Love Lies Dreaming (14 page)

“Now let me see,” said Constance, meditatively, “was this Cookson woman your second or your third?”

I dropped my knife and fork into my plate with a clatter which aroused the attention of the neighboring tables, and gaped across at her dumfounded.

She was sitting there, as large as life and as calmly
as if she had just asked me if it were beef or mutton, without a hint in her expression that she realized what an amazing thing she had just said. I continued to gape at her.

Of course, years ago, before we were married, I had told Constance that there were certain passages in my past life which would not bear inspection, and I had left her in no doubt as to the nature of them. It was only right and proper that I should, and one of the reasons for my intense admiration for Constance is that she accepted the fact mutely without questioning and without demonstrating to me her superiority in not claiming her right to similar experiences. But I had never dreamed that she knew any more than I had told her.

“Do stop playing at goldfish,” said Constance, and I shut my mouth with a guilty jerk. She was still smiling.

“I'm still waiting,” said Constance. And then, as Still I could utter no word, she went on—“What was that you were saying about six of me not being able to pay you out?”

I think Constance saw that that hurt me a little. She
was all contrition at once, and leaned toward me appealingly.

“No, really, dear, that wasn't why I asked you. I want to know, really.”

“What for?” I asked at length. The question must have escaped from me without my volition, and I think I guessed her answer before she replied.

“Oh, dear,” she said, “can't you see? Or have I got to tell you. It's just curiosity—silly, blind, ridiculous curiosity. That's all. Tell me, dear.”

But delicate statements of that nature were quite beyond my power to make at that moment, and I could only hesitate and mumble.

“You see, dear,” said Constance, trying to help me out, “of course, you told me before we were married, in a general sort of way, and it was very nice of you, too, but do you think that would be any good at all? Do you think that would satisfy
any
woman—let alone me? I wanted to know who they were, and what they looked like, just to see why you preferred me to them. It was a compliment to me, in a backhanded sort of way, you know. And, of course, I knew more about it than you thought I did. There were one or two girls
who came to me just as soon as they heard that we were going to be married, and told me—things.”

Cold shudders ran down my spine, and I made some inarticulate sort of noise.

“Oh, it's quite all right,” said Constance. “Of course, I wouldn't listen to them at all, really. I poked my nose in the air and told them that all that was stale and I'd heard it all before. I hadn't, of course, and I was simply bursting to ask them about it, but I wouldn't let myself. But they'd told me lots before I shut them up, although they didn't know they had, and then after I got married I heard things, too, because the married women would talk to me more. But a lot of it was lies, I knew.”

In that case, I found myself hoping that Constance had heard nothing but the truth.

“But I wanted to know, dear. I simply
had
to. There was that tobacconist girl in the hotel at Brighton during the war. Winnie told me about that—you know, Dick was in your battalion—and when we stopped there for lunch that day two years ago I noticed you wouldn't go in, but insisted on going to another hotel. Do you remember? And after lunch I
told you I was going to powder my nose, but I didn't. I bunked straight out of the hotel and along the front to the other one and went and bought some cigarettes just to see what she was like. But it mightn't have been the same one. This one was very pretty, though, with dark hair and brown eyes and she would have had freckles if she hadn't used so much powder. Was it the same one?”

I scratched my head. For the life of me I could not remember what that tobacconist girl was like, and Connie gurgled happily.

“It doesn't matter much if it wasn't,” she said. “I expect they choose them all of the same type, and this was a nice girl—or had been once.”

It was about this moment that I was at last able to swallow the mouthful which had occupied me at the time when Constance asked her first question. The situation was easier now.

“I don't know what I would have done,” said Constance, “if I had found that they had been women of the kind I don't like. Or if I'd found that you'd treated them badly. If I'd found you were that sort of man, old thing, I should have—murdered you, or
something. It wouldn't have been very nice for me, would it, if I found after you'd married me that you had a taste for the wrong sort of girl. But as far as I can see, you picked the best that were going.”

That was something, anyway.

“But this Cookson woman,” said Constance, and I groaned in spirit, “how long ago
was
it? Was it—after you knew me?”

A difficult question to answer. I knew the truth would please Constance (actually I had met Messalina before I had met Constance, and the incident came to a rather abrupt end as soon as that happened) but for some ridiculous reason I didn't like to tell her the truth. I merely continued to mumble in huge embarrassment.

“No, do tell me, dear. When did it start?”

“Six or seven years ago,” I answered sullenly. Constance made a mental calculation.

“Even if it were only six,” she announced at length', “that would make it a bit before you knew me. And after all, I
was
engaged to some one else then, so there's lots of excuses for you.”

Constance doesn't fully appreciate even now the way her casual references to those black months when
she was engaged to that man Dewey stab me right through. I know how ridiculous it is to be jealous of the past, but I remain jealous.

“Six years ago!” exclaimed Constance, apparently having employed the interval in further calculations. “How old was she then?”

“About the same as she is now,” I said.

“M'm. I suppose so. She looks like that. She's more than ten years older than I am, anyway.”

In my opinion it was nearer fifteen, but I did not tell Constance so. It is a hideous sensation trying to be loyal to two women at once, especially when one of them is your wife.

“For God's sake, Constance, old thing,” I said, “have we got to talk about this? It's driving me crazy.”

“Please do, dear, just for a minute or two longer. Now that we've got started on it we may as well finish it off cleanly. There are such lots of things I've wanted to know.”

I resigned my unfinished beef to the waiter and my soul to the inevitable. I suppose I deserved this.

“Did—did you like her very much?”

“Yes.”

“And did she throw you over?”

“No.”

“You threw her over?”

“Yes. If the truth must be told, I didn't treat her any too well.”

“I thought you didn't. I could see it in her face this evening.”

“What?”

“Oh, I don't mean anything like that. She wasn't eying you as if she hated you, or anything. Rather the other way.”

“But—”

“Any one could see she'd suffered, poor old thing. I don't expect it was really your fault. That sort of thing has to come to an end sooner or later, doesn't it—at least, they say it must.”

“It generally does.”

“How old were you when it started?”

“Twenty-one—twenty-two—something like that.”

“And she was—thirty?”

“About that.” Charity is kind.

“And she was very fond of you.”

“For goodness' sake, Constance—”

“That means ‘yes,' doesn't it.”

“I don't know.”

“Oh!” Constance's face fell. “Do speak the truth, old thing, just for a little while longer. You've been so good up to now. Was she fond of you?”

“Yes.”

“She is still,” said Constance with decision.

“Oh, hang it—”

“It's no use arguing with me about that, old thing,” said Constance, with a queer smile, “I know the symptoms.”

She was silent for a moment. Her lips looked as if she wanted to smile, and her eyes looked as if she wanted to cry. “You've never let her know you're sorry for her, have you, dear?” she asked at length.

“No.”

“I'm so glad, old thing. She'd hate it. But you are, aren't you?”

“Yes—I suppose so.”

“So am I. How she'd hate to hear me say so!” Then her expression changed to an intensity which scared me. “Oh, but I hate her—hate her. She's too fine a woman.”

“Dear,” I said, wracked with anxiety, leaning toward her across the table. “It was never my doing that you met; I would have given anything to prevent it.”

“I know.” Constance was silent for a further space. Then—“Just one thing more, dear, and then you can eat your ice. It won't all be melted even then.”

I regarded the flabby wreck in its dish under my nose with entire disinterest.

“Now look at me, dear—straight at me. Has there been any one else, since Mrs. Cookson?—Since you met me?”

My nails cut into my palms as my fists clenched under the table. I would have given my soul to be able to lie then. But the truth came instead.

“Yes.” I said. “Once.”

And Constance changed once more to utter contrition.

“Oh, dear,” she said, “I oughtn't to have asked you that. I—I knew the answer, and it wasn't fair to ask you.”

The black misery of that time came flooding back to me. By accident I had seen Constance kissing Dewey good night at her door. The other details—the
walk to try to forget—the raging feeling of power-lessness—the meeting with—some one else—who, by blind coincidence, was also trying to forget something, and who, as she told me, “liked me just a little”—and the inevitable ending. It is the incident of my life of which I am most ashamed, for the seduction of decent girls who do not deserve it is not a habit of mine.

“Yes,” said Constance, “I knew about it. And I think I know the reason.”

I could see she did, when I managed to meet her eyes.

“Let's clear out from here,” said Constance, suddenly.

And we did, leaving our ices melted in their saucers, and our coffee cold in its pot. The cold air of the street was like a breath of Paradise.

On our homeward walk we passed a hospital. The black gates were locked and forbidding. But one lamp shone dully—shone on the squat black shape of the slotted collecting box fastened there, the mute slit dumbly imploring alms.

“Just a minute,” said Constance.

She fumbled in her handbag, and in the end she
produced a one pound note—the note she had received from Mrs. Cookson. And with a gesture of finality she thrust it into the slot. It was a gesture which cost her half a crown, for she had given that sum to Mrs. Cookson as change. But it was not a propitious moment for cynical remarks to that effect.

Generally both Constance and I are singularly free from any trace of a Monday feeling. I believe in my case it is due to the fact that Constance makes me do so much over the week end that I greet a return to the placid routine of the office with a sort of relief—a relief short enough lived, it is true, but enough to tide me over that bleak and unsympathetic hour which lies between the realization that it is Monday morning and the commencement of the digestion of Monday's breakfast. But this Monday began gloomily and inauspiciously.

To begin with, both Constance and I overslept ourselves. I was awakened out of a stuffy and dispiriting sleep by a commotion outside my bedroom door. Bangings and clatterings. I was three parts awake when the door opened and Constance entered.

“For goodness' sake wake up,” she said, snappily. “It's half-past eight and Mrs. Black is knocking.”

“Mrs. Black?” I growled. I had a bloodshot voice and a dark blue taste in my mouth.

“Yes. Oh, you know—the new woman, stupid. Go and open the door. I won't have her see me like this the first morning.”

I mumbled something about it being far more important that she should not see the master of the house in his night attire, but Constance only clenched her fists and danced with rage. So I blindly stumbled out of bed, clutched a dressing gown to me, and staggered out to the door.

Mrs. Black's disapproval was immediately and harshly evident. As she entered she eyed me with disgusted distrust. I was wearing an unfortunate combination of colors, I admit—green pajamas piped and frogged with red, with a terra-cotta dressing-gown on top—but that was no excuse for her.

“Carry on,” I said to her, as she sidled past me through the door without taking her suspicious glance from my shrinking form. “You know where the kitchen is, don't you? For God's sake light the gas under a few kettles and things. Your mistress will be along in half a minute.”

Mrs. Black sniffed an affirmative. That sniff alone, could it have been reproduced as evidence in court, would have justified me in committing assault and battery. But I was feeling too soulless to delight in assault and battery at that moment, and instead I bent my weary steps toward the bathroom and lighted the geyser and began shaving. My razor was blunt.

It was nearly nine when I entered the dining-room, and two minutes after that Constance came in with the final ingredients of the breakfast. Without a word she placed them on the table, poured out my coffee, and relapsed into Monday morning-ness. I dived for shelter behind the paper. When I peered round it she was looking so darkly preoccupied that I thought it would be as well to risk an explosion by trying to divert her thoughts.

“Any letters, dear?” I asked.

“Haven't looked. Don't care if there are.”