“I don’t want anybody to take me back,” she said. “I’ll say good-bye now.”
She waved her hand in the direction of Stevens.
“I’ll write,” she said.
He muttered something about getting a taxi for her, began to try and move out from where he was sitting, people leaving or arriving at the next table penned him in. Priscilla turned and made quickly for the glass doors. Just before she went through them, she turned and blew a kiss. Then she disappeared from sight. By the time Stevens had extracted himself, she was gone. All the same, he set off across the room to follow her.
“What a to-do all of a sudden,” said Mrs. Maclintick. “Did she behave like this when you knew her, Moreland?”
I thought it possible, though not very likely, that Priscilla had gone to look for Lovell at the Madrid. That surmise belonged to a way of life more dramatic than probable, the sort of development that would have greatly appealed to Lovell himself; in principle, I mean, even had he been in no way personally concerned. However, for better or worse, things like that do not often happen. At the same time, even though sudden desire to make it up with her husband might run contrary to expectation, I was no nearer conjecturing why Priscilla had gone off in this manner, leaving Stevens cold. The fact she might be in love with him was no reason to prevent a sudden display of capricious temper, brought on, likely as not, by the many stresses of the situation. Stevens himself was no doubt cynical enough in the way he was taking the affair, although even that was uncertain, since Lovell had supposed marriage could be in question. Lovell might be right. Stevens’s false step, so far as Priscilla was concerned, seemed to be marked by the moment he had suggested her fear about the supposititious air-raid warning. That had certainly made her angry. Even allowing for unexpected nervous reactions in wartime, it was much more likely she heard an air-raid warning — where none existed — because of her highly strung state, rather than from physical fear. Stevens had shown less than his usual grasp in suggesting such a thing. Possibly this nervous state stemmed from some minor row; possibly Priscilla’s poorish form earlier in the evening suggested that she was beginning to tire of Stevens, or feared he might be tiring of her. On the other hand, the headache, the thought of her lover’s departure, could equally have upset her; while the presence of the rest of the party at the table, the news that her husband was in London, all helped to discompose her. Reasons for her behaviour were as hard to estimate as that for giving herself to Stevens in the first instance. If she merely wanted amusement, while Lovell’s physical presence was removed by forces over which he had no control, why make all this trouble about it, why not keep things quiet? Lovell, at worst, appeared a husband preferable to many. Even if less indefatigably lively than Stevens, he was not without his own brand of energy. Was “trouble,” in fact, what Priscilla required? Was her need — the need of certain women — to make men unhappy? There was something of the kind in her face. Perhaps she was simply tormenting Stevens now for a change; so to speak, varying the treatment. If so, she might have her work cut out to disturb him in the way she was disturbing Lovell; had formerly disturbed Moreland. The fact that he was able to look after himself pretty well in that particular sphere was implicit in the manner Stevens made his way back across the room. He looked politely worried, not at all shattered.
“Did she get a taxi?”
“She must have done. She’d disappeared into the blackout by the time I got to the door on the street. There were several cabs driving away at that moment.”
“She did take on,” said Mrs. Maclintick.
“It’s an awful business,” said Stevens. “The point is I’m so immobile myself at this moment. There’s a lot of junk in the cloakroom here, a valise, God knows what else — odds and ends they wanted me to get for the Mess — all of which I’ve got to hump to the station before long.”
He looked at his watch; then sat down again at the table.
“Let’s have some more to drink,” he said, “that’s if we can get it.”
For a short time he continued to show some appearance of being worried about Priscilla, expressing anxiety, asserting she had seemed perfectly all right earlier that evening. He reproached himself for not being able to do more to help her get home, wanting our agreement that there was anyway little or nothing he could have done. After repeating these things several times, he showed himself finally prepared to accept the fact that what had happened was all in the day’s work where women were concerned.
“I’ll ring up when I get to the station,” he said.
Priscilla’s behaviour had positively stimulated Mrs. Maclintick, greatly cheered her up.
“Whatever’s wrong with the girl?” she said. “Why does she want to go off like that? I believe she didn’t approve of me wearing these filthy old clothes. Got to, doing the job I do. No good dressing up as if you were going to a wedding. You know her, Moreland. What was it all about?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” said Moreland sharply.
He showed no wish to discuss Priscilla’s behaviour further. If, once or twice that evening, he had already brought a reminder of his behaviour when out with Matilda, now, by the tone he used, he recalled Maclintick out with Mrs. Maclintick. She may have recognised that herself, because she pursed her lips.
“Wonder what’s happened to Max,” she said. “He should have been along by now. That turn must be over. It’s a short one anyway, and he comes on early at the Madrid.”
“Probably gone to bed,” said Moreland.
Mrs. Maclintick agreed that must have happened.
“More sense than sitting about in a place like this,” she added, “especially if you’ve got to get up early in the morning like I have.”
“That’s not Max Pilgrim you’re talking about?” asked Stevens.
“He’s our lodger,” said Moreland.
Stevens showed interest. Moreland explained he had known Pilgrim for years.
“I’ve always hoped to see him do his stuff,” said Stevens. “There was a chance at this revival of his old songs at the Madrid — I suppose that’s what he was coming on here from. I read about it in the paper and wanted to go, but Priscilla wouldn’t hear of it. I can see now she hasn’t been herself all day. I ought to have guessed she might be boiling up for a scene. You should know how girls are going to behave after you’ve been with them for a bit. I see I was largely to blame. She said she’d seen Pilgrim before and he bored her to hell. I told her I thought his songs marvellous. In fact I used to try and write stuff like that myself.”
I asked if he had ever sold anything of that sort to magazines.
“Only produced it for private consumption,” he said, laughing. “The sole verses I ever placed was sentimental stuff in the local press. They wouldn’t have liked my Max Pilgrim line, if it could be called that.”
“Let’s hear some of it,” said Moreland.
He had evidently taken a fancy to Stevens, who possessed in his dealings that energetic, uninhibited impact which makes its possessor master of the immediate social situation; though this mastery always requires strong consolidating forces to keep up the initial success. Mr. Deacon used to say nothing spread more ultimate gloom at a party than an exuberant manner which has roused false hopes. Stevens did not do that. He could summon more than adequate powers of consolidation after his preliminary attack. The good impression he had made on Moreland was no doubt helped, as things stood, by Priscilla’s departure. Moreland wanted to forget about her, start off on a new subject. Stevens was just the man for that. Mention of his verse offered the channel. There were immediate indications that Stevens would not need much pressing about giving an example of his own compositions.