“Good girl! Now what you want is a nice cup of tea.”
She wanted it more than anything else in the world. It was a good cup of tea. When she had finished it Mr. Drake filled it up again. He also produced a bag of buns and a cup for himself and sat down.
“Do you like buns? I am very fond of them. These are almost pre-war-they have currants and citron peel in them. I was taking them home to have a solitary orgy, but this is much nicer.”
Miss Lemming ate two buns and drank two more cups of tea. There had not been quite enough lunch to go round, and she had said that she wasn’t hungry. During the last cup she discovered that she was being reproved by Mr. Drake.
“ Bell said that you were out all this morning. What made you go off down into the town again? You should have taken a rest.”
She was so used to being in the wrong that she found herself apologising.
“I had a book to change.”
“And why didn’t you change it this morning?”
“Oh, I did. My mother didn’t like the one I brought.”
Mr. Drake’s peaked eyebrows went up until they threatened to touch his thick iron-grey hair. He looked quite terrifyingly like Mephistopheles. He said with the abruptness of a shy man breaking bounds,
“Your mother is a damned selfish old woman.”
Miss Lemming stared at him. Her heart beat painfully. The tea-cup chattered in her hand. In all her life no one had ever said such a monstrous thing to her before. And he had sworn- actually sworn. She must find words to reprove him. She found none. Something inside her said, “It’s true.”
He took the cup out of her hand and set it down.
“It’s true, isn’t it? Who should know that better than you? She’s killing you. And when I see someone being killed I can’t just stand by and hold my tongue. Why do you put up with it? Why don’t you go and get yourself a job? There are plenty going.”
Miss Lemming stopped shaking, and said with directness and simplicity,
“I did try about two months ago. You won’t tell anyone, will you, because they said I wasn’t strong enough, and if my mother knew she would be most terribly hurt. She-she doesn’t understand that I’m not as strong as I used to be. It’s no good, Mr. Drake-I can’t get away.”
The eyebrows relaxed. Mr. Drake’s whole expression relaxed.
“It isn’t always easy,” he agreed. “But there is generally a way. Take my own case. I was-well, very much out of the world for some years, and when I came back I found myself without any money, or a job, or friends. It really didn’t look as if there was any way out of that. I had-well, I had rather a bad time of it. And then I was left a business-rather an odd sort of business, and I don’t suppose you would approve of it, but it did offer me a way out. I may say that I have never regretted taking it, though there are times when I might have wished for something more congenial. At those times I remind myself that it provides me with the means to live comfortably, to keep a small car, and to do more or less what I like with my spare time. The fact is, if you cannot get what you want, common sense suggests that you should put your mind to wanting what you can get.”
A little colour rose to Agnes Lemming’s cheeks. The ugly black beret had either come off of itself or been removed by Mr. Drake. The mass of brown hair which it had hidden fell to her shoulders. It had once been very curly, and still retained enough wave to make the fall becoming. Mr. Drake observed this. He noticed also that it matched the brown of her eyes in an unusual and, to his mind, very attractive manner. The eyes brightened as she said,
“What did you want?”
“Oh, I wanted the moon,” said Mr. Drake-“the moon, and the stars, and the seventh heaven. We all do when we are young, and when we can’t get them we say they don’t exist, and we fill our bellies with the husks which the swine do eat, and then we get a pretty bad go of indigestion.”
Agnes Lemming had a nice soft voice. She said very softly indeed,
“What was your moon?”
He was looking past her to the window, with its inspiring view of gravel sweep and massed Victorian shrubbery, but what he saw was something very different. He said,
“Oh, a woman-just a woman. It generally is, you know.”
“What happened?”
“I married her. A fatal thing to do. Moons should be left in the sky. Seen close, they lose their glamour and turn into dead worlds. To leave the metaphor behind, she changed her mind and went off with somebody else. I spent what was very nearly my last penny on the divorce. Rather ironic. There you have my story. What about yours?”
“I haven’t any.” The soft voice held a tragic note.
“No-she’s sucked you dry, hasn’t she? Are you going to stay and let her finish you?”
“What can I do?” said Agnes Lemming sadly.
Mr. Drake removed his eyes from the window and looked at her with a peculiar and intent expression.
“Well, you could marry me.”
CHAPTER 10
Four people wrote letters that evening. They too were to form part of the pattern.
Carola Roland wrote to someone whom she addressed as “Toots darling”. It was a gushing, girlish letter.
“Missing my Toots so dreadfully. Am just longing for us to be together, but of course I do see we’ve got to be ever so careful until your divorce is through. I’m living exactly like a nun here- you needn’t be afraid about that-but I don’t mind a bit really, because I’m always thinking about you, and when we can get married, and what a lovely time we’ll have…”
There was a lot more in the same vein.
This letter was not posted, because Miss Roland suddenly lost interest in it. She was, in fact, visited by a very bright idea. When you are bored beyond tears, bright ideas are exceedingly welcome. Miss Roland was bored to such an extent that any distraction was welcome. She had even snatched at Alfred Willard. Anyway writing to Toots was the last word in boredom.
It wouldn’t do him any harm to be kept waiting for her letter. She believed in keeping men waiting-it made them keen. Toots had got to be kept keen enough to come down with a wedding ring and a handsome settlement as soon as his divorce was made absolute. He might be a bore-he was a bore-but oh, boy, had he got the dough!
She pushed the letter inside a very fancy blotter, took a bunch of keys out of her handbag, and went down to the luggage-room. The bright idea was a positive Catherine-wheel of malicious dancing sparks.
She came upstairs again presently with a packet of letters and a large signed photograph. Setting the photograph conspicuously on the left-hand side of the mantlepiece, she sat down to read the letters…
Mr. Drake wrote to Agnes Lemming: “My dear, I must write, because I want you to have something which you can read when I am not there to say these things. You have lived long enough in prison. Come out and see what the world is like. I can only show you a very small corner of it, but it would be your corner and mine, and it would be a home, not a prison. I know what life looks like to a prisoner. Come out before it destroys you. When she has killed you, how will your mother be any the better for it? You say you could not leave her alone, but it is not your companionship she wants, it’s your service. Give her a paid servant who can leave if the chain is pulled too tight. You are not a daughter, you are a slave. Slavery is immoral and abhorrent. These are hard words, but you know perfectly well that they are true ones. I have wanted to say them for a long time now. Do you remember the day I carried your basket up from the town? It started then. The thing weighed a ton- your arm was shaking with the strain. I could have sworn at you for the patience in your eyes, and for the smile you gave me. People oughtn’t to be patient and smile under an intolerable tyranny. I found myself unable to get you out of my mind. I discovered that you are that most infuriating of human beings, the saint who invites martyrdom. It is a reckless act on my part to ask you to marry me. You will try to destroy my moral character and turn me into a monster of selfishness, but I am forewarned and, I hope, forearmed. My best weapon is the fact that I desire nothing so much in the world as to make you happy. I believe that I can do it. As this is not an argument that would appeal to you, I will add that I have not had much happiness myself, and that you can give me all that I have missed and more. Won’t you do it?”