Garth
My dear Matthew,
I am sorry to reply so soon to your charming letter, thereby putting you once again in the position of owing me one. I appreciate, and indeed hear on all sides, how extremely busy you are and how beset by urgent and pressing engagements. Naturally you are much in demand. You are quite a public figure, and must have a very different sense of your day from home-keeping small fry who idly pass their solitary hours. I do not want to waste your time. Our chat about the old days can doubtless be postponed indefinitely without too much chagrin. There is not all that much pleasure in talking about the past, even with someone one is fond of. The future, as the poet observed in his cups, is the only âserious matter'. Lucky are they who can still boast of one. I write to repeat, tediously perhaps, that I would like to see you. And also to say that I have got some information, or perhaps I should call it a theory, which I should like some time to impart to you. I think it might interest you very much.
Regards.
Charlotte
Dearest Sis,
for heaven's sake do not put it around that I disapprove of R. Pargeter! How could such a ridiculous idea gain currency? How
can
one disapprove of a man with a yacht and a plan to visit the Greek islands? Will you now kindly insinuate in all quarters your brother's profound respect for the misunderstood Pargeter, together with your brother's seafaring expertise, handiness with ropes, helpful knowledge of the classics, and all that? The Ralph biz cooketh. I will tell you later. (
I am still very unhappy.
) Thanks for the data re A. Colindale beloved by R. Odmore. I suspected this actually. Thank God she is not fancy free but loves the excellent Pargeter, that sound man. Don't say anything stupid to Ralph, will you, if you see him at that thrash. I may even illicitly come myself. Thanks for the cheque, but when I said money I meant MONEY. Kindly forward fifty pounds. What rotten luck for the Monkley fellow. It shows one shouldn't associate with Austin. Give my love to Matthew. Does he really remember me? He is an old crook in a way but he's a bit larger than the usual pattern in our rotten circle. Are you keeping yourself pure? I mean spiritually of course.
Your confessor and papa in God
Tisbourne
â
PS re bridesmaids plan, watch out, Henrietta Sayce is a DEVIL.
My dearest Mother,
your letter has caused me much pain and touched my heart with deep love. I too long to look upon your face, and to see you and my dear father again in amity and peace. I will not write at length. As I have said before, and indeed many times, I cannot truthfully, on any ground, religious or moral, plead pacificism, since I am not a pacifist. I object not to war, but to this war. If I return home now I face a spell in prison, the loss of my Oxford job (which would have to go to someone else), the ruination of my academic prospects in the States, and worst of all the confiscation of my passport. And since I have in all possible seriousness and sincerity decided that it is not my life's work to be a martyr of protest, it is duty as well as common sense to remain here. Please think about it all, Mother, please see
all
the pieces of the problem and see them all together in relation to each other. And please believe me that this would be my conclusion even were I not engaged to be married to an English girl.
I cannot (will not I suppose I should in honesty say) postpone my marriage. The wedding dress is ordered, the bridesmaids dresses are being made. (We are having a grown-up bridesmaid and a little one.) Everything is fixed. We have already a flat in Oxford and hope to buy furniture for it this weekend. I say these things not in frivolity or to cause you pain, but to make you see the
reality
of this marriage which will
will,
dearest Mother, take place in August. Please come to it, both of you, please. Gracie will pay the fare. It will complete our happiness which without you is wounded.
Please
. And forgive your son. He can no other. With so much much love, and also to Father.
Ludwig
âAustin's here,' said Mavis. âDo you want to see him?'
Dorina hastily laid aside her book. She blushed and touched her throat and gave a little gasp. Then she jumped up and closed the drawing-room window as if that made some sort of difference. The sun blazed in on to clean white paint and orange-tawny walls and rather bad water-colours executed by Dorina and her father.
âYes. I was expecting him.'
âOh,' said Mavis. âWell, here he is. I won't be far off.' She made an ambiguous grimace.
Austin came in, and the door closed behind Mavis.
Austin looked at Dorina and Dorina looked at the floor. She sat down again and motioned him to a seat, still not looking up.
Austin was carefully dressed in the light grey tweed suit, from which the wine stains had been almost entirely removed. He had a new pair of steel-rimmed glasses. He wore a white poplin shirt and a Bellini green tie. He had washed his fair hair which stood up in an attractive tousled way and rushed back over his head. His eyes looked unusually blue and he appeared young and full of health. But at the moment Dorina could only see his shoes, which had been rubbed clean without being polished.
âHello,' said Austin.
Dorina murmured.
Austin sat down in an upright chair near her, reached across and lightly touched her knee. Dorina raised her head, brushed her eyes.
âHello, Austin.'
âHello, darling.'
âSorry â'
âWhat are you being sorry about, silly? What's this book you've been reading?'
âThe Lord of the Rings.'
âIs it good, funny?'
âYes.'
âDorina â'
âOh, darling â'
âWe are a hopeless pair, aren't we. Don't cry. I'm not worth your precious tears.'
âSorry, I'll be all right in a minute.'
âI say, it's so
clean
here. No dust. Round at â where I live now â it's all dust and dirt and awful things in corners. Horrid.'
âMrs Carberry cleans here. She's very good.'
âI wish we had a Mrs Carberry. I mean â Oh, Dorina, I do miss you so.'
âAustin, let's be together again. I feel things are sort of closing in. I can't explain. We must try to be somewhere together. Now that I see you I can't understand what went wrong, it's as if I'd forgotten â'
âI know. I've forgotten too. May I touch you?'
âOh, Austin â'
He took her hand.
âDorina â silly â aren't you?'
âYes, Austin.'
He stared at her, frowning with a kind of amazement. She was wearing a high-necked dress, buff coloured and sprigged with light pink daisies. Her light brown hair flowed loose to her shoulders, shining and blurred into gold, a young girl's hair. But her face looked thinner, creamy pale and unlined, yet somehow no longer youthful. Could such a face, without seeming to age at all, become suddenly haggard? Her moist hand held his stiffly but hard. Their knees did not touch.
âLook, I'd better just talk,' said Austin. âYou know I'm a hopeless character, you know me, God knows why you married me, it was your unlucky day when we two met, but here we are, somehow very married, aren't we, other people can't understand that, but we are.'
âYes, Austin.'
âI can't think how things have got into this mess, with everyone interfering, if we'd just been left to ourselves â Don't push me away, darling child.'
âI'm not pushing you away. Forgive me.'
âMay I just â touch you so â I'm not so bad, am I. It's only old Austin, you know, your hopeless old husband.'
âDear dear husband.'
âThat's a new dress.'
âIt's one of Mavis's. It didn't fit her any more.'
âPretty.'
The dress was full-skirted and longish. Austin's right hand nudged at Dorina's knees, his left hand crept a little up her wrist under the lacy cuff. He felt her fast pulse, smelt freshly laundered cotton and flowers.
He went on, âWe shouldn't have separated â'
âIt was my fault.'
âNo, it wasn't, but we won't argue that. Maybe it was a good thing in a way, Nature took a hand in the game. You needed a holiday from me.'
âNo.'
âYes, you did. Anyone would. I need a holiday from myself. And then just lately â well, you know how everything's gone wrong â I left my job â'
âAustin, are you short of money?'
âWell â'
âI wish you'd sell those jewels of mine. They're at the flat, in that little drawer in the bathroom, in a cardboard box. There's a diamond ring and a brooch that goes with it. The diamond ring is quite valuable.'
âOh. Is it?'
âYou should get at least fifty pounds for the ring. Daddy gave it to me, but â You will sell them, please? Just to please me? I don't want you to be short of money. You will promise?'
âWell â all right â'
âDear Austin, thank you. Go on talking, will you. Just to hear you talking to me and to hold your hand is such a relief, it's like when pain suddenly ceases and you can see the world again. You know I can't talk. I've nothing to say somehow, except that I love you.'
âYes, then, I left my job, and there was poor old Charlotte and I felt I had to let her the flat, and Mitzi Ricardo was pressing me and pressing me to come and stay and I thought, when I had to make economies, you know â'
âIs she â does she love you, Austin?'
âOld Mitzi! No! She's just lonely. She's a pathetic figure really, I can't help feeling sorry for her, she's such a broken-down old thing.'
âShe's hardly older than me, is she â ?'
âShe seems thirty years older than you. She's lost her looks and got fat and taken to the bottle â'
âPoor thing. You've been so good to her, so good to Charlotte.'
âMitzi just needs company, now that Ludwig's gone â'
âLouis's with â ?'
âYes.'
âAustin, Louis has quite stopped coming to see me.'
âHas he. Yes. Oh he's tied up with Gracie and that Tis-bourne world and Oxford, he's got busy and grand, he's not at all like the old Ludwig any more. He doesn't care about people.'
âYou care, Austin.'
âDorina, I don't care about anybody but myself and possibly you, please get that clear! You mustn't think I really helped Mitzi or Char out of genuine unselfishness or kindness.'
âWell, perhaps there isn't such a thing.'
âPerhaps there isn't. That's a very grown-up thought. Perhaps we're both growing up at last.'
âIt would be about time. Oh, Austin, I do wish we had somewhere to go. Clara Tisbourne keeps on asking me to go and stay with them.'
âYou won't go, will you, Dorina, I couldn't bear it â'
âNo, of course I won't go.'
âAnd you won't go on this ghastly cruise they're planning with Richard Pargeter?'
âNo, of course not, as if I'd go away on a cruise just when â'
âThat's my own dear true wife, my forever and ever girl.'
âOh, Austin, we really are sort of together again now, aren't we? It suddenly seems so easy â You will come more now, come every day?'
âYes, yes.'
âAnd we'll be quiet with each other and talk about the future â'
âThe future, yes.'
âHow we'll be back in our own little place one day soon, among all our own things, our own funny special place, like it used to be, and I'll cook and sew â'
âAnd we'll make it nicer too, I'll get a job with more money and â'
âOh dear Austin, I do so much want just to make you happy, I've always wanted that. You've had such a terrible time. I keep thinking of that poor child â'
âThat, yes.'
âI hardly dared to mention it, it's so awful. I am so sorry for you. And now there's that poor chap who's had the accident, the father.'
âYes. Poor chap.'
âHow is he?'
âStill unconscious. Yes, well,, we'll get back our little home, won't we, Dorina, and â'
âMavis wants me to move out too now, because, you know â'
âDorina, is that a serious business?'
âYou mean between Mavis and â'
âYes.'
âI think so. She doesn't talk about it. And she hasn't actually asked me to go â and of course they wouldn't â'
âOf course, Oh hell.
Hell
.'
âAustin â'
âSorry â
hell
â all round me, all inside me â I live in it, I swallow it, I spit it, I am it.
Hell
. Do you know what that is, Dorina?
Hell
.'
âAustin, please â'
âI'm sorry, I'd better go. If I stay I'll just start being bad to you. You see, it's no good after all, with us nothing's any good, you're far better off without me, as you really know quite well or you wouldn't have left me like you did â'
âOh, Austin â'
âSorry. I'll go. You can go on reading your nice novel in peace in this charming well-dusted room. I'll go back to my pigsty and sluttish old Mitzi Ricardo. Oh, Dorina, if you knew how heartily I loathe myself at least you'd feel some pity for me.'
âI love you.'
âIf you do you must be mad. Anyway I'd better go before I start tearing up our little bit of tapestry to pieces. How you put up with me I can't imagine â'