Love Lies Dreaming (16 page)

“I say, Trevor,” he said at length, flicking nervously at non-existent ash on his cigarette, “I'm in awful trouble—I've let myself in for something terrible, I think.”

“Really?” said I politely, without relaxing my gaze.

“Yes. Hasn't Mrs. Trevor said anything to you about anything?”

“My wife,” said I, ponderously, “frequently says things to me about various subjects.”

“Yes, but this is about—oh, don't you know anything about it, then? That's something.”

But he did not seem comforted. He continued to flick at his cigarette.

I was glad of it; he seemed to be in the mood for confidences, and if I could not win confidences from this boy then I must have lost much of my old power.

“Tell me what the trouble is,' I said gently. “Perhaps I can help.”

He hesitated for a moment, and then plunged.

“It's about a letter,” he said. I think I maintained my expression unmoved.

“What about it?” I asked.

“I think I must have sent your wife a letter I didn't mean her to have,” he said.

I made a faintly interrogative noise, my eyes still glued to his face.

“Yes,” said Masters. Then, in a final burst of confidence—“You see, last night I got myself engaged to be married—at least, I think I did—I hope I did, you know. An' I am booked to take Mrs. Trevor to that what's its name dance on Wednesday—you know, there's a whole gang of us going—an' so I wrote to
her last night askin' her to let me off, because—well, because I might want to be doin' something else. An' at the same time I wrote to—to
her
about—all about nothing, and like a blasted fool I got the letters mixed up. At least, I think I did. The first thing I knew about it was when she rang me up at the office to tell me she'd just had a letter from me beginning ‘Dear Mrs. Trevor, She was—well, she was cross about it. I've been runnin' round London all the rest of the morning tryin' to find you to see if it's all right.”

I am glad I had my face still under control. I did not want a cub like this to see that I was relieved.

“If you sent the letter to my wife,” I said, “it's sure to be all right. Constance would keep any little secret like that as dark as anything. I don't expect she'd even tell me. Were those the only two letters you wrote last night?”

“Yes.”

“Then Constance got it all right. You needn't worry any more. What about some lunch?”

Masters, at least, looked relieved. “I'd like to, but I don't think I'd better, thanks very much. Better get this settled altogether, don't you think?”

“Yes,” said I. “And let this be a warning to you, young man. Next time you write several letters, put one in an envelope and address it as soon as you have finished it. Otherwise you'll let yourself in for all sorts of trouble. Especially after a year or two of that married life toward which you appear to be looking forward with a misguided enthusiasm.”

“Yes,” said Masters, “I will. And thanks very much.”

And he left hurriedly. I quite liked that boy.

Some time after lunch my telephone bell rang. I took it up and said, “Yes?” into the receiver.

“Is that you, dear?” said the earpiece.

“Yes, darling. Who is that speaking?”

The “Oooh,” I heard in reply would have told me even if I had not known before.

“I've just had Kitty Fisher here,” said Constance, “she's just gone. She came about that letter.”

“Really?”

“Yes. They're engaged to be married—she and Pip Masters—and he put the wrong letters in the envelopes. The one that was meant for me only began ‘Dear Mrs. Trevor' Isn't it disappointing?”

“Pride goeth before a fall,” said I.

It was interesting to me to discover, that afternoon, that a man with a soul full of happiness is by no means a good business man. I had a couple of decisions to make, that afternoon, and both the decisions I took were incorrect. And several times when I was dictating the one or two letters which remained for me to do I noticed my stenographer looking at me appalled, and found, on my hurriedly asking her to read over as far as I had gone, I had been guilty of incredible solecisms and self-contradictions.

Somehow the happiness of the afternoon obstructed things in the evening. I admit I was a little tactless.

Dinner appeared with commendable promptitude as soon as I reached home. It was more of a disadvantage than otherwise, for it brought about the fact that almost the first words to pass my lips were a complaint.

“This soup's burned,” I said. Truth, but not tact.

“I'm sorry,” said Constance, and the restraint in her voice ought to have warned me. As a matter of fact, I made a further effort before giving it up.

“Sorry,” I said, “but it can't be done.” And I pushed my plate away.

While I was carving the next course, I displayed polite interest in the home.

“How did the new woman get on?” I asked.

“Rottenly,” said Constance.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “What was the matter?”

It was then that Constance let me have it.

“Matter? Everything was the matter. What would you expect when a new woman arrives at half-past eight in the morning and finds everybody still in bed? It gives her a bad impression at the start. And she's a horribly superior sort of woman, too. When it came out as we were doing the rooms that you and I were—were sleeping in separate rooms she sniffed. She might just as well have said, ‘I know what
that
means.' But I couldn't very well be angry with her just for sniffing.”

“But my goodness gracious me!” I said. “Can't people have separate bedrooms without charwomen sniffing? I thought charwomen were mainly interested in finding out if people were living in sin. You can't be living in sin very much if you have separate bedrooms.”

“Can't you? That's all you know. That kind of woman always thinks the worst if there's anything different from what she is used to. And she'll go round telling everybody, too.”

“Does that matter much? I don't mind people knowing that we don't sleep together every night.”

“
You
don't. Of course
you
don't. You wouldn't
mind anything. That's why you put things so coarsely.”

“Well, anyway, whose fault is it if we are sleeping apart? I don't think it's mine.”

“I suppose you could blame it on to me if you wanted to. You generally blame things on to me.”

“Oh, I say—”

“Yes, you do, and you go round finding fault and saying the soup's burned and you can't drink it when it's only burned a little tiny bit. I expect you had too big a lunch to want to eat any dinner.”

Constance had me there. I certainly had had a good lunch by way of celebration.

“There! I knew it And what do you think I had for lunch? Bread and cheese and a tomato!”

“You could have had anything else you fancied.”

“And cooked it myself. Just because I wasn't lucky enough to be born a man.”

“It was bad luck for me, too,” I said, losing my temper. By a desperate effort I recaptured it again.

“Whatever is the matter, old thing?” I asked. “Tell me the worst, and let's see if I can do anything toward it.”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Constance, in tones which implied reverse. “Everything's gone wrong today right from the start when that old cat found us still in bed. And that beastly letter—”

“The letter? I thought that was rather amusing.”

“That's what I didn't like. I don't think you ought to have found it amusing. Any decent man would have been horribly angry if he found that some one was writing letters like that to his wife.”

“Was that written to my wife?” I asked, scratching my head with mock efforts at remembering. And then I caught in Constance's eye a hint of a change of expression. It was only a hint, but I remembered what she had said over the telephone, too. After all, I suppose it must be desperately humiliating for a woman to find that the love letter she has been excited about was not intended for her at all. At the same time I am perfectly sure that Constance was following my line of thought and realizing exactly what I was thinking about, which could not have helped to soothe her.

“Don't be silly,” said Constance, “you thought it was, anyway. And you didn't mind at all.”

That was true, so far as she knew. I would not
mind if every man on earth wrote love letters to Constance—provided that the letters did not hint either at past or expected reciprocation of the passion.

“You didn't care!” said Constance, “You didn't care!”

And that was where the damnable part of the business made itself apparent. I could not tell Constance how much I did care, unless I also told her at the same time that I had suspected her of deceiving me. And that was impossible; it would have hurt Constance very deeply indeed—to say nothing of the injury it would have given to my own self-respect. The struggle on my face must have been obvious, and Constance misconstrued it.

“You look guilty,” said Constance. “Yes, and what in the world were you up to in town with Pip? When Kitty Fisher came this afternoon I hadn't any idea that he had come to see you at the office. You must have known that it was all right long before I did, and before I rang you up. But you didn't let me know. And as far as I can see you told Pip that you didn't know anything about any letter he had written.”

“I didn't tell him that,” I said. It was perfectly true.

“You must have done. You nearly made me look an awful ass, because I started telling Kitty just what you said about it, and then I suddenly noticed how she was looking, and had to stop. In the end I told her that no one but myself knew about it, and she was very bucked because their engagement has got to be a secret for a bit. That's what all that queer stuff about ‘difficulties' in the letter was about.”

“For all you know that might have been the reason why I let Pip think that I hadn't seen the blinking letter,” I said. “The poor kid was worried to death about it.”

“M'm,” said Constance. “I'd nearly believe it if you hadn't said it that way. I can always tell when you want me to believe something that isn't true, because you always put it in a round-about way.”

“Constance,” I said, “sometimes I think you are diabolically inspired.”

“I wish I were,” said Constance. “It would be useful when I have to live with a husband like the one I've got.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “perhaps if you were to tell me what improvements you would like effected in the old
fashioned model you own at present, I might endeavor to bring them about.”

Constance thought deeply. At least, she pretended to.

“I ought really to have notice of a question like that,” she said at length. “It goes too deep to be trifled with. But I'll do my best. I'd like a husband who was good looking, rich, amiable, never kept a secret from his wife, never let her believe anything that wasn't true, and never arranged things so that she had to tell lies just to keep him in countenance.”

That kept me quiet for a long time.

“You needn't sit there,” said Constance, “trying to think out something funny to tell me about the kind of wife
you'd
like to have. If you do I'll scream.”

There was that in her tone which showed me that matters were serious. I went round to her and tried to comfort her, but she shook me off.

“Please don't, old thing,” she said. “Or I really will scream. Men always seem to think that when every blessed thing in the universe has been going wrong all day they have only to hold your hand or pat you on the shoulder or something to put it all right. Generally it only makes things worse. Mrs. Black comes and finds us in bed and acts hatefully all day; I get a letter which doesn't belong to me; I nearly make a fool of myself with Kitty Fisher while you're enjoying yourself up in town, and then when you come home and I want to quarrel with you, you nearly let me!”

I could only keep silent. There was nothing else to do.

“And then you stand there looking worried and dithering with your cigarette. Dear, if you don't go right away from me and leave me to myself to get over my troubles in my own way something serious will happen. Go into your own room and pretend you're doing some work or something, and I'll sit here and do sewing and—and I'll read
The Light That Failed
and cry over it and then perhaps I'll be all right. Oh, go away, do!”

And so I went, and for lack of anything better to do I have been bringing this ridiculous diary up to date.

It is a good thing that at present I am not engaged upon a novel or anything serious like that; if I were all this trouble of the last week or so would have gravely interrupted the writing of it. People always seem to think that authors always lead the wildest and most rackety life conceivable, and then when they are not producing masterpieces they are getting drunk at the Café Royal. I have been to the Café Royal; I have been drunk at the Café Royal, but I neither make a habit of it nor find it any help in my work. In fact, drinking costs me twice as much as it does other people
because not only do I have to pay for the drinks but they cost me about the same amount in after effects on my work.

The dithering women one meets at parties invariably change their expression when they hear that I write books. They picture me living in a Bloomsbury garret and think that in order to come to the party I have to go round and borrow a shirt from some more sensible fellow who does not write books. At any moment during conversation with me they either expect me to propose elopement or else to dispense with even this formality. They are obviously sympathetic toward Constance; of course, because I am an author I am unfaithful to her three times a week. It is a sort of sympathy which makes Constance feel like cutting throats. In fact, they are hugely disappointed when they learn that I live in quite a nice little flat quite nicely furnished, with a nice little wife, and that I positively dislike outraging elderly spinsters.