But that night he was keeping his eyes from girls. With his rolling muscular gait he led the way into the corner, where there was a table separate from the rest. The night was warm; we drank tea, and got warmer; Jack Cotery, in complete seriousness, began to talk to me.
Then I realized that this was an act of pure friendliness. It was the more pure, because I had recently been busy trying to stop one of his dubious projects. In the autumn he had borrowed money from George, in order to start a small wireless business. Since then he had launched out on a speculation that was, if one took the most charitable view, somewhere near the edge of the shady. He was pestering George for more money with which to extricate himself. I had used my influence with George to stop it. My motives were not all disinterested; I might still want to borrow from George myself, and so Jack and I were rivals there; but still, I had a keen nose for a rogue, I had no doubt that to Jack commercial honesty was without meaning, and thus early I smelt danger, most of all, of course, for George.
Jack was a good deal of a rogue, but he bore no grudges. No doubt he enjoyed advising me, showing off his expertness, parading himself where he was so much more knowledgeable, so much less vulnerable, than I. But he had a genuine wish, earthy and kind, to get me fitted up with a suitable bed-mate, to be sure that I was enjoying myself, with all this nonsensical anguish thrown away. He had taken much trouble to time his advice right. With consideration, with experienced eyes, he had been watching until I seemed temporarily light-hearted. It was then, when he felt sure that I was not worrying about Sheila, that he took me off to the picture-house café. He actually began, over the steaming tea ‘Lewis, things aren’t so bad with your girl just now, are they?’
I said that they were not.
‘That’s the time to give her up,’ said Jack, with emphasis and conviction. ‘When you’re not chasing her. It won’t hurt your pride so much. You can get out of it of your own free will. It’s better for you yourself to have made the break, Lewis, it will hurt you less.’
He spoke so warmly that I had to answer in kind.
‘I can’t give her up,’ I said. ‘I love her.’
‘I’ve noticed that,’ said Jack, smiling good-naturedly. ‘Though why you didn’t tell me earlier I just can’t imagine. We might have dangled a few distractions before your eyes. Why in God’s name should you fall for that — horror?’
‘She’s not a horror.’
‘You know very well she is. In everything that matters. Lewis, you’re healthy enough. Why in God’s name should you choose someone who’ll only bring you misery?’
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘Once or twice’, I said, ‘I’ve been happier with her than I’ve ever imagined being.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Jack. ‘If you didn’t get a spot of happiness when you’re first in love, it’d be a damned poor lookout for all of us. Look here, I know more about women than you do. Or if I don’t’, he grinned, ‘I must have been wasting my time. I tell you, she’s a horror. Perhaps she’s a bit crazy. Anyway, she’ll only bring you misery. Now why did you choose her?’
‘Has one any choice?’ I said.
‘With someone impossible,’ said Jack, ‘you ought to be able to escape.’
‘I don’t think I can,’ I said.
‘You’ve got to,’ said Jack, with more vigorous purpose than I had ever heard from him. ‘She’ll do you harm. She’ll make a mess of your life.’ He added: ‘I believe she’s done you a lot of harm already.’
‘Nonsense,’ I said.
‘I bet you don’t know when to make love to her.’
The hit was so shrewd that I blushed.
‘Damn the bitch,’ said Jack. ‘I’d like to have her in a bedroom with no questions asked. I’d teach her a thing or two.’
He looked at me.
‘Lewis,’ he said, ‘it’s the cold ones who can do you harm. I expect you wonder if any woman will ever want you.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Sometimes I do.’
‘It’s absurd,’ said Jack, in his flattering, easy, soothing fashion. ‘If you’d run across someone warm, you’d know how absurd it is. Why, with just a bit of difference, you’d have a better time than I do. You’re sympathetic. You’re very clever. You’re going to be a success. And — you’ve got a gleam in your eye… It’s like everything else,’ he went on. ‘You’ve got to believe in yourself. If she’s ruined that for you, I shall never forgive her. I tell you, it’s absurd for you to doubt yourself. There are hundreds of nicer girls than Miss Sheila who’d say yes before you’d had time to ask.’
When he cared, he was more skilful than anyone I knew at binding up the wounds.
Jack looked across the table. I was certain that he had something else to say, and was working his way towards it. He was using all his cunning, as well as his good nature.
‘Now Marion’, he said, as though casually, and I understood, ‘would be a hundred times better — for any purpose that you can possibly imagine. I don’t mind telling you, I’ve thought of her myself. I just can’t understand why you’ve done nothing about it.’
‘I’ve been pretty occupied,’ I said. ‘And I wasn’t—’
‘I should have thought’, said Jack, ‘that you might have found time to think of her. After all, she’s been pining for you long enough.’
I was forced on to the defensive. I said, in confusion, that I knew she was rather fond of me, but he was exaggerating it beyond all reason.
‘You bloody fool,’ said Jack, ‘she worships the ground you walk on.’
I still protested, Jack went on attacking me. If I did not realize it, he said roughly, it must be because I was blinded by Sheila. The sooner I got rid of her the better, if I could not notice what was going on round me. ‘Remember too,’ said Jack, ‘if anyone falls in love with you, it is partly your own fault. It’s not all innocence on your side. It never is. There’s always a bit of encouragement. You’ve smiled at her, you’ve been sympathetic, and you’ve led her on.’
I felt guilty: that was another stab of truth. I argued, I protested again that he was exaggerating. I was confused: I half wanted to credit what he said, just for the sake of my own vanity; I half wanted to be guiltless.
‘I don’t care about the rights and wrongs,’ said Jack. ‘All I care about is that the young woman is aching for you. Just as much as you ache for your girl. And without any nonsense about it. She wants you, she knows she wants you. But remember she can’t wait for ever. If I never advise you again, Lewis, I’m doing so now. Get free — not next week, tonight, go home and write the letter — and take Marion on. It will make all the difference to you… I’m not at all sure’, he said surprisingly, ‘that you wouldn’t be wise to marry her.’