Faster! Faster! (20 page)

“You see, Sylvia, poor darling, has fallen in love. Don't ask me why—these things can't ever be explained. He isn't in the least attractive, that I can see, but I think it may be partly because he's so much older, and a man with a certain reputation. It's flattering. And of course he's made love to her.”

“Would it be quite out of the question?” Frances asked.

“You mean for them to marry? I think it would be a very great risk—but after all, it's Sylvia's own life. One could only advise her, and beg her to wait—and then leave her to decide. But you see—Andrew doesn't really want to marry her at all.”

It caused Claudia a faint surprise, after saying this, to observe that Frances looked thoughtful
rather than pained or astonished. She was also surprised by her comment.

“I think I can understand that. He's not a man who'd want to be tied, I suppose—and perhaps he feels that his work would always come first. I can imagine that he'd be honest with himself about that and everything.”

“But Frances!” Claudia felt a little impatient. “A man who feels that he doesn't wish, or intend, to marry, is hardly justified in making love to a young, inexperienced girl. Surely you see that?”

“Oh yes, I see that. But after all, most of us do things we're not justified in doing, at one time or another. And it's no use pretending that young girls are anything like as silly and ignorant as we were. They're not. Your children especially, Claudia, who've always been taught to think. Sylvia and Professor Quarrendon, I'm sure, must have realized from the very beginning that it wasn't necessarily a question of getting married.”

Claudia, astonished and a little disconcerted, raised her eyebrows.

“My dear, I hadn't any idea that your views were as modern as all that. You feel, then, that I'm not justified in objecting if Sylvia, aged nineteen, becomes the mistress of this man who must be over forty?”

“No, no, that isn't fair. I never said that.”

“I beg your pardon. What exactly did you say, then?”

Claudia was conscious of the bitter edge that had crept into her voice and strove to keep it under control, but she knew that she was angry. That
Frances, of all people, should take up this attitude!

“I meant that it didn't seem to me fair, to take it for granted that Sylvia was being deceived, as you or I might have been deceived at her age. They fell in love with one another—I don't see how any man could help falling in love with Sylvia—and then, I suppose—I feel
sure
—he told her the truth, and they talked it over together. Isn't that the way they do things nowadays?”

Claudia's reply was indirect.

“If it had been someone of her own age one could have understood it so much better. They could, as you say, have discussed everything frankly from the same point of view. But Andrew Quarrendon—after all, he's a very clever man, he's been about a good deal, he must have known a great many women of his own sort. Sylvia can't mean anything to him at all beyond a pretty face. But she—poor little thing—is taking it all seriously.”

Frances continued to look at her friend with eyes that betokened perplexity and doubt rather than unqualified sympathy and understanding.

“What are they going to do?” she asked at last.

“He's asked her to marry him and she's said no. Honestly, she's quite right. He doesn't want to marry at all and she knows it. I see exactly what's going to happen. Quarrendon has made his gesture, trusting to Sylvia's generosity, and she—poor little thing—is going to give him up and go through a very, very bad time.” (“So am I,” Claudia added in a parenthesis, dashing her hand across her eyes with a smile for the childish gesture. “But that
doesn't matter.”) “One thing, I shan't let her go and work in London now. That would be altogether more than she could bear just yet.”

“Perhaps she'll want to get away.”

“Oh no she won't,” returned Claudia quickly. “Sylvia has never really cared for the idea of leaving home at all. Don't your remember how we've always laughed at her for saying that she'd have liked best to stay at home and do nothing except arrange the flowers and take the dogs for walks?”

Frances, with a strange and new obstinacy that Claudia felt became her very ill, pursued her point.

“But I think she might feel quite differently now. Surely you'll let her go if she wants to go?”

“But of course. When have I ever imposed my own wishes on my children? As a matter of fact, I think I can manage to let Sylvia get right away if she wants to. I think it would be possible to send her to old Madame—you remember Madame, of course?—to Paris. I believe in a complete change of environment, at her age—and she'd like using her fingers far better than working in a stuffy office.”

“You mean that it would put her quite out of reach of seeing Quarrendon, which of course she'd almost certainly do if she was in London.”

Claudia frowned involuntarily.

“I don't know that I'd looked at it particularly from that point of view. I'm not a Victorian mother, to send Sylvia off out of reach of an undesirable admirer. Far from it. I don't want to do anything at all except what's going to help her most. Surely you must see that, Frances?”

“Yes, yes, I know. Of course I know you only want to help her—poor little Sylvia. I'm so sorry about it all.”

“I think I'd rather,” Claudia said gently, “that you told me just what's in your mind. I can see there's something, and you know my passion for getting things straight.”

Frances hesitated.

Seeing her so deeply disconcerted, Claudia felt her own irritation diminish.

“Please do be absolutely frank with me,” she urged. “If you think I'm quite mistaken, or even quite wrong, I'd so much rather you told me so. I'd rather face it—you know I'm quite good at facing facts.”

She waited.

At last Frances, raising troubled eyes to Claudia's face, spoke.

“I'm so stupid at putting it all into words,” she murmured. “I know how marvellous you are about the children—how devoted to them—and that you've always said they ought to be quite free in every possible way. Only I feel now about this—please, please forgive me, Claudia—that you seem to be doing the right things, only somehow not for the right reasons.”

Claudia, confronted by so odd and unexpected an echo of Copper's random accusation of a few hours earlier, could only stare at her in astonishment.

The picnic party broke up early.

It had not been a success.

“Things aren't nearly so much fun when you're not there,” Maurice told his mother.

She kissed him.

“But you mustn't feel that, darling. I can't always be there, you know.”

“Were you resting?”

“Well, I had a nice long talk with Frances, sitting in the library,” she replied evasively.

“Shall you have to go back to work to-morrow?”

“Of course, Maurice dear. The office will be open again to-morrow morning. I dare say I shan't have such a tremendous lot to do. I've got through some of it here, this week-end.”

“I wish you had proper summer holidays, like us,” he said wistfully.

“Never mind. I like my work, you know.”

She dismissed Maurice, smiling, and felt comforted.

He was such a dear little boy, and so touchingly impressed by his mother's position as bread-winner for the family.

From her desk she could see Sylvia, alone, walking across the lawn. Perhaps the others were carrying the picnic things to the kitchen entrance.

On an impulse Claudia went out and joined her daughter.

She was shocked by the pallor of Sylvia's small face. It was drained of all colour.

Almost involuntarily Claudia exclaimed:

“You poor little thing!”

“Mother,” said Sylvia, “you think I ought to give him up, don't you? He doesn't
really
want to marry me, does he?”

“What does he say himself?” Claudia temporized.

“He asked me if I'd marry him. You heard him yourself,” said Sylvia proudly. “And at first I thought perhaps it was all going to come right. But I couldn't help remembering what you'd said this morning—it seems like days and days ago somehow—about Andrew's really wanting to follow his own career, and be free, and keep his independence. And I know, in my heart, that it's true.”

“Yes,” said Claudia in a low voice, “it's true.”

She told herself, even as she spoke, that whatever agony it might be to herself to hurt Sylvia she owed her the truth, whole and complete.

“He isn't the kind of man to marry any girl, and make her or himself happy. I expect he's told you that himself, hasn't he?”

“Yes.”

“If you were much, much older, my darling Sylvia, you might have the right to decide on breaking the rules and going to live with him—though I don't think, myself, that it would bring real happiness to either of you—but I can't believe he'd ask you to do that, at the very beginning of your life.”

“No,” said Sylvia. “He knows you're right about that. He told me so this afternoon. Oh,
Mother, I can't give him up.”

She was in tears again.

Claudia, the tears standing in her own eyes, looked at her child in silence, sharing to the full in her suffering.

She knew, with penetration sharpened by experience, that Sylvia, though perhaps not yet aware of it herself, had capitulated.

Claudia thought: “I've saved her.”

The week-end was over.

On Monday night Andrew Quarrendon told his hostess that he wished to make an early start, and hoped that nobody would see him off. If somebody could knock on his door at seven o'clock that would do very well, he added. Claudia, with equanimity, agreed that this should be done.

She had given Quarrendon one or two opportunities for speaking to her alone, but he had taken advantage of none of them.

After all, thought Claudia, she had said all that it was necessary to say that morning—and it had produced its effect.

She herself was to motor up to London on Tuesday directly after breakfast, taking Sal Oliver with her and Sylvia.

Mrs Peel, after saying a good deal about the traffic and the strain of driving, had determined to go by train.

Frances was to remain at Arling for a few days before establishing herself in her club while she looked for a flat.

“It feels more like the end of the summer holidays than the beginning,” remarked Maurice, hearing these various departures arranged for.

Long before seven on Tuesday morning Andrew Quarrendon was quietly going downstairs, carrying his own bag.

Sylvia had promised to be there.

She was already unfastening the chain that held the front door.

They went out together silently into the dewy freshness of the summer morning and Sylvia unlocked the door of the garage.

“Sylvia,” he said desperately, “for the last time, will you marry me? I love and adore you.”

“I know you love me,” said Sylvia on a sob, “and I won't ever marry you. But I—I—I'll always love you, Andrew, all my life.”

He took her in his arms and she clung to him.

All that he said in a shaken voice was:

“There's been nothing but what's true between us.”

“I know. And I'm glad, and I'll
always
be glad. And proud, Andrew, because you thought me worth it.”

He held her for a long time, kissing her hair, her wet eyes, her trembling mouth.

At last, without saying anything more, he went away.

“I don't think I'm coming up to London with you,” Sylvia said tonelessly to her mother two
hours later. “I don't want to see about that job after all.”

Claudia agreed quietly.

“Very well, darling. Stay here and look after Frances and the children.”

“But I quite see that I mustn't just do nothing. Besides,” said Sylvia piteously, “I'd like to help you if I could. Only I don't think I want to work in London. Will you think of something for me, Mother?”

“Yes,” Claudia said. “I will, my darling.”

As she wrote her letter to Paris later in the same day, Claudia reflected, with wondering thankfulness, on the complete trust reposed in her by Sylvia.

Copper—Frances—Sal—Anna—all of them were unjust, lacking in perception.

Whatever they might say, Claudia could reassure herself completely.

She had not failed to live up to her own ideals, her own high standard of motherhood.

It was they who had failed to understand her.

As she sat in the office in Norfolk Street, Claudia Winsloe became a different person.

She was, in her own phraseology, “on the job.” She instinctively discarded everything that impinged upon her conception of herself as a breadwinner.

Over the door of her private office was a fearful red electric-light globe. When this light was switched on from within the room it served as a signal that she was not to be disturbed.

Even Sal Oliver, whose own tiny room was on the top floor of the building unprotected from the assaults of interrupters, seldom disregarded it. Nobody else ever did.

From time to time Claudia forgot to turn off the red light and sat within in solitude whilst Miss Collier—agitated—or Mrs Ingatestone—infuriated—moved up and down the dark stairs, clutching to themselves urgent problems. Miss Frayle, the young, pert Miss Frayle, was neither agitated nor angry. She only muttered obscenities below her breath, and then drifted back to the downstairs office again, indifferent. She and Miss Collier both got through a great deal of work, drank quantities of tea, smoked innumerable cigarettes, and talked, in the intervals of work,
about their employer, themselves, one another, how best to reduce (Miss Collier weighed eight stone, and stood five-foot-seven, and Miss Frayle—five-foot-eight—turned the scales at seven-stone-twelve), and about twice a week one of them told the other that she was going to leave, and allowed herself to be persuaded not to.