‘Midge, I’m sorry,’ said Edward. ‘I meant to come — ’ He did not say he had been told to come. ‘I’ve just had a lot of troubles — And I thought, you know, Ursula would be with you — ’
‘Why Ursula?’ said Midge. ‘Men always think women flock together at such times. No one has been near me, it’s like having scarlet fever. Anyway Ursula is at a conference in Sweden.’ Midge owed this information to a long very carefully worded letter she had received from Willy Brightwalton, in which he made a point of indicating that he was alone. Willy did not say either that he would gladly leave his wife to run to her side, or that were he free to do so he would at once offer her his hand. He said however, tactfully, eloquently, everything else about how deeply he cared for her, grieved for her, sympathised with her, desired, in any way she could oblige him by mentioning, to serve her. He asked her to let him know at once if she wished to see him. He signed himself ‘your Willy’. Midge had not replied to his letter and he had not, at any rate yet, appeared at the door uninvited. Willy was a timid man and was not only, like many people, afraid of Thomas, he was also afraid of Harry. A similar tactful paralysis evidently affected Midge’s various old lunchtime acquaintances. She had received no other letters. The telephone occasionally rang but she did not answer it in case it was Thomas. She was shunned in a way which augmented her resentment and her shame without affording her the energy of defiance. She was glad to see Edward.
Midge in her desolation looked, Edward noticed, as meticulously casual as ever. Her straight navy blue linen dress which might have been the uniform of an expensive school was changed by some indefinable air of its wearer, together with a light blue cravat, into the head-turning outfit of a smartly dressed woman. She seemed to have lost weight. Her face, as if touched by the sun, bloomed and glowed, and seemed to owe its translucent smoothness to no art at all but merely to youth and summer weather. With her skirt tucked up and her dark-stockinged legs crossed she faced Edward and patted her hair into an affecting disarray. She might, with her calm words and suave looks, have seemed almost composed had it not been for the hard line of her drooping mouth, and her frightened eyes which signalled so clearly to Edward ‘Oh help me, help me, care for me.’
‘Did Thomas ask you to come?’
‘No.’
‘Did Harry?’
‘No.’
‘I can’t believe anybody now,’ she said. ‘Well, whose fault is that?’
‘I haven’t come as an ambassador,’ said Edward, ‘if that’s what you mean.’
‘You know Jesse Baltram’s dead? Of course you do, it’s in all the papers.’
‘Yes.’ No account of Jesse’s death made any mention of Edward. In a way he felt wounded. That was Mother May’s doing, to keep him henceforth out of the picture. He felt jealous, as if some right of possession had been violated. But on reflection he was relieved. It would have been terrible to have to talk about
that
to police, to journalists. He would never cease to recall what had happened, but he did not want to have to speculate about it in any ordinary way. Later on perhaps he might tell Thomas.
‘Are you sorry, does it matter to you?’
‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Edward.
‘But of course you didn’t know him, except you saw him as a small child.’
‘I saw quite a lot of him at Seegard.’
‘But you were never at Seegard.’
‘Yes, I was, I was there for a short while, I was there when you and Harry came that night — ’
‘Were
you?’ said Midge. ‘I must be going crazy. Yes, I remember now. I just blotted you out!’
Yes, thought Edward, it’s all blotted out, no one will know that I came to Jesse and loved him and that he loved me. It will be as if it had never been. Perhaps I shall stop believing it myself.
‘It was a shock,’ Midge went on. ‘One doesn’t expect people to die. And somehow I thought I’d see him again. But in an odd way too I was pleased, it took me out of my own troubles for a moment. I suppose it’s an old trace of jealousy, I was jealous of Chloe because that man loved her. Now they’re both dead. Doesn’t that sound callous? Jealousy lasts forever.’
‘Does it?’ said Edward.
‘Yes. Bad news for the young. Would you like a drink? No? I’ve stopped drinking. I imagine you’ve heard about me and Stuart?’
‘You mean about you and Harry? When you turned up together at Seegard I assumed — ’
‘No, I’m talking about Stuart, that I’ve fallen in love with him.’
‘Look, Midge, I’m a bit out of touch, I’ve been entirely on my own, I thought you and Harry — ’
‘Yes, I was having an affair with Harry, but suddenly, that time at Seegard, I fell in love with Stuart, Thomas knows about it all now, he’s gone away, I don’t want to see Harry, Stuart won’t see me — I feel everyone must know, but perhaps they don’t.’
‘Wait a minute — ’
‘Harry wanted me to leave Thomas, then when Stuart saw us together with all those pathetic lies about Mr and Mrs Bentley he killed something in me simply by looking — ’
‘You loved Harry, and now you love Stuart? But surely you don’t love him just because he killed something — ?’
‘Yes, I do, exactly. I think I’ll have a drink after all, will you? It’s just that I suddenly saw how sort of dead it all was, as if death were looking at me and making things dead — ’
‘But did it all happen in an instant?’ said Edward, accepting sherry.
‘Not quite. It began in an instant and it went on in the car driving back. I could feel Stuart sitting behind me like a block of ice. Everything I’d
wanted
just became worthless, as if I didn’t want
anything
any more. And then when I got back I realised that what I wanted was Stuart. I mean as if he had made a great void and nothing could fill it except him. This meant I had to go to see him and talk to him — I offered myself to him, not just as sex — ’
‘What does that mean — ?’
‘But as, I can’t explain it, as a complete gift, I wanted to change my life so as to work with him, I still want to, to do some good in the world — ’
‘But what about sex? I know Stuart’s given it up, but with you on the scene — I must say I’m
amazed
—
’
Edward felt the amazement warming him, or perhaps it was the sherry. Midge looked more animated too.
‘He was cold. He told me to stop lying, to tell Thomas all about Harry, you see at that time Thomas didn’t know, he only found out from that newspaper — ’
‘What newspaper?’
‘May Baltram published an article about Jesse and she brought it right up to date! She actually described that evening at Seegard, how Harry and I arrived incognito, how they found out who we were — ’
‘Oh Midge — in a newspaper?’
‘Then the gossip columnists took it up. Apparently she’s written her life story in volumes, all about Jesse’s love life, all about Chloe, yards of spiteful stuff, and it’ll all be printed, she hates everybody. She’s probably writing lies about you at this very moment.’
‘I don’t believe that. But she described what happened, and Thomas read it? What a rotten way for him to find out — ’
‘Yes. I was very sorry about that. I was just going to tell him.’
‘What else did Stuart say? Wasn’t he
tempted?
What an extraordinary business!’
‘Tempted? Of course not. He told me it was all an illusion.’
‘But you want him, you desire him? That’s being in love.’
‘Yes — but it’s impossible like that — it must be in the other way — ’
‘I don’t understand this. I suppose he told you to stay with your husband?’
‘No. He didn’t say that. Just that I should tell everyone the truth — ’
‘And leave him alone! It doesn’t sound as if he’s done you much good.’
‘Oh he has, he has — such good — like a revelation — ’
‘Sorry, Midge, I can’t buy this — let’s get it clearer. Were you very much in love with Harry?’
‘Yes, very much, and for a long time, I wanted to be married to him, only I couldn’t see how.’
‘But could this stop so suddenly? It isn’t that you just decided you preferred Thomas? This idea of your being in love with Stuart seems to me perfect nonsense, it’s daft, it’s false, it can’t be so, it must mean something else! What did Thomas say?’
‘He thinks I’m still in love with Harry. He thinks this is an episode in my love for Harry. A sort of shock effect.’
‘Have you been seeing Harry?’
‘Yes, but not in the old way.’
‘How rotten for everybody! God, what a mess. You know, I think Stuart’s a red herring.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘He’s not part of the thing at all, he’s just an external impulse, a sort of jolt, a solid entity, something you bump into. It’s all just happening in your mind. Your thinking you’re in love with Stuart is just an effect of things breaking up, of seeing an open scene, you’re surprised by your own ability to see things differently — ’
‘It doesn’t feel like that,’ said Midge. ‘I want to be
with him,
and he may never want to see me, and when I think that I don’t want to live — and it prevents me from thinking about them — ’
‘Them?’
‘Them.’
Midge found difficulty in putting it otherwise.
‘You mean Thomas and Harry. That’s just it. It’s an escape from choice. And thinking you love Stuart gives you a new kind of energy and makes a holiday from having to sort out the other thing — which you’ll have to go back to — wait, wait, you said everything you’d wanted became worthless. Perhaps there was a revelation, but you’ll have to judge it — you’ll have to see it all — perhaps Stuart has done something for you — ’ Edward was getting quite excited.
‘I
can’t,’
said Midge, ‘I can’t judge, I can’t see, I want him to comfort me — it’s all awful —
I
’m awful — ’ She began to cry so quietly that it was a moment before Edward noticed that her cheeks had become wet.
‘Oh darling Midge, don’t cry, let me comfort you, let me hold your hand.’ Edward pushed his chair up close to hers so that their knees were touching. He took hold of Midge’s hand, and the next moment her head fell heavily against his shoulder. He leaned over until his long lank dark hair was mingling with her fair fragrant hair in which he could now see so many strands of different colours. He put an arm round her shoulders and cradled her until she drew back. He felt, which he had not done when he had so much admired her when he entered the drawing room, a sense of her whole body, its weight, its warmth, its softness, its being covered by clothes.
‘Lend me a hankie, Edward.’
‘Here. Now let’s sort it out together. Don’t worry about Stuart. In some way you’ll do him good. You’ll have shaken him. He’ll have to try, he’ll have to think what’s best to do, and of course he’ll see you again and want to be your friend. There’s a bond between you.’
‘You think so?’
‘Yes. So that can be good for both of you. But this being in love is an illusion, in a sense it
must
be, it’s a momentary flash. Stuart’s external, it’s all in you, Stuart’s nothing, he’s powerless, he’s an unreal element, I mean he’s just a happening, you’ve invented him. In the way
you
imagine it you’re not really connected at all. Harry and Thomas are real. And Meredith is real.’
‘I could get custody of Meredith in a law court — oh what a nightmare it all is — and Thomas was so cold — ’
‘He would be. He’s so used to not showing his feelings he probably had to withdraw a bit. Poor old Thomas, after all it’s pretty rough on him. You know how much he loves you, you must know that however cold he is. Where is he incidentally?’
‘At Quitterne. He went away and left me — to decide what I wanted — ’
‘And what do you want?’
‘I don’t
know
— You think Stuart won’t hate me? I want to change my life — ’
‘You have changed it. You’ve stopped having a secret love affair. If Stuart made you feel it was awful perhaps that was the right feeling. You can go on changing your life, you can do lots of good, after all what’s stopping you, what’s stopping any of us from doing lots of good — ’ Edward paused for a moment, impressed by the idea he had just uttered — ‘Of course Stuart won’t hate you, he’s crammed with good intentions, don’t worry about Stuart, it’s his thing that people don’t have to worry about him, it’s as if he isn’t there, if he’s done something to you it’s because that something was ready to happen anyway. If you really hate the thing with Harry and you realise Stuart can only be an inspiring friend, just look around and think what real things are left, plenty I’d say. On the other hand, if you’re really still desperately in love with Harry — ’
Midge, who had been looking intently at Edward and still holding his hand, suddenly stood up and put her hands to her face. She had heard the soft click of a key turning in the front door. Two people had that key, Harry and Thomas. She said to Edward, ‘Go and stop him. Then tell me which it is.’