“Yes. I understood.”
“How I hate this house! All the corners talk.”
“Give me the glass, Constance.”
“The dead walk up and down in this house. I can smell them.”
“Give me the glass.”
“Where’s my father? Are you my father?”
“No, Constance.”
“Isn’t he here?” Her face dissolved in grief. “I thought he was here. I heard his voice.”
“Constance. He isn’t here. Now put the glass in my hand, quietly.”
“Oh, very well.” Constance sighed. The tension left her body. Her hand fell. “Maybe you’re right. Live a little longer, then a little longer, inch by inch, day by day, step by step, night by night. Here you are, Acland. May I be alone? I want to be alone. I’ll go to bed now. It’s all right. Don’t worry. I’ll leave in the morning. What a horrid mess. I’m so sorry.”
When she had left the room, there was a silence. Jane bent to pick up a plate, then left it. Wexton wandered up and down the room, then sat down in a chair. He said, “Jesus.”
“I know.” Acland turned away grimly. He looked at the smashed glass, the uneaten meal, the chaos of the table.
“I need a whisky,” Wexton said.
“Good idea. Pour me one, would you?”
“Does she often go that far?”
“She’s always liked to make scenes. This was one of the better ones. She controls it, up to a point. Then it goes wildly wrong—way out of control. As you just saw. Today, there were reasons.”
“I guessed that.”
“Acland.” Jane had been staring into the fire. She turned. “Acland, you can’t make her leave. She’ll have to stay. She’s ill. She needs help.”
“No. She’s leaving. And she’s not coming back.”
“You can’t do that. We can’t do that. There’s something seriously wrong.”
“I know that. And it’s not my responsibility. I won’t have her in this house. Not again. Not after tonight. You saw what happened, for God’s sake—”
“You can’t blame her, Acland. I see that now. She isn’t responsible for her own actions.”
“Then it’s time she was. I’m not arguing about this. I don’t want her anywhere near you, or Victoria.”
“Acland, she’s
ill.”
“I know her illnesses. She recovers from them very conveniently. You’ll see—tomorrow morning she’ll behave as if nothing happened. And expect everyone else to do the same. I told you: She’s leaving, and she’s not coming back. That’s it. The whole goddam thing. It’s over.”
“You’ll let her go back to New York—on her own? A long journey like that? Acland, you
can’t.
It isn’t safe.”
“I can’t? Just watch me.”
“Her behavior tonight—all those things she said. The way she looked with that glass in her hand …” Jane hesitated. “Acland. She isn’t altogether sane.”
“She’s not altogether mad, either, if that’s what you mean. She might like you to think she was—but she isn’t. I’m right, aren’t I, Wexton?”
Wexton had been sitting, during this conversation, at one end of the table, his chin sunk in his hands, his whisky in front of him. Now he roused himself. He hunched himself up into his favorite position, that of a human question mark.
“Is Constance mad? That’s the question? Well, I’d say—a bit like the play. You know: ‘mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly….’”
He gave Jane one of his anxious, melancholy looks. “Acland’s right, you know, Jane. She should leave. She wants to leave, anyway. No. Correction. She wants to be
made
to leave.”
“Why should she want that?”
“Punishment, I guess.” Wexton shrugged. “If other people won’t oblige, she punishes herself. No, Acland—don’t say anything. Whatever she told you, I don’t want to know. This whole evening—that’s what it was all about: Constance, making sure she got exiled. Okay, so she finally pulled it off. Let her go, Jane. She does have a husband.”
Later that night, when Acland had explained to her the events of the afternoon, Jane did try cabling that husband. She sent a second cable the next day. Morning, and Constance was leaving.
Jane, in her bedroom above, could hear the muted sounds of her departure. She moved to the bay window.
Only Steenie was there to bid Constance goodbye. He seemed to have forgiven her, as Constance had predicted. He embraced her tightly, standing on the portico steps. He was not wearing a coat, although the morning was cold and the lawns white with frost. His scarf fluttered in the wind; Constance’s little white hands linked behind his neck. She kissed him once, twice, three times.
When she released him, she turned and looked about her. A tiny, erect figure in a scarlet coat, the only vivid point of color in a bleached and monochrome landscape. Jane saw her face turn back toward the house, then jerk in the direction of the lake and the woods. She was wearing no hat; the wind lifted her black hair away from her face. She pulled on first one glove, then the other.
Constance’s final farewell to Winterscombe. For once, it seemed, she had nothing to say. Having looked around her, she climbed into the back of the waiting car. The door was closed. It pulled away. Jane watched it, a large, black, somewhat funereal Daimler, as it disappeared down the drive and out of sight. She turned back to her husband, who had not wished to witness this departure. Acland sat by the fire, gazing into the coals. Across the room, his child slept.
“She’s gone, Acland,” Jane said gently.
“Has she? I hope so. I wish I felt sure of it.”
Jane knelt and took his hand in hers. “She couldn’t have done it, Acland,” she said quietly. “You must know that. She may imagine she did—but kill her own father? It’s not possible. It’s unthinkable. She was a ten-year-old child.”
“I know. I don’t believe it either. But she does. I suppose that’s what’s wrong with her.”
“Do you think Stern knows?”
“He knows most things. I don’t think it would be easy to keep a secret from him. But in this case—no, I think not. If you’d seen her in the Stone House, you’d understand. First—she seemed so convinced it was me. Then she kept talking—you know how she talks. She talks the way people dream. She cried out—I remember that. She said something about listening to a voice. I can’t remember exactly. Then she said she’d show me, and she ran out. It was as if the idea came to her then, for the first time. She looked … I can’t describe how she looked—”
“She frightens me, Acland.”
“I know. She frightens me too. You see now, why I won’t have her here? It was my fault. My mistake. Nothing and no one is safe from her. She talks about my own brother, about Boy—and I feel I never knew him. She distorts everything, but she does it in such a way that I can’t see anymore. I begin to think maybe she’s right, maybe it was the way she says it was—I can’t explain. All I know is, she hurts people. And I don’t want her to hurt you. Or Victoria.”
“Acland.” Jane knelt back. She looked at him. “We must make sure Stern understands. Not everything, perhaps. But he should know she’s ill. If nothing else, he must understand that.”
“You see, she could have been different.” With a sudden, restless gesture, Acland rose. He began to pace about the room. “She could. I still believe that. When she was younger. Even now—some of the things she says. She can be … extraordinary.”
Jane looked down at the floor. She said:
“She’s very beautiful.”
“Yes. But I don’t mean that. She
isn’t
beautiful—not in any classical sense, not if you analyze her, feature by feature. But you can’t analyze her. Not once you look at her. She’s so very alive. She has so much energy—”
“Do you love her, Acland?”
Acland stopped pacing and turned around. He stared at his wife.
“Love her? No. I don’t.”
“But you did … once?” Jane raised her eyes to his face. “Tell me, Acland. I’d rather know.”
“I can’t answer that. I don’t even
know
the answer. There was a time—before the war, at the beginning of the war. She—bewitched me a little, I think.”
“Bewitched you?” Jane looked away. “Oh, Acland, that’s not your kind of word. It’s all right. I understand. She’s very lovely and very strange. Any man might fall in love with her.”
“And I gather a number do,” Acland replied drily. He crossed and put his arm around his wife. “It didn’t last—that’s the point. I found you.”
“Ah, the wife.”
“Don’t say it like that. I won’t let you.”
“Oh, but I will—and all women would.” Jane gave a wry smile. She rose to her feet. “Even the most virtuous wives, you know, feel a little envy for the mistresses—for the mistress type.”
A glint of amusement came into Acland’s eyes. He said, “They do?”
“But of course. I’d make a very bad mistress, for instance—I know that. I’m aware of my own limitations. But I’m not nearly as strait-laced as Constance seems to think. I’ve considered, from time to time, how it would be—to be the other kind of woman. To be an object of desire. Beautiful. Careless. Capricious.”
“Expendable.”
“Perhaps. I’m not so sure about that. The perfect mistress—”
“Is there such a thing?”
“The perfect mistress is … unattainable. Like the perfect lover. She can be … achieved, but never possessed,”
“And you think men imagine such a woman—want such a woman? You think I do that?”
Jane smiled. “I’m a wife. I told you. And sensible wives are discreet. I shall never ask you, Acland—and no, don’t tell me either way, because I shan’t listen.”
“All I was going to say”—he kissed her—“is that you have a rather feminine view of the male imagination. Most men, I think, are rather more basic. Either they are like me—exemplary, devoted—or they want diversion. And the point about the diversions is that they’re easily and immediately available. Easily disposed of, too. Darling—”
“Acland, I’m being serious.”
“I know you are. It’s delightful. It’s also very funny.”
“You think I’m wrong? Then how do you explain Constance’s success?”
“With men?” Acland frowned. “Ah, I see the trap. She’s certainly had her fair share of worshippers. Also victims. Perhaps you’re right. Steenie calls her the
femme fatale
of Fifth. She seems to like that. I’m not sure I believe in
femmes fatales,
though—”
“I do.” Jane turned away. “Especially when the woman concerned is also a
femme enfant
.”
“What did you say?”
“She has no children.” Jane’s face was pressed to the window. She did not look around. “She has never grown up. She is a woman
and
a child. I think there are men who like women like that.” She paused. “Sometimes, I think
all men
like women like that.”
Her voice sounded suddenly tired. Acland hesitated, but he did not answer her.
He thought of the Stone House, the previous day. The sharp scent of Constance’s hair came back to him. He saw the curve of her white throat, the redness of her parted lips, the pleading and childish anxiety in her eyes. He put his arms around a child; his fingers brushed against a woman’s breast. He thought:
I could have stayed when she asked me to. What would have happened if I had?
Abruptly he turned away and crossed the room.
“I’ll write to Stern,” he said. “If he doesn’t reply to the cables by tonight, I’ll cable his office tomorrow.”
Acland sent his letter, to which he received no reply. The cables, both those to Stern’s house and to his offices, remained unanswered. Neither Jane nor Acland were to see or hear from him again.
“You can’t do this,” Constance said.
“Why
are you doing this?”
“If you would just sign there, Constance, and initial the first page. My secretaries can witness the signature later.”
“I won’t sign. You don’t want me to sign. I love you. I came back to tell you I loved you. I took the very first boat. I ran into the apartment. It was cruel to do that. To take all your things. I looked for your clothes. All the hangers were empty. They clattered about—”
“At the bottom of the second page, Constance. I’ve kept the details, brief.”
“I will
not
! Constance pressed her small hands flat on her husband’s desk. “You don’t understand. You won’t listen when I explain. Acland is nothing to me! You know what I discovered? He is just as you said. A boring Englishman, with tweeds and a wife and a cradle in the bedroom. There
was
no other Acland, except in my mind. I invented him. I know I’ve been stupid. Oh, I ran away so fast! Montague—why is your office so big? I hate this office. You look so far away, and so cold, sitting there across your desk. I’m not a
client;
I’m your wife. You love me—I know you do. And you try to hide it, just as I did. All those foolish games, Montague—can’t you see? They’re over now. Oh, we shall be so happy. Please—look—if I lean across the desk, won’t you kiss me?”
“Just
sign,
Constance, if you would be so good. I have another appointment.”
“Go to hell, then. I won’t sign. Stupid papers. Lawyers’ language. I hate lawyers.”
“Constance, if you don’t sign the separation agreement, I shall divorce you. It’s as simple as that.”
“Divorce? You wouldn’t do that.”
“Yes, I would. And in view of the number of correspondents I could cite, the terms would be a great deal less favorable to you financially than these are. So I suggest you sign.”
“You’re punishing me—that’s all this is. You’re punishing me for going to England—”
“Constance, don’t be childish. We once made an agreement. You did not keep to its terms. It is now null and void.”
“You think I believe that? It’s nonsense. You’re tired of me, that’s all. You want to run off to that little Ursula of yours, with her lovely singing voice. You think I don’t know?”
“Constance, I told you. Pyrotechnics can become tedious. I find the lies tedious and your lovers tedious. The way you change your mind becomes tedious. This marriage becomes tedious. Please sign.”
“Acland didn’t kill my father, you know. He wanted to, but he didn’t.
That
was why I went to England. To ask him that. No other reason. You see—you had no need to be jealous.”
“That may have been one of the reasons you went to England. I doubt it was the only one. And what you tell me now is something I already knew.”